Reading Portfolios Part 2

So I'm back to show you the 2nd grade version.

As I said before the 2nd graders I have are mostly Title 1.  So we all did the same book for our project. I used it more for them to demonstrate the skills we had been working on.  Check out my last post to get all the templates I used.  Also, as I mentioned in that post I precut and folded ALL the pieces  the kids just glued them, and only one students had a complete disaster!!  (side note:  Don't use bottled glue for this with 2nd graders.....it got very messy despite an impromptu lesson on how to glue)

the parts that 2nd graders had to do

• Before and middle of reading predictions
• front cover picture
• problem and solution
• connections
• favorite part
• setting
• main character
• They did not do a back project (however next time I would give this option to some of my higher 2nd graders)

First we previewed the book and made predictions about what would happen

Then we choral read the first half and made our middle of the book predictions (I'm trying to encourage active reading)

We also drew our pictures on the front and wrote our title and author

That was all we had time for on Day 1

Day 2

Students read the book with a buddy.  They they filled out their problem and solution along with the main character.  This lead to quite the debate if the main character was Miss Nelson or Miss Swamp.

Day 3

Students read the book independently (if they need to).  They then filled out their connections, main character, setting, and they favorite part.

Sorry I don't have more pictures.  I ran out of time.  The kids were very proud of their work and I had many parents say how much they loved seeing all the skills we had been working on displayed in one place.

Reading Portfolios

I found this awesome idea from Beth at Thinking of Teaching.  I love her blog.  She is a 4th grade teacher so I started thinking about how I could use her idea with my students.

 You can see the origional blog post here

There are a couple of things I should tell you.  My 3rd graders this year were considered High Achieving with all of them at grade level, many well above.  I had one students reading as high as 10th grade.  However, even though they could read and comprehend at that level they couldn't always pull out literature elements the way a student of even a grade higher could.  My 2nd Graders were mostly below level or Title 1.  I did not use these for literature circles like Beth did.  I used them as a way for students to show what they learned this year, more like an end of the year wrap up/brag book.

I made templets for everything written that the kids did.  You can get those here....I hope...I've never used Google Docs before. 

 I also precut all the construction paper foldables.  My 3rd graders did all the folding, I just cut everything to the correct size since we used foldables a lot this year.  Fir my 2nd graders I precut and folded everything.  It took forever but it made things easier in the long run.

3rd Grade

Students put together their project and we talked about what would go in each section.  I had them pick their favorite 3rd grade Fiction Chapter book.  

• A picture to represent the book on the front cover
• Book Review using O.R.E.O format
• Main Character
• Connections
• Summary (this was a simplified version of Beth's)
• My Favorite part
• Setting
• They also have the same options for the back project as Beth offered her students.

This Kids LOVED IT and DId an Awesome Job.  They did it completely independently.  Many had to reread books because they found they couldn't remember parts accurately.  It really was a great way to assess students on the skills that we learned during the year.  Here are some 3rd grade examples.  Sorry for all the Pictures.  I just couldn't help myself.

Front Cover

Inside View

My Favorite Part

(Note: Yes, one of my students read THe Hunger Games.  Yes, she is that high of a reader.  Now I am not one to make judgments on content, I leave that to the parents.  However, we did have a conversation how some parts are not ok for others in the class and she was not allowed to share those parts.)

Making Connections

Setting

Accordion Fold Summary

O.R.E.O Book Review

These are all Picture of the back project.  YOu can get information about this from Beth's blog!!

 She made her own Foldable for the back!

I love the rips and ink spots because we all know Ron would do that!

This post took up way more room than I thought it would.  Come back tomorrow to see how I adapted Beth's AMAZING idea for 2nd grade :)  Check out Beth's Blog too.  As I said...AWESOME.

Contraction Foldable

I have a confession....I was thinking about deleting my blog.  I don't have many views or followers and I feel like none of my ideas are original.  FOr those of you checking in you can thank my classroom aid for my continuing on.  She pointed out all the new ideas that I had come up with lately and even started to yell at me to take pictures!!  I don't know what I will do next year without her (the student she works with is going to 4th and I am staying 2/3 :( tear)

Anyways,  we have our big grammar District Assessment coming up.  So in order to review the kids have been doing some fun projects!

Contractions
First we read these two fabulous books!

Then after I introduced our spelling words for the week the kids made these cute foldable to help them study.  I love how marconi can be an apostrophe, commas, or quotation marks.  Its just so versatile.

This is the front view.  The kids had to do each of our spelling words

This is the inside view (along with a shot of my VERY messy desk)

 More Projects to come in the next few days.  If you have any foldable ideas please share them by leaving a comment.  Don't forget to follow me!!