Language Arts

This year for Language Arts my school has decided to pull our own resources in order to align ourselves closer to the Common Core Standards. One of the things that I really like about Common Core is that it is an advocate for cooperative learning. With this in mind, I decided to do chapter books throughout the entire year and take on Literature Circles.

I found a great Interactive Literature Circle on teacherspayteachers and my students are loving it. They love their reading groups and the books we are reading. I started the year off with three groups based on reading level. Group one is reading Sarah, Plain and Tall, Group two is reading The Witches, and Group three is reading The BFG. I meet with each group everyday to read and discuss things that are happening in the books so far. It's great! I have never seen my students so excited about reading before. On Fridays, they get into their Literature Circles groups, go over their jobs for the week, and present to each other what they did. My jobs are Discussion Director, Character Sketcher, Word Wizard, and Passage Picker. Here are some pictures of our first Friday meetings:

Each group also has a set of vocabulary words that they are supposed to learn every week. I am also doing grade level spelling and grammar as well, and on Thursdays we do Writer's Workshop. On top of our meetings on Fridays, I also give a grade level spelling test and comprehension quiz for each group.

Overall, language arts has been challenging and a lot of work so far but I actually really love it. I love seeing my students engaged and, mostly, I love seeing them excited about reading.