A Test Strategy That Actually Grows Students As Readers

So often, teachers in testing grades come to a point in the year where they have to make the decision to spend valuable class time teaching students how to take a test or continue building their foundation as readers. Unfortunately, the two are very different. End of year state tests are not written in a way that allows students to pass simply because they can read, comprehend, and apply on grade level. Without some explicit teaching on testing strategies and preparation, students go in to testing environments with a disadvantage.

I teach third grade, the first year that students have to take an end of year reading test. It is nothing like they have seen before and they have a ton of questions about it, usually starting in August. I have always been, especially this past year, the “Fight the Man-I Hate Testing” teacher. In meetings, I have even responded to the question of who in my class I don’t think will pass with DRA scores and phenomenal reading growth I’ve seen. I hate thinking of my kids as a test score and focusing my instruction all year on them passing one test.

However, although I may be stubborn, I am not stupid. I know that my students will need explicit test direction in order to be successful and I really do want them to pass. This past year, my students did AMAZING on their end of year reading test. I had higher scores than ever before and I was blown away. This was definitely not the highest group I have ever had. So, like every teacher has been trained to do, I reflected. I thought about what I did differently this year that may have made a difference, and one thing stood out.

Note-Taking.

*side note: I also saw a jump in my scores the year I started teaching QAR, but more on that another day.

I have always taught my kids strategies for answering questions and a method to reading text, understanding questions, and finding evidence. However, this was the first year I required students to take notes before answering any questions. This was a strategy I poured a lot of time into, because I realized it’s value not just in helping students better comprehend passages, but in slowing students down and allowing themselves more think time to analyze and grow as readers.

This idea, which we call “4-square notes” in my classroom, may not be new, but I wanted to share how it evolved in my room to best fit the needs of my students. Below are the anchor charts I created for my class. 

Thoughts on Teaching Note-Taking:

-I spend a couple weeks teaching fiction note-taking before moving on to nonfiction.

-I always use the strategy with read-alouds first and go slow. We don’t start using this note-taking strategy with comprehension passages until we are weeks/months in. I want my students to see this for what it is, a great reading growth tool, not an easy way to pass a test.

-I usually spend a week modeling whole group and week with buddies/small groups before moving to a week of complete independence with the strategy (then after 3 weeks, I move to nonfiction).

(We only use these fancy note-taking sheets until the students memorize what should go in each square for fiction and nonfiction, then we just fold a piece of notebook paper into 4 sections.)

-Getting students to actually stop reading and jot down notes before returning to the passage takes a lot of practice. Many students don’t have that patience, they want to just finish reading and by the time they get to the end, they are unable to recall details/facts because they flew through with no self-monitoring.

-When teaching students to scan and chunk in fiction, I tell them that the beginning and end should be smaller sections and the middle should be the largest chunk.

-When teaching students to scan and chunk in nonfiction, I tell them that chunks can be one big paragraph, or a group of smaller paragraphs. We also focus on headings and sometimes chunk that way.

-I also make the anchor charts into a booklet that can be glues into their interactive notebooks for reference when needed and taken home to use as homework help.

-Students are basically writing mini-summaries when they stop to jot. I tell students that it doesn’t have to be in a complete sentence and that it shouldn’t be more than 1-2 sentences (some of my kiddos would write all day and spend more time doing that than reading). I also tell them that they cannot copy the author’s sentences or phrases, their brain has to create the retell.

This strategy pack is available in my TPT store.

-Whenever we have reading unit tests, the students receive two grades for the test score and one grade for their notes. This is great because the lazy/lucky learners have to slow down and apply more effort while the poor test-takers get credit for being able to read and comprehend.

Overall

This strategy worked really well for my students and made them better thinkers. As they got better at note-taking on their own, I noticed that our conversations about literature in whole group and small groups became deeper and more focused. I am not allowed to remind students to do note-taking or use any particular strategies on their end of year test so practicing this strategy until every student could/knew to do it independently really paid off.  

