Watching Predicting Come to Life...

Last week we did a super activity that really made the process of predicting come to life for my 3rd graders.

I love Robert Munsch and all things comprehension... so when this favorite comprehension skill book suggested using a Robert Munsch book to teach about predicting, I was so excited!

The book has prediction cards for the book David's Father by Robert Munsch.  The cards have pictures on them of many things in the book- milkshakes, tires, cars, fork, snails, boy, girl, etc... and you are to pass out the picture cards to the students, have them make and share their prediction about how their cards fit into the story, and then you read the story to check and confirm predictions.

So, I passed out the cards and we sat in a circle while each student told what was on their card and what they thought the significance was to the story... it was so stinkin' cool.  As we went around the circle, students were using other students' predictions to make their own predictions about their cards and we got to talk about how, as you read a text and learn more information about what's happening, your predictions are constantly changing based on new things you learn and you are constantly re-evaluating your predictions to match what you've uncovered as you read.

It was seriously so cool and a clear way for students to see the process and thoughts we have as we make predictions about things as we read.

I'm such a dork when it comes to reading comprehension.  I love it.  Teaching it is my passion and I just LOVE how good readers are accessing all of these strategies all the time on such a subconscious level... but someone had to teach us all how to do those things so we could do them!  This lesson was the ultimate in showing how predicting works... how good readers make and confirm predictions in a text.

Then we read the book.  Well, we would have if the ghost that lives in my classroom hadn't borrowed the book from me and not returned it.  Of course, no student had ever borrowed the book... it was that ghost.  Not that I really care, but it would have been nice if someone could have just said, "Oh yeah, I borrowed that book and left it at home/lost it/fed it to my dog...".  So, my colleague found a the book on Youtube and we watched/listened to that.

I heard murmings all through it from students who were excited that their predictions were similar to what was happening... and also lots of "Oooohh!  So THAT's what that was for!" or "Oh.... so now I think that....".

So, that's my great prediction lesson from the past week!  Do you have a favorite book for teaching predictions?  Feel free to share below!

Poem Predictions Freebie & K-2 Reading Interventions

Happy Sunday!

As promised, here's a great poetry prediction activity you can use in your classroom!  If you grab it, let me know!  :)

I used this on Friday with my K-2 intervention group.  We have 8 intervention groups that run for 30-minutes every morning.  They are combined K-2 so we can pool our teacher resources.  We have a group doing Road to the Code, K PALS, 1st Grade PALS, sight words, word attach strategies, low fluency, high fluency, and I teach a CAFE inspired comprehension group for high readers.  I have three K and about 30 1st and 2nd graders in my group.  We work on deeper comprehension strategies and it has been so fun.  We used to do our groups by just splitting the kids up according to their DIBELS results, so this is our attempt at a truly RTI structured intervention program.  We've been doing it for about 2 months now and really liking it.

So, my group started by just talking about books.  We played a LOT of "Fiction Go Fish" and I loooooved walking around and hearing kiddos talk about what we had read together.

Then we mastered the "somebody-wanted-but-so" summary and now we're working on making and supporting predictions.

Anyway... on with the freebie.  It is 6 "what am I" poems and a recording sheet for students to write their guesses and support them with proof from each poem.  I did it as a "Scoot" type activity where I put the kids into 6 groups, each group went to a poem, read the poem, wrote their guess/proof, and then "scooted" to the next poem on my signal.  It was fun and interesting for me to see the difference in the thinking between the three grade levels!  My K kiddos didn't quite get the "proof" thing, but the 1st and 2nd graders did well on that!  Not having taught K before, being with the three littles that are in my intervention group has been fun!

Ok!  No more rambling- here is the file:

Aaaaaannndddd... I'm having sales at my TpT and TN shops too!  I can't believe that I have 1600 followers (especially because I just celebrated 1500!)... and that many people care about what I think and what goes on in my classroom!  I'm slowly but surely building up my TpT shop... TN has much more stuff on it right now.  If I were more organized I'd have contacted some of my bloggy friends to help me to a huge giveaway... hopefully I can stay on top of that for 2000!  :)

TpT     Teacher's Notebook

Alright- enjoy the freebie!  I'd love a happy note if you enjoy it!  How do you do interventions in your school?  As this is our first go at cross grade level interventions, I'm sure we'll be tweaking it for next year.  I'd love to know what you think!  How do you make sure you're moving kids and keeping your groups fluid?

Thanks!  Have a great Sunday!  Only for more days until SPRING BREAK for me!!!!!!

Dream Snow Prediction Page Freebie!

What a day! Shopping, shopping, and more shopping... and this time no one even wished me to die or have a horrible Christmas!

But now I'm home and working on stuff for school for next week. Our basal comprehension skill for the week is making predictions so, in the interest of fun and craftiness, we'll be reading Eric Carle's Dream Snow and then completing an art project and a writing piece so we can all practice our predicting skills.

First, I'll be reading the book to them and revealing the pictures very slowly so we can use them to predict which animals are covered by the snow. (If you've never seen the book, it's super cool... a big snow comes and covers the animals. Each illustration has a transparency-like sheet on top of it with a blob of snow covering the animals. So, we'll practice our skills of predicting by using the clues in the text and me slowly peeling back the transparency pages so the animals are revealed bit-by-bit and we can practice predicting what the animal is!). After we read the book and practice predicting, my kiddos will make their own animal-covered-in-snow-prediction-picture and will add written clues for others to read to guess their animal.

My students will be drawing a picture of an animal in a wintery scene, stapling a transparency on top, and then using white paint to paint a mound of snow over their animal and little flakes on the rest of the transparency.

Then, we'll be attaching that to a large sheet of construction paper (11x18) and putting this page on the bottom:
On that page, they will be writing clues to help others predict what animal might be covered up under the mound of snow.

I did paint my own sample on Friday but didn't take a picture of it... once these are completed next week, I'll be sure to add a picture.

We also did some GREAT "There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow" projects last week after I found some PINspiration for using those books with writing projects! I'll be posting the patterns, writing page, and pictures of what we did next week too!

Enjoy the weekend! As always, I'd love a comment if you enjoy the item!

Just got Math Work Stations by Debbie Diller!

I'm super excited... my copy of Math Work Stations by Debbie Diller came today!  Teaching a split class, I had to be very creative last year during my math time because half of my class was learning with me while half was not.

Though I am pleased with what I threw together for my kids, there were definitely times where it could have been much more meaningful and structured.  Just flipping through this book, I can already tell that it is going to be a huge help in setting up meaningful math practice for my students.

I have loved checking out all of the bloggers who are reading this book right now... there are so many talented teachers out there!

So, I expect I will be studying my book for the next few weeks and creating some resources for my classroom.  That, however, does not start today.  This is my first official day of summer since summer school ended yesterday!

I spent the whole morning in my PJs, drinking a crazy amount of coffee, listening to old episodes of "Will and Grace" on Lifetime, and woking on a Chocolate Touch unit for The Teaching Oasis.  Then I made some cream of asparagus soup (except I put in a little milk instead of sour cream)... then I watched last night's episode of "The First 48" on the couch with my doggies... and then I finally checked the mail and got my book!  And though I am super pumped about reading it, I am loving this day of minimal accomplishments!

So, just so I don't feel like a total heel, I've attached a predicting document that I tweaked from something I found online for summer school.  This one is for non-fiction texts.  We looked at all of the text features (table of contents, index, some of the pictures in the book) and the kids had to predict what they would learn and support it with evidence.  I used a book about animal feet, but you could use any non-fiction text for this!

Enjoy and if you like it... comment away!