What Do The Other Kids Do While I'm Teaching a Small Group?

 I See This Question All The Time. Here is the Answer:

While I'm teaching a small group of students, the other children are working on their "Table Work*" at their tables. (*Meaningful work they can do Independently.)

Here are some examples:

MONDAY: 

Alpha Chants- Students trace ONLY the letter we are focusing on that day (or week) with a fine-tip marking pen. Then, they glue it to the 6" pocket created by folding a 12"X18" piece of construction paper into a 12"X12" square and stapling the 6" flap at the sides. 

CLICK HERE for the chants.

We use the pocket to make an Alphabet book
that holds all of our other work about this letter. 

You get 2 on a page so you can easily copy a class set. 

TUESDAY:

Pocket-Lockets- We create a pocket watch or a locket with a hidden high frequency word inside. 

This set comes with Dolch Words and blanks to create your own Pocket-Lockets! 

• CLICK HERE for the set. 

The 1st time we did this, ALL of the girls wanted to make the locket & ALL of the boys wanted to make the pocket watch, but after that 1st time, they chose a differently every time!

WEDNESDAY:

One of the activities from this "All About Numbers" Math Set- (It also comes in 2 smaller sets of #s 1-5 and #s 6-10.) 

CLICK HERE for the set.

Once you introduce these activities in a small group,
 they can do them independently at their tables. 

THURSDAY:

ALPHABET PICTURE CARDS & PHONICS PAGES- This set comes with 3 pictures for each sound, but I also put additional pictures from old workbooks or magazines on their tables. Students draw & label 3 pictures. Younger students can cut and paste the graphics included in the set. 

We put the entire page into the pocket we made on Monday. 

CLICK HERE for the set.

FRIDAY:

Rime Time: (Yes, "rime" instead of "rhyme" because we are working on Onset Rimes.) Student create a spinning word wheel with onset rimes by changing the first letter of each word to create a new word. 

CLICK HERE for the set

These were my "go to" Table Activities, 

but you can substitute 

any independent activity you like. 

You can find more independent activities 

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Chicka-Chicka Boom-Boom Welcome to my Classroom!

How I planned my day:

I was lucky to teach an Early Bird / Late Bird program where half of the students came to school at 8:00 AM and stayed until noon while the 2nd half came at 10:00 AM and stayed until 2:00.   

During the overlap time, we did our whole group calendar, literature, our special classes (like computer lab, science lab, library, P.E., and music), and one additional 25 minute activity which could be a followup activity to anything we were doing that week.

The Academic Block:

That was the time when I had only half of my class of 24. Having a group of 12 really allowed me to  teach efficiently to 3 groups of 4 students. It was a 2 hour block of time.

Whole Group Time:

We always started with a whole group intro to the day. Whatever I was going to teach during my small group time was introduced during my 25 min. whole group time. For instance, if I was teaching about the letter C, I might read the book Corduroy.  Then, I would introduce the independent table work and front load the students with any content they will need prior to their small group lesson. 

For example:  

(Remember, I was doing this with only 12 students and I might do only 1 of the following activities.)

~We might look at photos of things that begin with hard /C/.

~We might share our "mystery item" that we brought from home that begins with the hard sound /C/.

(Students give 3 clues about the item & the class guesses.)

~ We might brainstorm more words that begin with hard /C/. 

~We might use words that begin with /C/ to finish the sentence "I like ______." The teacher writes the sentence the child says and the child comes up to sign it.

~We might watch a quick video or Brain Pop Jr. about the letter C.

~We might watch one of Heidi's videos (from heidisongs.com) about the letter C.

~We might do a Close Reading Lesson.

~We might do a Smart Board lesson.

~We might write in our journals (and with only 12 students,  I could check each journal.)

and...

~I could teach the "signal word of the day" which might be: The teacher says, "C," and the students reply, "Says /c/ like Catina Cat," as they make a claw motion (Zoo Phonics style) with their hand. This signal word, and their reply, will signal the time for them to move to their tables to begin their independent work. 

Sample Whole Group Activities

After our whole group time, I would say the signal word, students responded with the proper reply, and they would move to their tables. That's when I would circulate to check for names on their work. I would rub a dot of scented lip balm on the top of their hand if they wrote their name neatly. Then I started calling groups for small group lessons. 

What Independent work might look like:

Students might find photos of things that begin with hard /c/ on their tables. They would choose 3 photos, draw a picture of each one on their paper, and label it. (The photos are labeled.)  Then, they might trace all of the uppercase and lowercase Cs on the dotted alliteration chant. 

You can do this on blank paper using pictures found in magazines or old workbooks or you can use the 26 templates and pictures included in my Picture Dictionary Set. 

You can find the dotted chants by clicking HERE.

Click the image to see the Picture Dictionary Set which includes all 26 letters and 3 pictures for each letter.

If they still haven't been called up to meet with me in a small group, they may go to any classroom center. (Centers were labeled with the maximum number of students who can play there at a time.) 

If you have a volunteer in your classroom, have them assist at the tables, supervise centers, and check work before students to to a center. 

What Small Group Lessons might look like:

Meeting with a small group.

I would call up 3 small groups to my horseshoe table during this 90 minute block. I would spend 20-25 minutes with each group. A sample small group lesson might look like this:

~Review the formation and sound for the letters C and c.

~Students are given a page with lots of pictures on it and a set of 10 Unifix cubes.

