Connections

My biggest goal this summer was to create games and math centers/station for next year. Last summer, my main goal was to create literacy centers which I did, but still think they can be altered. Since all my post have been math based, I decided to post about what I am doing for literacy.

I have an amazing team that I work with in first grade. We work together and share students in literacy. We switch students for our whole group reading time and we teach them word study. It is much easier to teach to a class of "long vowels" then it is to teach 10 different groups! For our whole group, we also switch plans.

For this year, we will each write a 2 week lesson plan on a skill (from start to finish). Every two weeks, we will rotate the box with all the read alouds, writing, PA, Phonics and Fluency. We have 5 teachers currently so that is a total of 10 weeks of plans. It's kind of confusing but works wonderfully!!! (comment if you want more information about how we do this)
So anyways, I will write a 2 week lesson plan on Making Connections (one of my favorite units). I will start with text to self and I LOVE using Kevin Henkes books! Then I will move to text-to text and finally text to world. It takes a bit of planning and time to prepare but I ONLY have to make a 2 week plan and can focus on everything else for 10 weeks!

Below are two pictures of connection ideas. They are both posted on my Teachers pay Teachers account for FREE! As I work on my plan, I will be posting more and more ideas!
Enjoy!