Easy Classroom DIY - Guided Reading Phones

Confessions: I love DIY, and I am a Pinterest junkie.  Evidence: My husband and I made this out of our broken fence, and we had a BLAST!  (Details to come, in case you want to try something similar in your classroom.)

My first classroom DIY project was to create guided reading phones when I started teaching ages ago.  They are insanely easy and very inexpensive.  More importantly, they have been incredibly helpful for my young scholars.  The tutorial is below, but first, here's how they help: 

Fluency: Students can hear themselves read, so they are more inclined to notice when they are "Robot Reading".  (Audacity is another great tool to help with this.  They can record themselves, listen to their finished work, and evaluate it with a rubric.)

Self Monitoring: In the younger grades, the children often do not listen to what they're saying as they read.  The Guided Reading Phone is a great reminder to pay attention to what you're saying and make corrections when it doesn't make sense.

Focus and Independent Work: It can be difficult for young scholars to focus on their own thinking when people around them are reading out loud.  If they are reading the same book, children may find themselves reading chorally with the person who is the best at decoding, rather than doing the work of decoding on their own.  The phones are a great way to help children focus on what they are doing and prevent distraction.

Fun! Above all, reading should be fun!  My biggest goal is to inspire students to catch the love of reading.  I do everything I can to help them experience the pure joy of reading a good book.  If a Guided Reading Phone makes them willing to try it, I'm all in!

The phones are totally worth it and have been really helpful for my little ones.  You can buy them for about $5.00 each at almost any education store.  You can also make them with a couple items from the hardware store.  I've included pictures of the packaging at Home Depot (where I got my supplies), so you could see the skew number.  They were much harder to find when I made a few new ones last week, so I thought more details might be helpful for you!

Here's what you need:

All you do is fit them together in the shape of a phone.  Couldn't be simpler!  I usually wipe them off with an antibacterial cloth after making them, just to be safe.

Happy Reading!

The bugs are here!

It's an exciting time in second grade... Our ecosystems are set up, and our bugs are here!  My scholars were so excited to share their observations and show me all their discoveries that I forgot to snap a picture.  I had so much fun supporting them as they touched worms and snails for the first time.  One child was so nervous, and two of his friends coached him through the whole thing...

"It's ok.  You got this."

"You can do it!  Just tell your brain - I'm ok!  I got this.  Now close your eyes and take a big breath in and out."

"Ok!  Now open them, and do it!"

"AAAAH!  It's so slimy!"

Seriously... Best.  Day.  Ever.

And I don't even like bugs!
 

In other news, I had the pleasure of visiting Village Tech in Cedar Hill, TX last week, and I loved every moment of it!  The best part was that the students gave the tour.  They did a fantastic job, and I learned so much from hearing from them. 

My students were excited to learn about the way they continue trying until they get a skill, rather than focusing on completing a task.  This has really had an impact on us this week.  I'm always hearing, "I'm done!" immediately followed by, "Do you need feedback?"  On Monday, they didn't want to leave school until they had achieved their math goals.  My teacher heart soared! :)

Here's the chart we're using to remind us how to give effective feedback before we try our next iteration.

Of course we're continuing our work on poetry.  Is this poem awesome or what?  She wrote this beauty after 2 days of instruction!  I was so proud to see her taking out the math tools and using them to check her spelling and gather shape names.

 In one of our guided reading groups, we are working on noticing when we stop understanding and taking action!  This is an anchor chart we created to help us remember the conversation.

I hope you're enjoying your week as much as we are!

The Bee Tree - A Review & Lesson Ideas

Patricia Polacco is one of my favorite children's book authors.  Her word choice is second to none, and she creates such vivid images for the reader.  I also love the way her illustrations perfectly capture the spirit of the text.  She is just brilliant!

Click on the image to buy a copy!

The Bee Tree is no exception.  In this story, Mary Ellen becomes tired with her reading, so her Grampa takes her on a search for a bee tree.  The entire town joins in, and after the fun is over, Mary Ellen learns that we must sometimes persevere to find the enjoyment in our tricky tasks.
 
This is an excellent book to use in almost any subject area.  It is a great read aloud and can be the center of a lesson on author's purpose or identifying the lesson in a book.

I also love it as a mentor text for writing.  Here are just a few possible teaching points:
- Using words other than said
- Relating the ending to the beginning
- Including a moral or lesson
- Using dialogue to drive the action

The Bee Tree works brilliantly for Guided Reading, as well.  Here's a lesson I've used.  In fact, I even used this as a Guided Reading demonstration lesson, because I knew I would be excited to share this book with others.  It went beautifully, and I'm loving my new job! :)