I would also love to see your schedule. I am a first year teacher for this upcoming year and trying to create my schedule for my first grade class. I don't know how to fit it all in a day.
I love all of your center ideas and how you have them structured. Do you have a system in place to hold students accountable for the work they complete during center time, especially during independent work. This is something that I struggle with.
I really enjoyed the video. Our literacy block is during our intervention time. I have 1 hour for small groups (3 rotations). Then it’s 10 minutes for phonics, 35 for the read aloud and 25 for writing. We also have a new curriculum ( HMH Into Reading).
This is SO helpful! I am a second year teacher moving to kinder from first grade. I am contemplating how to integrate some kind of center rotation into my day so I can be better about small group instruction. This format makes it feel attainable to implement.
I added "Find the Fish" to my literacy centers last year and it was such a hit! Every time someone asks me about centers I always tell them about this one 😊I changed it up a bit and students have their own folder of HFW that way it was differentiated for each student. I love all your ideas and thanks for sharing!
This is really making me rethink my center time and I think it will be a major game-changer! Great video that I'm definitely going to watch a couple times
Thank you for making centers simple and fun!!! I will definitely try this during this school year!! I appreciate you so much and always enjoy the videos.❤❤🎉🎉
I love your center ideas. I used a similar format with my second graders last year. I also love the way you meet with the two lowest groups daily. What are some center activities that you would suggest for second graders?
Thank you Susan for sharing many great ideas and strategies! Would you happen to have the same example as this but with HMH Journeys? I don’t see our district moving to Into Reading anytime soon.
I am wondering if you could share your schedule for the day... I am struggling with fitting everything in. Seeing that you have a separate time for centers, WIN time, and writing totally blows my mind! I feel like there is never enough hours in the day, lol!
Thank you! This was helpful! We use HMH Into Reading and we have found their literacy centers to be unrealistic and not independent (and they do not provide enough independent practice).
I would love a video about your WIN block. Ours is about an hour with about a quarter of my kids coming and going during that time. I really struggle with what to teach when my students leave for reading intervention because I don't want them missing math or writing.
Great video! A few questions: 1. Do you check every see saw assignment and worksheet every day?! 2. What do your kids do during your WIN time when you meet with groups? 3. Do your kids have and use book bins ever? 4. Are the groups skill level based and do they ever change?
Thank you Beth! 1. Yes! It's only 4 worksheets a day since only one group is there so that's easy for me to check. The Seesaw assignments are very quick so I fly through those - but sometimes I save a couple days worth before I check them. 2. Our WIN time is a whole separate block where students rotate through writing, math, and reading activities - I can make a video explaining that! 3. Yes! My students' book bins include their fluency folders, decodable books my students are reading (usually assigned by me during small group), and a small selection of books they choose from our class library. They read these during WIN time and sporadically throughout the week (if they finish an assignment early, they can read with a friend etc.) 4. The groups are all skills-based and change a few times throughout the year after we do universal screenings and we re-assess groupings (both for my classroom and for who will be seen by interventionists)
My school doesn't allow Seesaw. Is there a way to purchase your Seesaw digital activites for Google drive? I'm not in the club becasue I purchased most of your resources before you created the club. It would be great if you could put them on TPT when you have time! I love all of your resources! 😀
Great ideas ❤. I would love to see your daily schedule as well. I’m trying to figure out how to fit it all in with my daily schedule. How many devices do you have for students? Are you a 1 to 1 district?
When I watched "How I Run Small Reading Groups in First Grade // Our first grade literacy block!" it seemed like you were showing a "Must Do / May Do" kind of literacy centers approach where kids work through tasks at their own pace during small groups time but in this video it seems much more like a traditional literacy centers approach where kiddos have set amounts of time at set activities. Do you rotate back and forth between these approaches or are these used as different times of day? Thanks so much for your videos!
Great question! I actually switched it up about halfway throughout the year to provide my students with more practice with different skills. I also started the year with a must do/may do system because it was easier to get students started. My plan for this upcoming year is to start these more traditional literacy centers right away!
When do students get to interact with real books? Do you have leveled readers? Besides epic, when do they get to read physical books? Thanks for helpful video 😊
Terrific video - thank you! Question: do your 2 lowest groups complain about losing out on most (all?) of their Epic time? It sounds like they're the only groups who don't get a bit of daily ipad time, and I wonder how you explain that and how they respond. Thanks!
