Anchor Charts
 
Maybe I use “love” too freely-but I “Love” anchor charts like I “Love” literacy stations. Anchor charts are class generated skills resource charts.These are samples that were inspired by “those I follow,” and/or by my brilliant classroom students. Only a few would be to “keep”(after being de-constructed) Several would not be relevant to another class as the ideas belong to the class that constructed them. Here are a few that may inspire you to begin: “creating” with your class These “hangie thingies” were birthed out of an ever ebbing wall space. After introducing blends and digraphs, we pick a picture to represent the sound- last year we had Theo’s picture for “th.” this year I brought in thumbprint cookies. The motivation to add blends to these anchor charts is amazing. Helps with “What can I write about?” Trigraphs on triangles  Used a Scholastic News for this one. Ever reminding to “think and Read.” Words and names with a “y” making the long e sound. From Meacham’s writers workshop. Another Meacham- Spellings of “er”- We noticed one day the Best combinations of +R controlled vowels. soft “a” schwa sound at the strategies I have seen. THe children pick the beginning of word. Then we (Each is separately sample pictures. Our added words as children introduced and favorite is the pirate, find more examples. discussed.) “arrrr” for ar.

“My schema is different than your schema.”

Part deux:  After Christmas Break

Things naturally change mid year as the children are maturing--and after peeking at the Indiana IREAD for first grade I was compelled to ramp up phoneme awareness in our bag of strategies.  Actually, as a sign of the times, we call our strategies  “weapons” to “attack” words --so we “beat” them and they don’t “beat” us. Sounds so violent- but it relates to my class this year! No! They are not the least bit violent, but they connect to strong superheroes and heroines. So the terms motivate--- “Don’t tell me the word, I want to beat it.” Ahhhh, music to a first grade teacher’s ears.


THE PLAN: Introduce the phoneme in the morning message-  I usually use it in a few words that they have a good chance of figuring out. And, really, by this time of year they have figured out much of this, they just haven’t realized it. Then I pull out a cute “anchor picture.” I draw one or find one on the net.  Sometimes I’ll solicit from them words they think have the pattern, other times I’ll have some written for decoding or acting out.  We add these to the anchor picture and post the chart. It is amazing how they refer to the charts and insist that I add words as they find them in print. Several times it has been the first thing said to me in the morning....... “Can we put the word Boggle on our le chart?”  They really call it the “ull” chart.

Scroll down for the “After Christmas” charts!