Organizing Guided Reading: Clipboards

A 5th grade teacher at Art City Elementary organizes her guided reading groups using clipboards that have different colored papers (blue, orange, green, red) clipped on them. When she meets with a group, she grabs the clipboard for that group. She writes the upcoming reading assignment on the clipboard and also attaches any worksheets, paper or additional materials they will need (i.e. thinkmarks, etc.) Once students complete their reading assignment, they sign the paper signifying that they are done with their assignment and ready to meet with the teacher again. This allows the teacher to keep track of who has or has not completed their assignment.

Idea: Underneath Books

Grade Level: 2-4

I saw this idea when visiting a second grade classroom in Spanish Fork. The student's had made an "Underneath Book" with each student contributing a page to the book. When you opened the book, there was a sentence stem that said, "Do you like?". Then there was a piece of paper (like a flap) that could be lifted up to see what was underneath. Students had written:

Do you like cookies ?
Do you like school?
Do you like Nascar?
Do you like basketball?

After the book was created, the teacher placed it in the classroom library and it had become a class favorite.