I love walking through your first grade life! Thank you for sharing. I was wondering if you will be using this literacy center management daily or if you will also be using the center routines you mentioned in your video for small group reading instruction where you have the students respond to the whole group instruction read aloud then go to Seesaw/assignment on Raz Kids or Teacher table? Thank you in advance-
I ended up switching to this routine about halfway through the year and I think this is what I will stay with! It was easier to reach all students' needs this way!
Hi Susan! Thanks for this great video. Centers is definitely a struggle for me, so this makes it seem less overwhelming. I will have 23 students in my class this year. Do you recommend making an extra group of students or adding 5 to a group?
Hi Susan! This was so informative! I watched your explanation of literacy centers last time and this clarified things even more. Thank you! I teach second grade. Do you think 2nd grade teachers run things the same way? I am wondering how to fit in 30 min of centers AND another part of my day to meet with other groups. We don't have a WIN block for kids to get their services; they are pulled at all times during the day. Do you think 2nd grade needs more time each day for the comprehension block? Also, I would love if you could do a more in depth video of the WIN block since this one was so helpful. Thanks for continuing to do these videos during your vacation time! :)
I believe most of the 2nd grade teachers at my school do a "must do/may do" type of set up for this part of their day, but they also have a literacy center time and a WIN time like I do. Every teacher can structure this time however they like do them. The WIN block is the best thing in my opinion and really helps all students get what they need - I can definitely make a video about WIN like this one so you can see how it works! I do believe second graders need more than 20 minutes to build that comprehension and I believe many of their "Must do" assignments have them responding to text and possibly vocabulary work to build that understanding of what they read. The second graders are also able to read independently more and respond to their own texts compared to my first grade students. It will be interesting to see which reading curriculum we go with next year and how that changes our reading block. For example, Into Reading, still has a literacy center time so our block wouldn't change much (if at all), but EL Education is a true knowledge-building curriculum and may take away literacy centers completely. I am excited to pilot them both and see where we land!
Susan! Your resources and videos are so informative. Thank you so much. I was wondering if you would talk about or make a video on what you send home with parents at the beginning of the year and throughout the year so they can support their child on their academic journey. I send home 120 chart, HFW for the year etc. I’m sure you have some great resources that you share with them. I’d love to learn more. Also would love to see beginning of the year forms and such since we are getting close. Not sure if your school does MTT but I try to send home resources for them on this day and ours is getting close. Thanks for sharing your expertise. I’m about to purchase some of your task cards on TPT.
Hi Tiffany! I can definitely make a video sharing what I send home - I always send a Meet the Teacher letter and share what supplies they need in mid August (that's when they find out what teacher they have) and throughout the year, I share little ways to help their child.
Love your centers format! I've always done centers, but last year went to a "must do/may do" format for a few reasons. This looks like a perfect combination of the two. On Friday, is that first group you meet with each day catching up on SeeSaw or the centers they missed during that first 10 minutes with you? Or did they do the centers activity during second 10 minutes and catching up on SeeSaw. Hope that makes sense. Thanks for all your great ideas!!!
On Fridays the two groups I meet with swap between meeting with me and doing the passage together and then doing Seesaw catch up! So the first group (my lowest group) is with me to do the passage, while my second group is doing SeeSaw. Then when the timer goes off, they swap and that second group will come do the passage with me so I can make sure they access it! Does that make sense?
@SusanJonesTeaching OK. So during the week during the second 10 minutes they must do the center activity while the rest of the kids are going on to SeeSaw?
Yes! The Seesaw activities are short and if they don't complete them on that Friday catch up time, I don't mind. It is more important to me that they complete the center because those are carefully chosen to go over HFW, encoding, decoding, and fluency!
Do you have a specific writing block? Do you do writing everyday ? I have a 90 minute literacy block as well, and 45 minute math block - trying to squeeze in writing before we have to switch classes (departmentalized)
Is Seesaw compatible with Chromebooks? We do not have iPads and are limited in the amount of Chromebooks per classroom. Also, do you introduce each center as a whole group so students know what to do and what is expected during that time? Would that take about a week (introduce one center per day)? As always, thank you for the ideas, resources and tips you give.
Seesaw is compatible with Chromebooks, yes! At the beginning of the year, when we go over what the centers will look like, that is when I explain each center and how you play. This only happens once because the centers remain the same and the skills just change out. Every once in a while if there is a new phonics task card activity - I just explain it on Monday! The worksheets are the same types of ones we complete throughout the year so they'll know how to complete them already. But yes, I always model and explain any new activity whole group first!