The only problem I did see is that some students had trouble differentiating a nonfiction passage from a fiction passage. They would follow all the right steps, but set up their paper for the wrong type of text, which would lead to confusion mid-way through the process. One thing I plan to do about that is focus more on differentiating between the two types of text. We always do surface fiction vs. nonfiction lessons and my kids can tell you the difference between the two. But, when faced with a 4-page passage with no pictures, they sometimes struggled. That’s why I created this Fiction vs.Nonfiction unit that I will be kicking off my year with. As soon as we finish this up, I will move into note-taking.

I hope this post has been helpful for someone out there. I was really pleased to be able to fine-tune a strategy that would help my kids feel successful on tests, but also help them grow as readers. The validation I received from both their test scores and DRA reading growth this year was outstanding and I had to share.

Thanks for stopping by!

Engaging Read-Alouds with Accountability

Read alouds are one of my favorite parts of teaching! Unfortunately, in this test driven system, 3rd graders are expected more and more to be doing passages instead of listening to read alouds; especially as testing season nears at the end of the year. Obviously, any teacher with a degree in their field took some class somewhere on reading and knows that read alouds are extremely beneficial for students not only learning to read, but "reading to learn".

As my team knows, I can be very stubborn when I feel like I am championing a cause. Typically, my cause is fighting against teaching to the test. This year, I continued my read alouds multiple times a week right through testing season to the end of the year. I refused to switch to only passages during testing season, even though that was the push. If I went more than 2-3 days without a read aloud, my kids would get super dramatic and say, "Can we please read something....you haven't read to us in forever!" I know my students appreciated not being rundown with test prep and this actually ended up being the highest scoring year I've ever had for state tests. They rocked it!

Sometimes, my read aloud are just read alouds.
We enjoy a good book, I model fluency, we turn and talk, and we enjoy sharing our thoughts and predictions.

However, this year I decided to step my read alouds up a notch by having the students bring their white boards to the carpet as an added piece of accountability. Using my document camera to project the book on my SmartBoard, I would stop throughout and ask them to use the text and record the answers to skill/strategy questions I asked on their board. The added step of independently recording their thoughts/answers on their white boards before turning, talking, and sharing, really boosted engagement. Not only could I monitor which kids weren't getting the "big ideas", but I noticed that the turn and talk times were more balanced because both students had extra time to think about their opinions before sharing.

Here are the basics of how I run white board read alouds in my classroom:

Pros
-The students get the benefit of a read aloud PLUS skill/strategy
-Students are practicing skills in context (which I noticed actually boosted their results on reading passages)
-Total Engagement: Everyone is participating because everyone is writing a response on their whiteboard.
-This is an amazing way to informally assess your students.
-I have done this with a picture book and a chapter book, it works both ways!
-The students love it! They feel more involved in the read aloud process, even if they aren't called on to share.

How
First, select a skill to focus on and a book that can provide practice with that -or- select a book to read and flag the multiple different skills you can use the book with.
Then:
1. Read the book
2. Find a good place in the story to stop
3. Ask a question about the text
4. Give the students time to jot their thoughts/answers independently
5. Give the students time to turn and talk with one buddy
6. Call on a couple students to share out
7. Continue Reading

Tips
-Don't stop at every page, read enough at one time so that students can get into the story.
-Have rules for the white boards so they don't become a distraction. My rule is that there is no drawing, doodling, or erasing while I'm reading. I remind them to uncap their markers when I ask a question and to cap their markers before I start reading again. They actually get really good at this and will remind a neighbor if they are off-task.
-Give them time to write independently before sharing, this is their extended think time. You will definitely get better results from the process.
-Pair up students for turn and talk before starting, this will make the process go a lot smoother.
-Pre-select the book to fit the specific skill you are covering. For example, when we were working on homophones, I looked for a book that had a couple pages with more than one homophone.
-Use a document camera so students can see the text.

*Tip* Give students a sentence frame that they must use in their response.
This will help them practice sentence formation and it will boost
academic language use for your ESOL students!

Examples of Questions You Could Ask:
-Write down all the compound words you see on the page.
-Find a four-syllable word on the page, write it on your board, and divide it into syllables.
-Put all the names on this page in ABC order.
-Which two words on this page are homophones?
-The author said the character is clever, write a synonym for the word clever.
-What is the setting for this page?
-What is the problem that --- has on this page? How do you predict the problem will be solved?
-Write two character traits that describe ---.
-What caused --- to happen? What was the effect of ---?
-The text says the character walked very slowly and the picture shows that he looks concerned. What can you infer about where he is headed?
-What would be a good title for this chapter (or heading for this section)?

