I have been running literacy circles with my top two reading groups for a while now, and really enjoy the discussions that full out of the literacy circles, but felt that at times children were just going through the motions. I felt I needed to 'freshen up' how these were running and make them a bit more effective and also more exciting for the students.
I was doing some research and exploring what others were doing and came across this blog: http://www.3rdgradethoughts.com/2012/04/daily-5-series-read-with-teacher.html from Stephaine who is a 3rd Grade teacher in America.
She had developed a literacy box for her to use with her reading groups - as you can see below:
I thought I could modify this a little bit, and make a box that the discussion director would use to help develop further discussion and talk about what the group has read in preparation for the literacy circle. I found the same cards that Stephanie had down loaded for free from the teachers pay teachers website. These cards will be super-helpful because they are so quick and easy. I sorted through them and won't use every one, but most of them are fitting. I just printed them and laminated them so they can stand up to lots of use. I will keep them in a bucket and the discussion director will use them at the end of the literacy circle.
I also bought a set of these cubes from Really Good Stuff. Although it is an American website, which does not ship to NZ, I was able to get them posted to my cousin who lives in America, who will be coming out to NZ in two weeks – talk about great timing! I love these the most because they are a bit more complex than the cards and one even focuses on vocabulary, prefixes/suffixes, and finding meaning through context clues- yay! Kids will love to roll them and then focus on finding the answer to the cube after we have discussed the novel.
As you can see, none of these are too complicated or heavy on the prep time. The choices serve the wide variety of abilities in my room as well as all of the books we read as a group. I am really looking forward to seeing how it works out and it's will be fun to see kids grab a card and/or cube and have a specific goal to attain in our literacy circles. It has also made the literacy circle more enjoyable the discussion director person as it gives something to rather than just introducing the others and is easy for them as the questions and vocab are all ready to go.
Do you use any of these resources or others for literacy circles? I'd love to hear about it :) Will post some photos of the completed box and the kids in action next week.
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