From everything I saw last year when we were doing our curriculum review, not much would change from what we do now if we adopt HMH! I really liked their new structured literacy piece - it seemed to very much align with many best SOR practices so I am excited to pilot it.
@@SusanJonesTeaching Yes I was on the committee to review. It was between them and SaVVAs. I liked both. So we will see how it goes this year. We started back Friday preplanning. My only gripe now is they want our Agenda boards to have many different parts to it now so it's more SOR based.
@@LoriAlto Hi Lori! At each center, students will have classmates to check one another. The HFW are new and review words so I know we’ve had multiple opportunities to read them, the task cards include review activities if something is too difficult for a student, and the roll and read is also done with a partner. I teach students how to coach and help one another from the beginning of the year. It worked out last year that when my lowest group (who was with me for the first 10-12 minutes) was ready for their center, my aide was back in my room and she usually checked in with them as there were some skills towards the end of the year they couldn’t access independently. When that wasn’t the case (if my aide was absent or pulled for something else), I would just change the skill for that activity like give them different a different roll and read sheet to complete quickly or pull different task cards. The independent work I can check each day to see how they did!
Came back to watch again after watching your WIN video this late August morning!! 😊
I would love to see what your daily schedule looks like. It seems so hard to fit everything in!
I would also love to see your schedule. I am a first year teacher for this upcoming year and trying to create my schedule for my first grade class. I don't know how to fit it all in a day.
I love all of your center ideas and how you have them structured. Do you have a system in place to hold students accountable for the work they complete during center time, especially during independent work. This is something that I struggle with.
I have been doing centers for many years but after watching this I’m rethinking some things. These seems so simple!
I really enjoyed the video. Our literacy block is during our intervention time. I have 1 hour for small groups (3 rotations). Then it’s 10 minutes for phonics, 35 for the read aloud and 25 for writing. We also have a new curriculum ( HMH Into Reading).
This is SO helpful! I am a second year teacher moving to kinder from first grade. I am contemplating how to integrate some kind of center rotation into my day so I can be better about small group instruction. This format makes it feel attainable to implement.
I added "Find the Fish" to my literacy centers last year and it was such a hit! Every time someone asks me about centers I always tell them about this one 😊I changed it up a bit and students have their own folder of HFW that way it was differentiated for each student. I love all your ideas and thanks for sharing!
That's such a great idea!!
Thank you so much for all these ideas and sharing your routines, Susan! What a HUGE help!
Great video! Making me rethink my whole center time.
This is really making me rethink my center time and I think it will be a major game-changer! Great video that I'm definitely going to watch a couple times
Thank you for making centers simple and fun!!! I will definitely try this during this school year!! I appreciate you so much and always enjoy the videos.❤❤🎉🎉
I love your center ideas. I used a similar format with my second graders last year. I also love the way you meet with the two lowest groups daily. What are some center activities that you would suggest for second graders?
Can you share a video of how to run literacy centre at the beginning of the year for grade one
Thank you Susan for sharing many great ideas and strategies! Would you happen to have the same example as this but with HMH Journeys? I don’t see our district moving to Into Reading anytime soon.
I am wondering if you could share your schedule for the day... I am struggling with fitting everything in. Seeing that you have a separate time for centers, WIN time, and writing totally blows my mind! I feel like there is never enough hours in the day, lol!
Thank you! This was helpful! We use HMH Into Reading and we have found their literacy centers to be unrealistic and not independent (and they do not provide enough independent practice).
Do want to add that I LOVE your videos and resources
I would love a video about your WIN block. Ours is about an hour with about a quarter of my kids coming and going during that time. I really struggle with what to teach when my students leave for reading intervention because I don't want them missing math or writing.
Great video! A few questions:
1. Do you check every see saw assignment and worksheet every day?!
2. What do your kids do during your WIN time when you meet with groups?
3. Do your kids have and use book bins ever?
4. Are the groups skill level based and do they ever change?
Thank you Beth!
1. Yes! It's only 4 worksheets a day since only one group is there so that's easy for me to check. The Seesaw assignments are very quick so I fly through those - but sometimes I save a couple days worth before I check them.
2. Our WIN time is a whole separate block where students rotate through writing, math, and reading activities - I can make a video explaining that!