Hopefully, at least one teacher reading this will give it a try in the fall. Let me know what you think or if you already do something similar in your classroom.

First Day Tried & True Linky: Lesson Idea for the First Day!

When I first joined this amazing linky of First Day plans, I knew I wanted to share my favorite writing lesson for the first day. It gets students sharing and building relationships right from the start!   It all centers around one of my favorite first day read alouds:  How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague 
I have read this book every first day for the past four years, people. You know it has to be good if even Pinterest (which has exploded over the past 4 years) hasn't yet shown me a lesson that I would use to replace this. It is definitely tried and true! Click here for my lesson plan.

The writing template I use for this activity is apart of my Back to School Essentials Pack.

Thanks to Chrissie at Undercover Classroom and Sarah at Education Electrification for hosting this great linky party! Be sure to check out other Tried & True activities as you plan your first day!

An InLinkz Link-up

Engaging Introductions: Hook Them with Life Stories!

Your students love you. By January, they know you better than most of your coworkers. They know how to make you smile, laugh, and yell. They know when your glance from across the room means, "I'm just listening in on your conversation, keep going", and when it means, "You have 5 seconds to sit down and stop that". Yet, to them, you're still an enigma. Sure they may have met your spouse or children, but they are aware that they only know the school you and they are craving to know more.

I have found that when I start a lesson with a personal story, they are hooked. I'm talking silent, engaged, and listening. Boy, do they comprehend and retain when you are telling them a story about how you accidentally hit your neighbor's car. They will still be talking about that in June!

Here's how to do it:
-Don't let them know a lesson is starting. Just start with, "Hey guys, you'll never guess what happened yesterday" or "Did I ever tell you about the time..."
-Don't talk to them in teacher talk. Just sit down and have a conversation with them.
-Be ready to go with the actual lesson, they will try to suck you in with questions, comments, and feedback.

Here's how I've done it:

Sequencing:
On the first day of our sequencing unit, I sat down in my rocking chair, looked out at all of the faces staring back at me, and nonchalantly said, "Guys... I hit my neighbor's car yesterday." If only you could have seen the excitement on their faces! It was a mix of "Yay! This isn't a lesson", with "Oooohh, Mrs. Wiggins is gonna be in trouble", and little bit of "Finally, juicy gossip!" I dove into this elaborate story about how I was late from work, ran inside to get my dog, came back out to take him to the park, and accidentally backed into my neighbor from across the street's car. I told them how there was no damage and the only person who saw was my next door neighbor who told me I shouldn't even say anything. Then I was forced with the decision of whether or not to do the right thing. I shared how I called my husband and I was nervous to tell him and then I wanted to wait until he got home to say anything but he convinced me to do the right thing right away, so I took my daughter Gracie with me, and on and on the story went. They were enthralled. Right as I was finishing up, who should walk in but my ESOL teacher, what a coincidence... almost as if it were planned. ;) The kids immediately started shouting out, "Mrs. Wiggins hit a car! Her neighbor told her not to tell!" To which she replied, "Whoa, whoa, one at a time. If you guys are going to tell me this story you will have to sequence it so I can understand."

...silence

Sequence?

What's sequence?

Finally one kid raised their hand and asked. Once they found out all it was, was putting events in order, all the hands were back in the air. We called on one person at a time to tell one part, in order, until the entire story was told. You better believe they were quick to jump in if someone went out of order and say, "You're not going in sequence, that didn't happen next, you're skipping things, it's not in sequence!" My kids this year remembered what sequencing was more than any other group of kiddos I've had, and of course they never forgot how I messed up and hit a car.

