Hey, hey teacher friends!
Who else feels like teaching royalty when they walk out of the school on Friday and ALL of their activities are ready for the week ahead!?
Now, planning time is something that we all crave big time. I actually spend most of my planning time designing independent meaningful ,engaging, high order, activities for language arts and math.
One of our absolute favorite activities these days is sorts of all sorts.
See what I did there?
We started with math sorts not long ago, and I have seen such great progress in all of my students, that I decided to give these grammar sorts a try.
When it comes to literacy instruction, the curriculum is so dense… I really work hard at making my balanced literacy lesson plans just that: balanced. I am truly devoted to providing my students with different instructional formats to meet their needs: whole group, small groups, individual conferences, partner work, etc. Most of their time is used for comprehension and vocabulary instruction and strategies.
But how about language?
It is so fun to teach, and our students discover the beauty of parts of speech, plurals, types of sentences, word relationships.
And so much more!
When our students are aware of the structure of our language, they start to notice how the text works in close reading routines. This is just one of the many advantages! Generally speaking, my students complete these sorts independently during their literacy stations, while I meet with small groups or I do individual conferences.
Let me show you what is inside these grammar and language sorts:
I also teach the students to do the sorts in three different ways:
1. Cut and paste:
Students do the traditional cut and paste in their journals or in a piece of construction paper.
2. Solve and highlight:
If you don’t want to have your students cutting and pasting, you may provide them with two highlighters. This way, they can sort and enjoy some “fun pens” while learning important concepts and skills.
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