Saturday, September 14, 2013

Small group planning, and all that jazz...

It's always this time of year when I think, just maybe, I might pull my hair out. I love the beginning of the year planning, diving into your very first whole class novel, filling the days with rich review, reading, and just getting to know each other. It's right when you've hit that sweet spot that the beginning of the year assessment smacks you in the face. You spend hours, days even, reviewing the data, grouping and regrouping the kids, and making 8 different small group plans to best meet everyone's needs. Whether it's best practice or not, I mean, yikes!

All that said, I'm feeling a lot better about my small group system and planning this year, and I owe most of that positivity to my new found organizational skills, (so what if it took me 6 years to get here?!)

First things first, my binder.
I'll admit it. I'm a total nerd. I took the 'sisters' idea from the Daily 5 and just ran with it. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't help myself with the Harry Potter reference.

Inside I have a myriad of things. Basically, anything that has any resemblance to student data is kept here, as well as small group schedules, small group plans, whole class data sheets, etc. It's my reading lifeline!
 Reading calendars to schedule student meetings, small groups, etc.
Student reading inventories to keep track of what my kids are reading, and the progress they are making.  
 Each student gets a tab in the back of the binder. Behind there tab are the following things in this order, MAP score breakdown sheets, anecdotal reading/ monitoring sheets, writing conference notes, and the BEAR spelling inventory. This makes parent conferences SO much easier!
Reading small group schedules, to keep myself on track!
And speaking of small groups, I also keep my small group plans for each group here as well.
It might be a labor of love getting this thing organized, but it is amazing in the end to have EVERYTHING in one place!

Here is a link to some of the things I use in my binder, available at my TPT store.


Do you have a binder/ organizational system of your own? I'd love to hear about it! What do you do for writing that works for you? I could use some help there!

Happy teaching!

1 comment:

  1. Ooh! Thanks for sharing!I found you at Five For Friday and I love it all!
    Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete