Wonder-ful Writing

When we were first introduced to Wonders I was extremely confused about their writing section. Like, there was Writing Everyday and then Genre Writing and I wondered how they expected me to fit it all in. So, I did what I always do: I tweaked, rearranged and made it my own. I finally came up with something that works for me. For now, at least.

 Mondays 

Writing→ I teach Day 1 from the Writing Everyday section. Then we do a 5-minute quick write to the writing prompt implementing the trait we just discussed. I give them another 5 minutes to get with a partner and share their writing. Sometimes, they use highlighters to highlight where they used the trait we are focusing on. I do not use any of the other Writing Everyday lessons during my week. Revising, editing and incorporating the 6-traits are mini lessons that belong with genre writing, in my opinion. 

Grammar→ I teach Day 1 of the grammar lessons. Then we do some sort of activity, NOT A WORKSHEET because those are in their practice packets. And worksheets kill my soul a little bit. Sometimes I assign them a game from Wonders, or we do the activity under the “Talk About It” section in the teacher’s manual. Other times, I use Kagan Cooperative Learning strategies. It all depends on the topic. 

Spelling→ I follow the Day 1 lesson from the spelling section. I give the pretest. They check their own work and highlight the words they personally need to work on at home. Then we cut out our weekly sort. They have to stand up while they cut and most times, I make it into a race. When they finish, they can finally sit down. The winner could win a gum ball or something like that. It makes them cut faster, because some of them take a million years to cut these darn things out and ain’t nobody got time for that. Then they do an open sort. Once we are done, they put those into their word sort pouch, which goes into their purple word-work folder. 

Vocabulary→ By this time on Mondays, we are ready to end the writing block with vocabulary. We use Turn-and-Talk for the Connect to Words activity and then we briefly go over academic vocabulary, if I haven’t already in small group. 

Mondays are really jammed packed, but this gives us lots and lots of time Tuesday-Friday to have genre writing and conferences, which I believe are the MOST important things!! 

Still with me? If you need to take a cookie break or, if you’re my work wife, a bathroom break, go ahead. I’ll wait here. 

Welcome back! On to TUESDAY activities! 

Grammar→ Like I said before, I do not do anymore of the Writing Everyday lessons. Besides, we do that kind of writing with our weekly readers. I start Tuesdays with a review of the grammar concept. Then we do some kind of hands-on activity. While they work with their partner, I pull a few of my strugglers to my table for some small group time. This process takes about 10-15 minutes. 

Spelling→ I do not do spelling on Tuesdays. Sometimes my morning work is spelling practice, or I have them get on Spelling City.

Vocabulary→ Tuesdays are usually Expand Vocabulary days. This is when I like to use Popplet, one of my very favorite apps. We do one or two vocabulary words together and then they do the rest with a partner. I will pull a few kiddos to my table at this time, for some extra scaffolding. We use the last few minutes to come back as a class and share. Hopefully, our vocabulary time doesn’t take more than 15 minutes.

Genre Writing→ At this point, if everything has gone as planned, we are ready for genre writing. We have three weeks to draft, revise, edit and publish a piece of writing before we move on to the next type of writing. I don’t really like this, because every writer creates at their own pace when crafting a piece of writing. But, what do I know? The people who wrote this curriculum are smart, right? So, I’ve learned to live with this timeframe. The first week, we focus the most on characteristics of the genre we are studying. We also brainstorm and draft. The second week, we finish up our drafts and move on to revising and editing. The final week we publish and share. To make this easier to explain, I’ve made a calendar of sorts to map it all out. 

 Wednesdays 

Grammar→ Like yesterday, we will start off with grammar lesson and then do an activity. 

Spelling→ We do the spelling lesson and then kids will pair up and do a speed sort. Early finishers will get on Spelling City. I will pull small groups during this time, as well.    