3. Yes! My students' book bins include their fluency folders, decodable books my students are reading (usually assigned by me during small group), and a small selection of books they choose from our class library. They read these during WIN time and sporadically throughout the week (if they finish an assignment early, they can read with a friend etc.)
4. The groups are all skills-based and change a few times throughout the year after we do universal screenings and we re-assess groupings (both for my classroom and for who will be seen by interventionists)
Thank you for the detailed video! Much appreciated. Thank you. 😊
Super helpful! Thank you so so much. I love your channel!
My school doesn't allow Seesaw. Is there a way to purchase your Seesaw digital activites for Google drive? I'm not in the club becasue I purchased most of your resources before you created the club. It would be great if you could put them on TPT when you have time! I love all of your resources! 😀
I would also love to purchase your Daily Slides!!! Joining SKT Club rn❣️❣️❣️
Great ideas ❤. I would love to see your daily schedule as well. I’m trying to figure out how to fit it all in with my daily schedule. How many devices do you have for students? Are you a 1 to 1 district?
When I watched "How I Run Small Reading Groups in First Grade // Our first grade literacy block!" it seemed like you were showing a "Must Do / May Do" kind of literacy centers approach where kids work through tasks at their own pace during small groups time but in this video it seems much more like a traditional literacy centers approach where kiddos have set amounts of time at set activities. Do you rotate back and forth between these approaches or are these used as different times of day? Thanks so much for your videos!
Great question! I actually switched it up about halfway throughout the year to provide my students with more practice with different skills. I also started the year with a must do/may do system because it was easier to get students started. My plan for this upcoming year is to start these more traditional literacy centers right away!
When do students get to interact with real books? Do you have leveled readers? Besides epic, when do they get to read physical books? Thanks for helpful video 😊
you only have 20 students! that’s really great!
Your videos are so helpful!
Very Vital Information. Thank you.
Our superintendent went with EL and my principal hates it!
Terrific video - thank you! Question: do your 2 lowest groups complain about losing out on most (all?) of their Epic time? It sounds like they're the only groups who don't get a bit of daily ipad time, and I wonder how you explain that and how they respond. Thanks!
I love walking through your first grade life! Thank you for sharing. I was wondering if you will be using this literacy center management daily or if you will also be using the center routines you mentioned in your video for small group reading instruction where you have the students respond to the whole group instruction read aloud then go to Seesaw/assignment on Raz Kids or Teacher table? Thank you in advance-
I ended up switching to this routine about halfway through the year and I think this is what I will stay with! It was easier to reach all students' needs this way!
Hi Susan! Thanks for this great video. Centers is definitely a struggle for me, so this makes it seem less overwhelming. I will have 23 students in my class this year. Do you recommend making an extra group of students or adding 5 to a group?
Hi Susan! This was so informative! I watched your explanation of literacy centers last time and this clarified things even more. Thank you! I teach second grade. Do you think 2nd grade teachers run things the same way? I am wondering how to fit in 30 min of centers AND another part of my day to meet with other groups. We don't have a WIN block for kids to get their services; they are pulled at all times during the day. Do you think 2nd grade needs more time each day for the comprehension block? Also, I would love if you could do a more in depth video of the WIN block since this one was so helpful. Thanks for continuing to do these videos during your vacation time! :)
I believe most of the 2nd grade teachers at my school do a "must do/may do" type of set up for this part of their day, but they also have a literacy center time and a WIN time like I do. Every teacher can structure this time however they like do them. The WIN block is the best thing in my opinion and really helps all students get what they need - I can definitely make a video about WIN like this one so you can see how it works!
I do believe second graders need more than 20 minutes to build that comprehension and I believe many of their "Must do" assignments have them responding to text and possibly vocabulary work to build that understanding of what they read. The second graders are also able to read independently more and respond to their own texts compared to my first grade students. It will be interesting to see which reading curriculum we go with next year and how that changes our reading block. For example, Into Reading, still has a literacy center time so our block wouldn't change much (if at all), but EL Education is a true knowledge-building curriculum and may take away literacy centers completely. I am excited to pilot them both and see where we land!
For the print & play games or two player centers, how do you combat an odd numbered class?
Susan! Your resources and videos are so informative. Thank you so much. I was wondering if you would talk about or make a video on what you send home with parents at the beginning of the year and throughout the year so they can support their child on their academic journey. I send home 120 chart, HFW for the year etc. I’m sure you have some great resources that you share with them. I’d love to learn more. Also would love to see beginning of the year forms and such since we are getting close. Not sure if your school does MTT but I try to send home resources for them on this day and ours is getting close. Thanks for sharing your expertise. I’m about to purchase some of your task cards on TPT.