Main Idea:
(Ok, so this story has to do with a car too. I never picked up on the pattern until now...)
When our reading lesson started, I was messing around with the Promethean like I always do and the students were shocked when a picture of a crumpled car appeared. I said, "You'll never believe what happened". By then, all my students were quiet, still, and on the edge of their seat. "Mr. Wiggins got in a car accident", I said. Of course craziness broke out for a couple of seconds, but once I reassured them he was okay, I went back to my hook. I started telling them how we need to buy a new car because the old one was totaled and we had been looking for over a week. I acted frustrated as I told them how Mr. Wiggins wanted a car with tinted windows, shiny rims, built in DVD players, and air conditioned seats. I told the kids how all these things were just details. Tinted windows and rims won't get you to work, a car will. We talked about how the car was the main thing he needed, the most important thing, and everything else was just a detail.

This example actually stuck pretty well for them. Of course they had trouble applying the skill of finding main idea to text, but they could always tell me what it was!

Compare and Contrast:
My students are obsessed with Sophia-Grace (my two-year-old). They love hearing stories about her, they beg me to bring her in, and sheer pandemonium breaks out when my computer wallpaper shows up on the Promethean board and they see the picture of her in the snow. So, I knew she would make for a great hook.

I read my students an article about baby tigers (they love anything with glossy pictures) and then we started talking about the interesting things we learned. At the time, my daughter was 18 months and we had just read some cool things 18 month tiger cubs could do. I pointed this out to my kids and said, "Do you realize I am still cutting up Gracie's chicken nuggets at 18 months while tiger cubs can stalk, catch, and kill their own prey?

Hooked!

They were excited and began telling me other things that Gracie and the tigers did differently. I just so happened to have a cute Gracie video pulled up on my computer and I let them watch her run across a soccer field after a ball. They loved it! I also just happened to have a video of baby tiger cubs playing and running pulled up. We watched that too. They were so enthralled and were coming up with ways Gracie and the tigers were similar and different.

Finally I said, "Whoa, you guys are on fire! We need to write this down! Who can record our thoughts on the Promethean?" I picked a student "randomly" and we had a quick conversation as a class about how we were going to organize our thoughts. Two minutes in, someone came up with a Venn diagram and the ball was rolling.



Hooking your students with personal stories is really win-win. Not only can you ensure that they will be paying attention, but you will be building relationships as well. There aren't many things you can do to build relationships with every student in your class at once, but this sure works.

Do I always tell the truth? No. I'll admit it. Sometimes I fudge stories or steal a friend's story to make a point, but that's okay, we both enjoy it. Is this something that you've tried in your classroom? Leave me a comment to let me know! I'm always looking for more ideas!

Top Five from 2014 and a SALE!

I love the idea of ending 2014 with a look back at my year in blogging. It was been a rough road for me trying to juggle school, home, mommy-duties, church, and creating products along with blogging; which is why I was absent for a lot of 2014. I think that I'm finally getting into the swing of things and I am excited for the road that lies ahead. My goal for 2015 is to blog once a week and connect to at least one of blogger through commenting or some other form of social media once a day.

I decided to let you all be the judge of which posts made it into my top five. I was actually shocked to see the page views that some of my posts have accumulated since I first published them. These were definitely not the five I had in mind when I first came across Jivey's Top Five Linky. Before I get into the list, I just want to say thank you. Teachers are really the best. You all have been a great support and source of inspiration this year, both through conversation and through the opening of your classroom. I appreciate you all.

Now...Let's Roll

Also, Don't miss the New Years SALE happening in my TPT store right now! Just click the TPT button below!

See you next year!

How We Do Fluency in 3rd Grade

This post was UPDATED in March 2018, please click HERE to be directed to the new post with updated links and products. 

Take me to the updated post and FREEBIE!

Here in third grade, we practice fluency daily with:

-Word Lists
-Phrase Lists
-Passages/Running Records

My Mental Journey

I have had a love-hate relationship with fluency. As a third grade teacher, my students are subject to end of year, high-stakes testing for the first time. Fluency is not tested on these exams, students have all day to read the passages and test if they want. Comprehension is key. Not just on the end of year tests, but all year long comprehsnion is what is assessed and measured for mastery. Fluency has just been something we've done on the side, an add-on. I mean, third grade is the year students move from "learning to read" to "reading to learn", right?

