Meaningful Anchor Charts

I mentioned the other day that I'm working to make my instruction better aligned to some of the tricky areas of our teacher evaluation rubric. Our rubric is based on Charlotte Danielson's model, focusing on planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities. One area that I've been struggling with is component 2e of the classroom environment, which refers to the physical space of the classroom. I love my room. I don't want to change a thing. The kids know where stuff is, they get things as they need. It's safe and comfortable. 

However.

The "distinguished" ranking reads: "The classroom is safe, and learning is accessible to all students including those with special needs. Teacher makes effective use of physical resources, including computer technology. The teacher ensures that the physical arrangement is appropriate to the learning activities. Students contribute to the use or adaptation of the physical environment to advance learning."

WTF. Students contribute to the use or adaptation of the physical environment to advance learning?! I was confused. I talked to the principal after my formal observation the other day (which went very well, and I'm super happy.) He suggested that rather than thinking of the kids helping to organize my layout, that I think more along the lines of the bulletin boards and student spaces in my room. I love love love all my bulletin boards. Shouldn't the kids love them, too? No. I came to a sad sad sad realization that my students were not utilizing all the anchor charts and "I Can" statements I was posting, because I wasn't referring to them or stressing their importance. 

INSTEAD, I'm now trying to have the students physically build the anchor charts with me. We made this NOUN anchor chart the other day. Instead of me posting the pretty poster I have that lists fun nouns, I had the students color in nouns and we sorted them as a group. This anchor chart is now a million times more meaningful for my students because they had a part in creating it.

I just printed out some clipart that I already had downloaded (most of it is Ashley Hughes or Creative Clips.) Super easy. I'm also asking them whether or not certain things would benefit them if I were to put them on the bulletin board. For example, we listed ways to make 10 using a rainbow inspired by this pin (with FREE printables), and the kids determined that it was something they would use. So I posted it. And they're using it. It's like magic. 

Mentor Sentences!

Hello friends! We had a faculty meeting about teaching grammar the other day... Our director of elementary education shared with us the idea of using a mentor text or sentence to teach grammar. I was like a kid in a candy shop. She said something along the lines of "these ideas are great for grades 2-5..." Womp womp. My heart sank. But then I started thinking. Obviously, at the beginning of the year, it would be very difficult to do this, as we are JUST introducing parts of speech. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my little firsties were ready for something like this.

Last week, I read Bear Snores On as a read aloud and the kids loved it. Since we use Reading Street, we've been talking about changes and how animals do different things in the winter.

*Click the picture to find this book on Scholastic*

This week, Reading Street was focusing on adjectives, and while I never use the grammar worksheets every once in a while, I decided that I wanted to beef up my grammar instruction a bit. I chose the first sentence of the book as my mentor sentence:

"In a cave in the woods,

in his deep, dark lair,

through the long, cold winter

sleeps a great brown bear."

I chose to do this in guided reading groups this week, as I was TOTALLY unsure how my students would respond, and I sort of wanted to be able to compare their reactions based on their reading levels. After I read the sentence to them, I asked the students WHY they thought I had chosen this sentence... I was blown away.

One of these was from my below-level reading group... I won't tell which one! They blew me away. By the end, they were practically BEGGING me to tell them WHY I'd chosen this as a mentor sentence. After we talked about how adjectives make a sentence more descriptive, I had the students complete this little worksheet.

I had the students first circle the nouns in the sentences. After that, we talked about different adjectives that could be used to describe those nouns. They rocked it. Made my day.

Do you use mentor sentences to teach language arts?