Taskboards: Reading, Writing and a vague Maths one

So its not so flash or interesting but still a necessary component of the planning process. I've jsut spent this morning collating all my resources, collected and created over the past week and built a series of taskboards for the coming term. The Maths taskboard needs fleshing out with the specific tasks.  I visit each classroom twice in the term so I will two taskboards and the associated activities but what I created here should last me for the next four or five weeks. Fingers crossed.  This purely for my benefit but thought I'd share it anyway.

Tackboard download includes: Senior and Junior Reading, Senior and Junior Writing, Senior and Junior Maths.

Teacher Pay Teacher

There are a truck load of resources available on Teacher Pay Teacher. And some of it is free. For example:

Daily 5: Posters and Rotation Cards!

Use these posters and rotation cards to facilitate The Daily 5 in your classroom! Posters include Word Work, Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing and an additional Work with the Teacher card. Thanks One Extra Degree

Guided Reading Prompt Cards

This resource includes 24 eye-catching prompt cards for during guided reading. During reading breaks, a student can choose a card and complete the task or answer the question. Thanks Shelley Gray

FREE 8 Reading Strategy Posters!

Use these bright and colorful posters at centers or to decorate your classroom. A great way to remind students to use their reading strategies! Thanks Rachel Lynette

Elementary Poetry Collection 

Here is a collection of poems and activities that I put together to use throughout the year with my students. None of the poems are original- but they sure are fun to learn! There are poems related to each month, season, and holiday throughout the school year. Thanks Mary Lirette

Noun, Verb, and Adjective Sort 

This download contains a Noun, Verb, and Adjective Sort with a sorting mat, 24 word cards to sort, and a recording sheet. Thnaks Jamie Rector

Additional Free resources

There are other great free resources on TeacherPay Teacher. These are focused around Reading for lower primary as that was what I'm researching now but its worth digging around this site. Especially if you hold a small classroom budget or can sweet talk your literacy coordinator. 

Learning letters and handwriting activites for Early primary

Letter Scavanger Hunt

This activity takes some adapting. The article from Jackie, author of Ready. Set. Read! is geared around pre-schools and spelling your name in the first instance. But I would share together a fairy story and brainstorm others they know. Just to assist the students in getting in the right mindset. Then they could follow the string around the classroom/ playground to find the letters to spell a popular fairy story. They then have to work together to spell the name correctly.

Learning letters

On this website are a plethera of activity sheets for each letter of the alphabet. From tracing letters to printing words and colouring pictures. The only snag I've found for these is that you will have to copy and paste the area into WORD before printing otherwise formatting tends to be lost. A pain I know but better than drawing the pictures yourself!

Kidszone letter index

Handwriting letters

Lucy Yates put together some handwriting practice pages for the letters. You will have to sign up, free, to TeachersPayTeachers. But its worth it.

Lucy's free resource on TpT

Further Resources for the Reading taskboard

I have just created my Pinterest account and as soon I work it out a little more I'll place the link somewhere on my blog.

In the meantime I've been looking around for further resources to support my literacy taskboard  programme.

Senior Reading

Paper chain connections

Cut the strips apart and fill out the top strip with the title, author, and your name. As you are reading and make a connection, decide whether your connection is to something you have experienced, to another book or author, or to something happening in the world. Briefly explain the connection on the paper strip, circle the type, and include the page number.

Resource Created by Laura Candler(pdf, 90.1KB)

Charater Read and Roll

Start with a basic stick figure of your character. Write the book title, name of the character, and your name below the character. As you add each of the following to your drawing, be sure to include important details that give us information about your character. 

Resource Created by Laura Candler(pdf, 119KB)

 

Other Resources from Laura Candler's Teacher Resources

Below is the link to the section of the Teacher Resource website I found the above resources I am hoping to use. There are many more that may help you. Laura opens her site by saying " Enjoy this collection of engaging literacy printables that help make teaching reading easy!"

www.lauracandler.com

Literacy station

Belinda Kinney is a 2nd grade teacher in Plano, Texas. Her series  of literacy activities are ideally suited to Y3-6. She covers a variety of topics from word level, sentence and grammar to text level and promoting higher order thinking and independent learning.

Resource Created by Belinda Kinney

Grammar 1: Full stops and capital letters

Make two sentences from each of the following:

1. the badger lives underground his house has many rooms 
2. his coat is greyish in colour he has a black and white striped face
3. after sunset the baby badgers come out to play they love to roll and tumble about 

There are four sentences in the following passage, but its hard to read because the capital letters and full stops have been missed out. Write the passage out correctly.

the teacher took his arm and led him into the school hall there were many students and parents seated already on the stage stood a stately old man this was Sir Edmond Hillary

Grammar 1: Full stops and capital letters

Composition - Street Accident

 While I was looking through my resource cupboard over the holidays I came across a book from 1973 entitled " English for the Primary School" it was written by a W.P. Cleland and filled with short comprehension and grammar activities. Although I'm not a huge fan of delivering these sorts of things to the whole class; I like to differentiate my reading and writing tasks; but I can see a use or two for some of these as part of a Reading/Writing taskboard.