Wrong. Well, at least for most of my kiddos. See, this year I have a group of very hard-working students who happen to be below grade level or the low end of on grade level. What I have found is that even though they can take as long as they would like on grade level comprehension assessments, they don't. Either they don't want to be the last one working or they just flat out lack the stamina. Fluency has been a crucial part of my reading instruction this year to help students close the gap while they are building stamina with testing. If they can read the words fluently and with accuracy, they will be less frustrated and they can spend more time making meaning from text since less time will be spent decoding. 

Fluency Centers

At the beginning of the school year, I had a great idea for fluency centers. I assigned the students partners based on the DRA assessment. I planned an elaborate schedule for when partners would visit the fluency center during Daily 5, asked for timers to be sent in, set up the center with directions, and had the students glue passages into their reading notebook for practice. "What a great idea," I thought; "This is going to be wonderful," I thought; "Other teachers will use this idea for sure," I thought; and then, reality hit. There I was in the middle of a reading group and all of a sudden, timers. Timers chiming and buzzing and beeping and absolutely driving.me.crazy. So, I came up with a new rule, you have 5 seconds to turn off the timer after it starts buzzing. Nope, that didn't help, I couldn't do it, I shut the center down.

Whole Group Fluency, Sort-Of

So, I invested all this time in creating fluency centers, partnering the students, and setting up a routine to find that it just didn't work for me. That's okay, teachers are like kids, we're all different and one thing won't work for everyone. I am just not the kind of teacher that can stay focused and deal with loud beeping noises interrupting the flow of my small groups. I knew I didn't want to stop fluency, like I said above, my students this year are still learning to read and they need it. I started squeezing in 5-10 minutes of fluency after our whole group lesson and quickly realized that we had found what works. After daily five, students grab their reading notebook and sit in their "fluency seat", next to their fluency parter. I set the egg timer on the Promethean Board for 1 minute (30 seconds in between each measure) and we get started with our routine.

Our Routine *All links are listed below

1. Word List from easycbm.com - Student pairs are numbered "student one" and "student two". The students have one minute to read as many words as they can. Student one reads the first word, student two the second word, and they continue to alternate words for the minute. Afterward, they have 30 seconds to record their progress on the graph on the back of the word list before we move on. If we have time we will do the word list again, with student two reading the first word so both students have an opportunity to read all of the words. (1-2 minutes of practice, 30 sec.-1 min. of transition time)

2. Phrase List - Students do the same procedure as above. They have one minute to read alternating phrases and then 30 seconds to graph on the back. We will do it a second time with student two reading first if we have time, if not, student two will read first next time. We practice reading the phrases properly (as questions, statements, or exclamations). (1-2 minutes of practice, 30 sec.-1 min. of transition time)

3. Passages from Ashleigh - I taught my students how to do running records. While one partner reads, the other tracks the errors. At the end of one minute, they calculate the amount of words read correct, graph their results, and switch. (2 minutes of practice, 1 min. of transition time)
TOTAL TIME: 6-9 minutes a day (once students are trained), with less time if you choose not to do all 3 measures in a day

Our New Fluency Center

One day, after working on a passage for over a week, I decided to model how to do a running record again. I read for a minute, using the document camera, and the students tracked my errors. I ended up getting much farther in the passage than any of them had and by the time the minute was over they were much more interested in hearing the rest of the story than pointing out my mistakes (which speaks volumes). I was so suprised that after daily practice on the same passage for over a week, none of them had actually finished reading the passage. That's when I decided to bring back the fluency center. 

So...I know I just did all that over-the-top ranting about how timers drive me crazy and now I'm bringing back the fluency center. I had to think of a way to make it work. I decided that during their time at the fluency center, students would just read lesiurely. Fluency doesn't always have to be timed, studies show that repeated readings are one of the best ways to build fluency. At the center, students take their time to read through their passage, phrase list, word list, and weekly poem. The goal is to simply get to the end of each measure to build context and familiarity. Since my students view timed fluency as a race, they love this extra practice time. One of my kids said they are practicing to win the challenge. The best part is, they were talking about beating their own score and not their partner.

Our Progress

My class has grown in leaps and bounds since we first started squeezing in fluency after our whole group lesson. I measure many of my kids with formal fluency assessments through the Aims Web program every other week. Most of the students I track were below or near their personal fluency target and now, they are close, at, or above. If fluency is a concern for your class as well, I really encourage you to put some practice in place daily or multiple times a week. It really does make a difference.