Vocabulary→ For our vocabulary lesson on Wednesday, I usually start off with Reinforce the Words, as a quick warm up. Then I like to do the Shades of Meaning activity. Sometimes, the curriculum provides an online game that we will play together. Other times, I will split kids into 4 teams. Each group gets a weekly vocabulary word along with synonyms. They each get a card and they have to arrange the words form strongest to weakest. I make these cards myself using index cards. Finally, we discuss our decisions. 

Genre Writing→ To end our writing block, we work on our genre writing. 

Thursdays 

For us, THURSDAYS used to be an early out day. But we are back to full days so more time to fit everything in! Yeah! This day runs pretty similar to Wednesdays. 

Grammar→ We do the grammar mini lesson and then move on to the activity. 

Spelling→ Students get with a partner and do a blind sort. One person is the “ teacher” and the other student is the “student”. They take turns giving each other the spelling words to write in their purple word work folders. They check each other’s work and switch jobs when completed. We spend 10 minutes on this activity, even if people don’t finish. 

Vocabulary→ For vocabulary, we use the app PicCollage to make word squares. This is an activity my kids love and it usually takes about 20 minutes. I always model one and then they make word squares with 1-3 words. 

Genre Writing→ And of course, we finish up with genre writing. Now, if your version of Wonders had something like “Analyze the Student Model” or “How to Write to Two Sources”, I would be doing that instead of genre writing. I might switch back and forth each week between “Analyze the Student Model” and “How to Write to Two Sources”. I don’t know why our version doesn’t have that, but I’ve seen some samples and they look pretty neat! I would most likely cut out a day of revision and a day of editing to really make this work. 

Friday 

Analytical Writing→Friday used to be a happy time, a time where we could reflect more on our learning or play more games. Now, I have to watch them take their weekly tests. I try not to sulk too much, and I try to make test-taking fun. BUT before we do that, we do some analytical writing. At the beginning of the year, I do a lot of modeling and we use a lot of sentence stems. The lessons I am referring to are on the blue pages with the scientific inquiring and text connections. Below you will see some pictures of my anchor chart as well as a link to a sample of the paragraph frame they paste into their writer’s notebook. We do a shared writing and then I send them off with a partner to work with any of the selections we read that week. More analytical writing occurs during guided reading.

Paragraph Frames

 So there it is, a breakdown of my writing block. It’s a tight fit, but we make it work. If you do decide to try this out, remember that one size does not fit all. This may not work for you or your kids and you may have to do some rearranging of your own. My data drives my instruction every day and that is why I do not always stick to this exactly. If you missed my last post, here is my Wonders ELA schedule. It is a great cliff notes version of this post. ☺ As always, leave a comment if you have questions!

My Journey Through Wonders

My Journey Through Wonders

We adopted McGraw-Hill Wonders program two years ago. And….I actually really like it! I feel like I can still do my reader’s workshop model using this program. Sure, there are some things I’m not fond of (I’m talking to you, weekly tests), but, overall, I appreciate the rigor and I really love how my high readers are finally being forced to use those reading strategies. Vertical alignment is on point and the technology pieces are really fun. I love love love the vocabulary parts, mostly because they use the activities from one of my favorite authors, Isabel Beck.  If you haven’t read Bringing Words to Life, stop what you’re doing and pick up that book!  

But of course, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine….

Like, how the heck do you fit everything in?! How do I not worksheet my kids to death? How do I get them to pass these weekly tests without wanting to cry (me, not the kids)? How do I get parents to understand that growth is more important than a letter grade?  How do I get my kids to fall in love with reading and writing?

Well, to every problem, there is a solution. So, I set out on my Wonders journey. It was a lot of trial and error at first, but I am really getting the hang of it now.