Street Accident

 

These pictures show how an accident happened at the corner of a street. Look at the pictures carefully and then at the unfinished sentences below. When you have thought of the best way to complete the sentences , write them in your Reading Scrapbook.

1. One day some boxes fell from a truck as ________________________. 
2. One of the __________ across the street and ________________. 
3. The truck driver__________________ quickly when _________________. 
4. The cyclist was not ______________ but _____________________.  
5. The driver and the cyclist waited until __________________. 
6. One of the policemen _____________________ while the other ________________.

Composition - Street Accident (pdf, 75KB)

Ransom Words

At the end of last term I visited a rural school here in the Hawkes Bay. It was all very organised and I love that as a reliever. It's always a pleasure when the students know their taskboard activities and they can all get on independently. I feel I can get on with some group reading. . One of the activities they were doing was entitled "Ransom Words". The students cut from a newspaper letter to create their spelling words in a ransom note effect. The instructions are below and the printable pdf below it.

You will need:

• ·         Old newspaper
• ·         Scissors
• ·         Glue
• ·         Reading Scrapbook
• ·         Spelling book
• ·         Story writing book

What to do:

Using the list of words from your spelling book create each word by cutting out individual letters from the newspaper headlines.

Stick the words in your Reading Scrapbook

If you don’t have spelling words to learn make a list first from your story writing book. Use words your teacher has helped you spell correctly. 

Ransom Word (pdf, 43.3KB)

An example

 

Reflections 2: Boy oh boy

“Hopeless is hopeless, and don’t ever think that it ain’t”

Tripwire, Lee Child

Boy oh Boy, published by Pearson Education Australia, is authored by Dr Tim Hawkes.

That 'Hopeless expression' maybe one of the catchphrases in the novel but for a boy to not despair then hope needs to reside somewhere.  Boys need hope. When things go wrong, mistakes are made and even justifiable blame is apportioned boys still need hope.

“What is also important is that having suggested the blame and diagnosed the origin of the problem, the boy must be left feeling he is valued, safe and possessed of the necessary skill and inclination to avoid the mistake again.”

Dr Tim Hawkes

So what drives a boy to learn?

• He must be  encouraged to learn.
• Believe in a future that requires learning.
• Believe in his teachers.

But what discourages learning, beyond the opposite of the aforementioned?

It is the boy’s self-esteem. Or there lack of. If a boy is continually told he has behavioural issues or his thoughts and ideas are substandard then this will foster a negative self-image, which in term hinders long term self-esteem; which will prevent the brain from furthering knowledge and understanding. 

Parents, caregivers and teachers must give as much affirmation as possible but Dr Tim Hawkes warns against ungrounded optimism or care-free praising as the boy will see through it eventually and no longer lean on that person’s judgement again.

In short we must blame boys where blame is true and necessary. We give boys a hope and future for improvement and growth. 

Further viewing and food for thought:

Reflections 1: Boy oh Boy

Boy oh Boy, published by Pearson Education Australia, is authored by Dr Tim Hawkes.

This book is a practical and entertaining resource for those who wish to understand the needs of boys and how best to meet those needs. Using a refreshing mix of common sense and scholarly research, Boy oh Boy gives hope and inspiration to those interested in helping boys.

Over the coming weeks I will be reflecting here on my reading of this publication. I am not intending on copying large sections out but will identify, through quotes, a few ideas it may raise and then I will seek to comment upon it in light of my own practise and the boarder context of the schools I am working in.

Boy oh Boy

In the introduction Hawkes seeks to highlight the importance of a quality teacher. The list is as follows:

A quality teacher can:

• laugh with a boy.
• paint a great picture in the mind of a boy.
• growl while still maintaining a sense that the boy is valued.

My reflection

There has been a shift in this post-feminist world where boys should not act out. That they should know there place and continuously maintain a proper and right demeanour. However, I am of the opinion that there is a certain amount of 'boys will be boys' that should be seen as just that. I'm not saying that it should be the excuse for poor behaviour, rudeness or acts of violence. But each action should be seen in the context of the peer group the boy exists in.

A push is not merely a push. Depending on the context it could reflect a boy's frustration with continues verbal abuse. It could the roughness of friends playing together. It could be a single act within a hundred that is part of the pattern of bullying. Context is everything. I believe that we need to understand the lives of boys and boyhood as best we can to become better teachers.

• Can we laugh with a boy? Are we permitted?
• How can we 'paint great pictures in our boys' minds?
• And growling? So often we do this to dominate, thinking that boys need to know submission but really they are needing to be respected. The behaviour needs to distanced for the person. So the boy can see the behaviour not as a fundamental floor in their personality but rather something that can be addressed and corrected.