Hi Tiffany! I can definitely make a video sharing what I send home - I always send a Meet the Teacher letter and share what supplies they need in mid August (that's when they find out what teacher they have) and throughout the year, I share little ways to help their child.
How will you incorporate the literacy centers into the HMH Into Reading curriculum? Our district is using it starting this year and.. it's ALOT.
Where can I find the independent phonics resource you shared, called Mix, Match, and Write?
Do you ever use your task cards in Seesaw?
Do you keep your seesaw activities private or do you have them available in seesaw.
Do you incorporate choice time/free play into your days?
Does your math block run somewhat the same way? I have 23 kids and I’m thinking I need to switch up the way I do centers.
Love your centers format! I've always done centers, but last year went to a "must do/may do" format for a few reasons. This looks like a perfect combination of the two. On Friday, is that first group you meet with each day catching up on SeeSaw or the centers they missed during that first 10 minutes with you? Or did they do the centers activity during second 10 minutes and catching up on SeeSaw. Hope that makes sense. Thanks for all your great ideas!!!
On Fridays the two groups I meet with swap between meeting with me and doing the passage together and then doing Seesaw catch up! So the first group (my lowest group) is with me to do the passage, while my second group is doing SeeSaw. Then when the timer goes off, they swap and that second group will come do the passage with me so I can make sure they access it! Does that make sense?
@SusanJonesTeaching OK. So during the week during the second 10 minutes they must do the center activity while the rest of the kids are going on to SeeSaw?
Yes! The Seesaw activities are short and if they don't complete them on that Friday catch up time, I don't mind. It is more important to me that they complete the center because those are carefully chosen to go over HFW, encoding, decoding, and fluency!
Do you have a specific writing block? Do you do writing everyday ? I have a 90 minute literacy block as well, and 45 minute math block - trying to squeeze in writing before we have to switch classes (departmentalized)
Yes! We have a 40 minute writing block too.
Do you have your Seesaw activities available to purchase on TPT?
So does the first group that meets with you always miss the first center and only do the seesaw activity and epic?
Is Seesaw compatible with Chromebooks? We do not have iPads and are limited in the amount of Chromebooks per classroom. Also, do you introduce each center as a whole group so students know what to do and what is expected during that time? Would that take about a week (introduce one center per day)? As always, thank you for the ideas, resources and tips you give.
Seesaw is compatible with Chromebooks, yes! At the beginning of the year, when we go over what the centers will look like, that is when I explain each center and how you play. This only happens once because the centers remain the same and the skills just change out. Every once in a while if there is a new phonics task card activity - I just explain it on Monday! The worksheets are the same types of ones we complete throughout the year so they'll know how to complete them already. But yes, I always model and explain any new activity whole group first!
My county purchased HMH for this year.
From everything I saw last year when we were doing our curriculum review, not much would change from what we do now if we adopt HMH! I really liked their new structured literacy piece - it seemed to very much align with many best SOR practices so I am excited to pilot it.
@@SusanJonesTeaching Yes I was on the committee to review. It was between them and SaVVAs. I liked both. So we will see how it goes this year. We started back Friday preplanning. My only gripe now is they want our Agenda boards to have many different parts to it now so it's more SOR based.
How do you ensure students are reading the word correctly? I.e. avoid them practicing a word incorrectly.
@@LoriAlto Hi Lori! At each center, students will have classmates to check one another. The HFW are new and review words so I know we’ve had multiple opportunities to read them, the task cards include review activities if something is too difficult for a student, and the roll and read is also done with a partner. I teach students how to coach and help one another from the beginning of the year. It worked out last year that when my lowest group (who was with me for the first 10-12 minutes) was ready for their center, my aide was back in my room and she usually checked in with them as there were some skills towards the end of the year they couldn’t access independently. When that wasn’t the case (if my aide was absent or pulled for something else), I would just change the skill for that activity like give them different a different roll and read sheet to complete quickly or pull different task cards. The independent work I can check each day to see how they did!
Is epic free?
Yes, it’s free to set up as a teacher account and used during school hours. It is not free access for parents during outside school time.
Where can I find the independent phonics resource you shared, called Mix, Match, and Write?