Here’s a breakdown of what I do in my classroom. Before I start, just know that I am a very flexible teacher. I do not always stick to this routine. And it will probably change a little next year, because I will have different kids, with different needs. This is a 5-day schedule, and I am hoping we move to a 6 day schedule so we can do more of the activities on those blue pages. But here is what usually happens:

On Mondays, after morning work is done, we practice with the fluency passage for 5 minutes. They each read for 2 minutes and they keep track of their progress and get ONE skittle if they improve. This skittle is like gold to them. At the end of the week, they answer the questions that go along with the fluency passage. During whole group,

I do the introduction, introduce the vocabulary, and then do my shared read. The shared read includes all of the mini lesson questions. One of our trainers told us that several Wonder's veterans did this, and it absolutely changed my life. Then, I introduce leveled readers to the kids. They all do a first read of their weekly readers (leveled books) that way our small group can go a lot faster. Some of my kids listen to the text and some read on their own. It’s what works for them. Trust me, being read to is just as beneficial as silently reading a complex text. I meet with my lowest group first, so I can do some reteaching and address possible misconceptions I think they might have as they read.  The other kiddos are silently reading either their weekly reader or an independent reading book and responding in their Reader’s notebook.

On Tuesday, I have rotations. One group is listening or reading the selection from the Anthology. They stop and jot any questions or vocabulary words they were stuck on during reading. During the third quarter, they take notes in a graphic organizer, which I modeled during the 1^st and 2^nd quarter. (We are 1:1 ipads, so this is easy to do. If you are not, it might be a bit trickier...although, you could have your kids partner read.) Another group is working on their Practice Packet, which includes all those lovely worksheets we never have time for. I print these as booklets to save paper. I leave an answer key so they can check their work as they complete the packet. They can also collaborate with each other if needed. They have all week to work through this. If they don't get it done, it's no big deal. Another group is pre-reading their leveled readers. Another group is silently reading and responding in their reading notebook. The last group is with me. We close read from the leveled readers. I always look at the upcoming tests and try to structure some of my questions like they appear on the test. I also do a lot of modeling during this time.

On Wednesdays, my kids are ready for a close read of the anthology. Keep in mind that they have already read it once during rotations. During the 3^rd quarter I start giving them note-taking pages, but that gets modeled a lot beforehand!  We sit in a discussion circle, and I pick questions that I think are the most beneficial. I do not ask every single question! I used to, and it literally took up my entire reading block! I try not to go over 20 minutes to discuss. My kids love this day because I keep track of how many times each person contributes to the conversation and whoever participated the most gets to wear the discussion crown and be our discussion king or queen. Then, we do our rotations: practice packet, leveled reader (may include analytical writing that I've sent them off to do as I meet with another group), and silent reading.

On Thursday, I pair the students up and they read the paired selection. I have created response sheets to go with each of the paired reads. Again, I try to structure the questions like they appear on the tests. They work through this with partners while I am pulling groups. During our writing time, we do the analytical writing from the blue pages. I have created sentence stems to go along with this to use at the beginning of the year. I will have those to share soon!

And of course, Fridays are our big TESTS days, which usually takes up the entire reading block :(.

Spelling, grammar, writing, and more vocabulary (those green pages) get taught and practiced during the second half of our reading block.  This part of the day includes mini lessons and small activities to practice. We utilized the games that come with the curriculum a lot.

If you would like to take a look at the Paired Reading Pages I’ve created, you can look below!   

Unit 1            Unit 2        Unit 3        Unit 4           Unit 5 

Week 2        Week 1        Week 1          Week 1        Week 1

Week 3        Week 2        Week 2       Week 2        

Week 5        Week 3        Week 3        Week 3        

                  Week 4        Week 4        Week 4        

                   Week 5        Week 5                 

     

The Anthology Note-taking pages I use during Units 1-5 are below! These are still a work-in-progress....

Unit 1            Unit 2        Unit 3        Unit 4           Unit 5 

Week 1          Week 1        Week 1          Week 1        Week 1

                   Week 2        Week 2       Week 2        Week 2

                   Week 3        Week 3        Week 3        Week 3

                  Week 4        Week 4        Week 4        

                   Week 5        Week 5        Week 5          

I thought about posting these on TPT, but I love sharing and I know it sucks to spend your own money! BUT if you would like to donate to my "Help Me, I'm a Poor Teacher!" fund, please feel free to venmo me some coffee money @Danielle-Jones-77 HEHE! 

Hope some of this helps and if you have any questions, please leave me a comment!