Check out some of the pictures from our Fluency Pockets below and scroll down for a freebie. Don't hesitate to leave me some of your thoughts for fluency in the upper grades.

Poem from The Teaching Oasis
Fluency Passage from Ashleigh

This is a picture of the back of the passage, where the students track their progress. When the graph is full and it's time to move on to a new passage, this page goes into their data binder. The back of the word list and phrase list also has a graph for tracking progress.

 Fry's Sight Word Phrases (link below)

Word List from Easy CBM

Interested in trying this out in your classroom? Grab the free pockets by clicking the link below. Also, check out some of these free fluency resources:

Easy CBM: word lists and passages by grade level

Fry Phrases: six lists with 100 words each
2nd-5th Grade Passages: from Mrs. Hultenius' site
1st-6th Grade Passages: McGraw-Hill
Fluency Pockets, Graphs, and Center Bookmark: from Adrienne, ha! Click the link and enjoy!

Synthesis Interactive Notebook

I have been using interactive notebooks for everything these days and the kids and I are loving it! The new buzz word in my classroom is "pizazz"! One day, a student said that I always add pizazz to my notebook pages by coloring and writing neatly and now they have pizazz contests every time we work in our notebook. I don't think I've ever had a class that loves notebooking more than me, I have been on cloud nine!

I started the lesson by asking my third graders what they knew about synthesis. Some students had good guesses relating to photosynthesis, but no one knew what I was getting at. We have been talking a lot lately about “thinking about our thinking” and I told them synthesis was one way to do that. I brought in Russian nesting dolls and held the stacked dolls up. I asked if any students had ever seen them before and only a couple had. I told the students that the doll represented their thinking after they were done reading. Then, I opened up the doll and started unstacking the smaller dolls. The kids got SO excited, by the time I looked back up, they had all inched at least 2 feet closer! I held up the smallest doll and told the students that it represented their thinking at the beginning of reading a book, small. They don’t know much about the book yet and they can only connect to that little bit they know. Then I held up each doll as explained that as they read, they learn more, they can connect to more, their thinking gets bigger, and their ideas grow. They totally got this! I had them glue a title notes strip to a blank page in their reading notebook and we highlighted key words (this can be found here, if your are interested).

Next, I told the kiddos that we were going to practice synthesis together and I pulled out The Littlest Matryoshka by Corinne Demas Bliss. The students really enjoyed this book. I created paper stacking dolls for students to glue into their notebook as a flipbook. We stopped after the first page, dicussed/filled out the smallest doll, and glued it in the middle of the notebook page.Throughout the book, we stopped, discussed, and added pages to our doll flipbook. Each time, I reminded the students that their thinking was getting bigger, so the doll was getting bigger. 

After the book, when our flipbook was completely assembled, we wrote on the first page underneath the title strip. I had my students start their paragraph by telling me what synthesis was and then add their sentences from the dolls as their detail sentences. They were asked to make their closing sentence a feeling, thought, or opinion of the book. This lesson took 3 days to complete, but the students were engaged every day. After the first day, I had a group of pulled students re-enter the room and the rest of the kids immediately started telling them what synthesis was, what the dolls looked like, and how the two fit together. It was awesome!

Below are some pictures of our learning:

(The anchor below we used with the book Emma Kate by Patricia Polacco.)

I still have a week or more of teaching synthesis after we return from winter break and I would love any ideas you have! Thanks for stopping by!

Guided Reading Organization

I absolutely love reading about how other teachers organize for productivity. I learned many tips and tricks since I started blog-hopping that I don't even know which of my ideas are original. But, that's okay! I thought I would share how I have my area set up, just incase organization makes any other teacher as happy as it makes me!

