A Year at a Glance {ELA}

THANK YOU to everyone who participated in Pin it to Win it!  The winner was Julie!  Julie, an e-mail is coming your way!

I saw in the comments a few days ago someone had asked about how my grade level and I planned for ELA.  Well this was our first year without a basal and our county made an ELA unit analysis document that tells us what common core standards they want us to teach, in a 6 week period, with a certain theme.  Every grade level has their own.  We took these and choose a different text for each week to focus on. We had a list of exemplar/recommended texts to pick from that our state and county had developed. 

 Once we chose our books based on the themes, our school bought six copies of each book we picked for the whole year.  (This is stored in an AMAZING common core book room, more on that tomorrow!) This isn't the only text we read but it is usually the one we start our week with and use for most of the activities.  We then took all the standards and broke them into weeks with what we felt would best go with the books we chose.  I posted each "unit at a glance" below to give you an idea of how we broke it up.  Please keep in mind this was our very first year teaching the CCSS and we will probably make some small changes next year for what worked/didn't work this year and to accommodate specialty weeks (ex. halloween, christmas, etc.) Sorry they aren't very colorful but I had to squeeze so much into each page, I didn't have much room left for anything cute. And since this is just a "glance" I have a very short description by each standard to remind myself of what it focuses on.





You can also see all the "main" books we have read or are planning to read for the year at the top of each chart (I think someone had asked about these books, I'm sorry if I never answered!).  If a title is very vague it's because we are reading several books on that topic, usually they are non-fiction. 

Well that's our year in a glance for ELA.  If you have trouble reading it (I know it's a little blurry), you can download a copy of it, HERE.  Let me know what you think or what you'd like to know more about!


8 comments

  1. Thanks so much for posting this! I too, am in NC - Zebulon ;)
    My team has been putting off revamping our LA curriculum because it seemed so daunting, but this is wonderful and I can't wait to share it with my team when we return from track-out next week.
    Love your ELA units too - have you thought about bundling the 6 units to provide a year-long ELA unit "curriculum"?
    Last question - how does your ELA block work? We started using Daily 5 this year and I'm trying to figure out how to use your units with what we are already doing.

    Thanks! Love your stuff :)

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    1. Hi Allyson! I haven't thought of bundling all the units. I guess I just thought that so many teachers are all over the place with the books that they choose, using all of the same units we use is probably rare. But it may be something to look at in the future : )

      We have a literacy framework that our county has mandated we use for literacy block. The literacy block is 90 minutes, 30 minutes for whole group, 60 minutes for independent centers (I also pull small groups during this time for 15-20 minutes each). Writing is also supposed to be incorporated throughout the literacy block in a reader response kind of way. I do have another 30 minutes for writing instruction later in the day. So, as far as the unit. I typically read aloud the books since I only have on copy, on Mondays and we do some type of reader response activity. Tuesdays we have a text that is similar to the theme but may be a Reading A to Z book, e-book or one of the leveled readers from the resource room. Wednesday is very similar to Tuesday. Thursday is a Scholastic News day, we get in a lot of our informational text standards on this day, unfortunately it doesn't tend to go with the theme. Friday is our assessment day, I typically give a comprehension, vocabulary and spelling test every Friday. Sometimes I use the worksheets that come with the Scholastic News as their comprehension test on Friday. I know this is a lot of testing but we also have a "bubble gum club" which has really motivated my 2nd graders to want to take their tests. If they get a 100% on any test, they can chew bubble gum the following Friday during literacy block.

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  2. In interested in your books...with charlottes web did you read the whole novel in 2 weeks? Do your kids still have reading books for homework etc all linked to their ability or do you all read the same books based from your plan?

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    1. Hi! Yes, we read the whole book in 2 weeks. It's just a read aloud though in my room. It try to read a chapter a day using part of my whole group literacy time and our silent reading time each day. All my kiddos are supposed to read an A.R. book for homework each night, this is a library book that's on their independent reading level. They are supposed to test on it every morning, I say "supposed to" because they usually don't, but as long as they meet their quarterly reading goal, I don't push it. They also have an hour each day of center time/small group instruction time during the Charlotte's Web unit which they read several texts independently.

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  3. I love this! I was actually reading Common Core Curriculum Maps English Language Arts yesterday and saw your post! This has to be where your county looked! I hope to further use your units and I thank you for taking the time to share this! :)

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  4. Pinned it! Thanks for sharing! I like the condensed version.

    Laurie
    Chickadee Jubilee

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  5. These are excellent! Just curious, when you use reading a to z books, does each child read the same book, or are you choosing ones specific to their reading level??

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  6. Hi Amy! Usually I choose three different levels unless we are reading the book as a whole group. The great thing about Reading A-Z is that they will give you books on a certain topic with many levels. So, I usually make 4-6 on a lower level, medium level and higher level. It takes some time to laminate and bind them but then I use them year after year.

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