December Work on Writing Freebie

I just made a list of writing prompts for my kids to use as a guide during their work on writing literacy station, and I thought I would share it! I don't tell them they have to use the ideas on the list, but I do encourage it. We have been working on personal narratives, realistic fiction writing, and letter writing a lot this year - so most of the prompts are within those genres. Let me know if you can use it and/or find it helpful! You can download it on google docs here (the font looked a little different when I uploaded it to google docs - hopefully it will be fine for you - if not I can email you a copy!)

Daily 5/ CAFE

So many people are blogging about daily 5 and CAFE so I thought I would join in the fun! I have been doing daily 5 and cafe for two years now and just love it!

Last year, my literacy stations included: read to self, partner reading, RAZ-kids, work work, work on writing, and reading response. Literacy Stations was by far my kids' favorite part of the day. They love having choice at each station as I have multiple activities at the word work, work on writing stations, and reading response station and they choose their own books (with guidance in choosing "just right books") for partner reading, independent reading, and RAZ-kids.

This year I am thinking of adding a fluency station. At this station I will have repeated reading passages with stopwatches for students to track (on graphs) their oral reading rate, poetry, readers theater, rhythm walk sentence strips, and anything else I can come up with!

What I love about the CAFE model of guided reading is that it allows me to differentiate for more than just level - I can group by strategy! I love the actual menu and showing students what strategy we are working on and why we are working on it. The goal sheets are so nice for 2nd grade because it allows students to take ownership for their learning and gives independent reading a purpose. I also really like the idea that I might need to meet with some students in individual conferences as opposed to small groups. If you haven't read the book, I strongly recommend it! The sisters are geniuses :)

The schedule went like this:
- 15-20 minute comprehension mini-lesson focusing on explicit strategy instruction and always using read alouds
- 20-25 minute independent reading - students have book boxes (I meet with guided reading group)
- 10 minute accuracy/decoding/phonics mini-lesson
- 20 minute "round" of literacy stations (I meet with guided reading group)
- 10 minute fluency/ vocabulary min-lesson
- 20 minute "round" of literacy stations (I meet with guided reading group)

Here is a picture of our CAFE board at some point in the middle of the year...a work in progress!