Literature Circles | Kick Off Week

Snow, snow and more snow!  I am happy to report though that we did get to kick off our literature circles this week (even with 2 delays and a snow day).  Every year I get super excited to start literature circles.  It's a great time of the year because the classroom is running like clockwork, there is amazing classroom community and the kids LOVE to read!  This year I am doing mixed groups with the classroom across the hallway.  This teacher and I have been doing a lot together this year, especially in Science and it's great for the kids to work with other classrooms to get ready for the big move to middle school.

In the past I have focused on an author study literature circle and last year I did Kate DiCamillo (which was great!).  This year I have added a little bit of a twist.  We are going to do a genre study (Fantasy) with the authors Kate DiCamillo and Roald Dahl.  Very excited!!

This week during the kick off, on Tuesday, we had the students come into my room and sit in a large circle.  One of my rules for literature circle meetings, is that students sit knee to knee so everyone can hear and see each other.  I have a great poster that we discuss that goes over the "How, What, Why, etc".  and we discuss the "rules".  The rules are read every time a group meets by the Discussion Leader.  This is a document that I created for the packet.

The packet I use for literature circles in from superteacherworksheets.com.  A long time ago, I started using the sheets from the site for this particular unit.  Unfortunately, that was when the site was free. Now you have to pay.  Luckily, I saved them as a pdf!

So how did we practice?....Well, we listened to the first 15 chapters of James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, a little each day.  (I have all the books we are doing in class on CD for a coordinating listening center).
The great thing about this, (James and the Giant Peach) is that this will continue to be our Tier 1 read aloud novel and it will also be my Tier 2 group novel.  So these students will get a double dose of fluency and comprehension.  (it's all in the planning).

Every day we met (Tuesday-Friday) we practiced one of the jobs.  One day we did 2 jobs (illustrator and Story Connector).  I would have the students know what they were responsible for before we started listening.  I also had a book for all the students (lots of borrowing).  I feel that this is really important when you are listening to a book on tape.  I wish I could post the job pages.  They are great because they tell the students "What your job is" and "What your job is when you meet with your group".  They know both objectives which is very important.  I also have a Literature Circle bulletin board so the students can refer to it for help.

We ended the week with meeting our group teacher and our group members.  I am going to do another post talking about the behind the scenes planning that went into this unit.  Have fun!