~Students place one cube on each picture that begins with hard /C/. When done, they count their cubes and link them together again.

~Students use dry-erase pens to trace and write the letters C and c on a laminated card.

~Students use a bingo marker (you can get these at The Dollar Store) to dot the letter C.

~Students use a push-pin to poke the dots on the letters C and c. Find the set by clicking HERE.

You would use all of these activities for one letter: "C"

When I was done teaching all 3 groups, I would help individual students. 

If you have a full-day class of 20-32 students (or a half-day class of 24 or more, you will have to modify and meet with larger groups at small-group time. Sign up 6th grade students to assist in your classroom during their recess time and try to get volunteers to help supervise students at independent and center time. 

How many students do you have and do they attend full-day or half-day K?

Making Your T.K./K. Combo Work- Part 2 Differentiating Independent Work

So What About The Table Work:

I get it. You have T.K. and K. kids sitting at the same tables. You want their independent work to be different and designed to help them meet the standards for their own individual grade level. 

During our 1 hr. 40 min. work time, students were required to complete an independent table task that should take the average T.K. or K. student about 40 minutes to complete. While they worked, I pulled students to meet with me in a small group setting for about 20-25 minutes.

 This left each student about 35-40 minutes to explore at the centers and play.

 Instead of setting the tables with their work, which took me about 20 minutes before school started, I introduced all of the work during whole group time and I set the papers out at the front of the room. I always placed the T.K. work to my left and the K work to my right. I watched to make sure that each child picked up the correct work. I would often have more advanced T.K. students pick up a page from the K side instead of the T.K. side and vice versa. That was just one more way to differentiate on an individualized basis. By setting the independent work out on the carpet each morning, I saved about twenty minutes each afternoon setting out the specific work for each child at their table. This was one more way I could work efficiently.

"So, what did the independent work look like and how was it different for each grade level?" you ask.

Here is an example of TK students making a tree and K students making a more challenging tree.
I will explain these two activities further down in this post. 

Typically on Mondays, T.K. students created an animal face that went along with our Zoo Phonics animals. (I have been asked numerous times to create these animal templates and post them on TpT and I promise it's on my list of things to do.) They might place the face in their letter portfolio (We made a portfolio for each letter that included a variety of projects that were all about that one letter.) or glue the face to a sentence strip and write an uppercase and lowercase letter to match the initial sound of the animal using a crayon. So, the 1st week we made a snake and the T.K. kids wrote Ss on the sentence strip each side of the snake's face.

This is a portfolio for the letter C.
Each pocket-page holds all of the "C" projects.
You can bind them into a book with yarn or staple them into 4 books of 6-7 pgs. each.

My K kids got to make a different snake that was a bit more complicated to cut out and assemble. They wrote with a pencil on their sentence strip: I see a (and that's where they glued their snake on) and added a period after the snake so it said: "I see a snake. Both groups got to wear their snake hats home or place them in their letter portfolio.

Here is the Alpha Chant for Hh.  It was more of a visual perception and letter recognition activity than a fine motor activity.

Click the chant to see this set in my TpT store. 

The beauty of this plan is that you can have your lowest K kids (the ones who can't write the phrase) just write Ss by their snake. They might still make the more challenging snake.

Likewise, you can let your T.K. kids who are ready to write try their hand at writing the sentence that  ends with their snake. You can differentiate this any way you like. The student who can write, but can't cut well might be given the easier snake. Your cutting expert who can't recognize one letter might be given the more difficult snake and less writing. Remember, this is independent work, not part of a small group lesson.

This is how I differentiated with my Phonics Picture Cards and Dictionary Pages:
Using picture cards that all begin with /C/,  all students draw 3 pictures of objects that begin with /C/ on their Phonics Dictionary Page and have your T.K. students label each picture with "Cc" while K students label each picture with the word. The Phonics Picture Cards and Dictionary Pages include 3 pictures for each letter of the alphabet. You can also just have student illustrate on a large piece of newsprint that is blank at the top (for pictures) and lined at the bottom (for initial sound letters or labels).

Click the image to see the entire set.

Each week, I would look at all of the activities I had for ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies and I would sort them into TK and K levels.

Then, I placed them into my M-F file folders which I kept in a dish rack at the front of the room. It was easy to open the file, explain the work, set it out on the carpet, and watch as students picked up their work and took it to their tables.

More differentiated independent work:

Chick-a-chick-a-boom-boom trees:

TK: They made a Chick-a-chick-a-boom-boom palm tree by adding the palm treetop to a TP tube. We cut 2 slits into the treetop and slid it onto the tube. Then, they added the letters in their name which were printed in rectangles for them. The letters did not have to be in the correct order.

K: They had to cut out the treetop and the trunk, they drew crosshatched lines on the trunk, and glued their name to the tree. They had more cutting and the letters had to be in the correct order.

Day 100 Capes:

TK: They made a Zero Cape for Day 100 with a giant zero on the back and a 100 day necklace badge.

K: They made the same cape, but we added all of the 10s from 10-100 on stars. They also made 100 day glasses and a crown.

I like to keep the independent table work similar, yet different so all students might be working on the same letter, number, sight word, or science concept, but they will be doing different things with it. 

I hope these ideas help. Let me know how YOU differentiate independent work for your students.

Tomorrow I will write about differentiating small group lessons.