 My Guided Reading Table

 1. My Semi-circle table :)- This table makes me happy. Some teachers in my school have rectangle or circle tables, so every year before summer I make sure to plaster my name all over it so there is no chance of it walking off.
2. Water! The students love my plastic, mason jar water cup (Wal-mart). I have reusable star-shaped ice cubes inside that they can't get enough of (also Wal-mart). I also love my blue, damask, tile coaster that I got from Michaels for 2 for $1. I keep one on my reading table and one on my desk.
3. Supplies, Supplies, Supplies: This caddy is a letter tray that I sat pencil baskets inside of. I use it house everything I need for my reading groups.
4. Numbered chairs...not such a big deal. Last year, the group I had would fight over anything...including chairs. So, this year I numbered all my chairs: computer chairs, reading table chairs, students chairs for desks. It turns out this group actually gets along (Hallelujah!), and I am left with a room full of numbered chairs.
5. Our Re-reading Line-Up: The ledge behind my reading table is full with read alouds that we have already read as a class. The students love to reread these books during Daily Five.
6. Anchor Charts, Aweigh! I keep my most current anchor chart on my easel, the latest after that are behind my reading table for reference, and when I need space I retire them to my back wall.

My Make-Shift Supply Caddy

1. My time-to-stop-what-you're-doing-and-clean-up-now bell: It's actually a very polite sounding bell for something that basically means "move now".
2. Markers for coding text
3. Extra pencils and erasers
4. Red Pens
5. Calculator: This is more for me and not for the kids, if I find myself grading at the front of the room or trying to figure out my class' percent pass during our team meetings.
6. Squooshy Ball: One of my students frequently uses this ball as a fidget while working.
7. Highlighters: Notice the pink tape? Last year I had a lot of things walk away from me so I took the extra precaution this year (like the chairs, this was also unnecessary for this group).
8. Post-its, rubber bands, paper clips
9. Dry Erase marker, eraser, colored pens

Our Whole-Group Meeting Place

 1. My Spot: I used to sit in a rocking chair, but I couldn't fit the rocking chair in so close to the reading table and it was just a mess, so I simplified.
2. My laptop cart with a 200 chart poster to hide my goodies.
3. Behavior Management Clock: I got the idea of using an elapsed time clock for behavior management from Blair Turner and my kids love it! They need to earn 12 hours for the reward and the poster underneath says "Time Elasped, "Time Remaining", and "Reward".
4. Magic 5 reminders for carpet behavior
5. My beloved Promethean Board
6. Student Unfinished Work Slots
7. Emergency Bag and forgotten umbrellas crate
8. Bookbag hooks

Laptop Cart: My mini-office on wheels

1. Laptop
2. Promethean Remote: It's actually embarrassing how many times I have lost this baby, now it must stay right in it's spot.
3. Markers for anchor charts and glue for interactive notebooks (I do a lot of modeling for interactive notebooks using my document camera before giving my students the activity, so I have to have all supplies on deck.)
4. Bookbox
5. Crayons kept in a snack case from the Dollar Tree (for interactive notebook work)
6. Interactive Notebooks for all subjects (science and social studies share a notebook)
7. Class Read-Aloud Chapter Book: Right now we are in the middle of The Mouse and The Motorcycle
8. Document Camera
9. Way over in the corner of the picture, you can see my timer. I use this for fluency, cleaning up, partner activities, turn and talk, everything!

Under The Laptop Cart: My Secret Space

1 & 2. I keep student number cards in this $1 tin from Target (they are actually calendar date cards). I pick a number every time I ask a question or want someone to come up to the Promethean, I like to keep the kids on their toes! After I pick the card, I place it in the white tin. When all of the cards have moved over, I put them back and start again.
3. More supplies for my document camera work and teaching at the front of the room: teacher scissors, pencils, pens, dry-erase markers, highlighters
4. I bought this 1/2 crate from Wal-mart 2 years ago and I could not find one during school season this year. I love this crate because it is the perfect size! At the beginning of the year I used it for homework folders, but now I use it to house my materials.
5. Benchmark Literacy Teacher Manual
6. Anecdotal notes for reading groups: Each group has a prong folder with their notes and book.
7. My reading group notebook: The students have notebook they use during reading groups and I always get confused as to what group has done what writing or activity. I stole the idea from my wonderful ESOL teacher to keep a notebook along with the kids. I labeled a 5 subject notebook with a section for each group and I complete the notebook work along with the students.

That's it! Leave me a comment to let me know what you think or how you do things. I am always interested in organization ideas!