Listening and Speaking

I never posted last night after my big planning/shopping day because I was busy reading other blogs all night! 🙂 Well, I did watch Big Brother and I don’t feel sorry for Keith. He had NO GAME! And I’m happy Jordan won HOH. She’s too funny!!

I have to confess that I did not bargain shop and have no $1 finds to share. I swear, our local teacher supply store’s prices went up!! Does $3.00 for a dozen birthday pencils sound expensive to you?! GEESH!

During planning, my friend and I revised our Sharing dates. I got the idea of Sharing from my friend, Christina, who I have mentioned before. She should really start her own teacher blog but I think she is going to start a blog of a different kind. I’ll let you know when she begins because it’s very exciting . . . and unusual! 🙂

Sharing is the program that we use for our Listening and Speaking grades, or Oral Language, as it’s called in our district. But there’s just something about the word “oral” that I don’t like. (eeew) Basically, it’s show and tell but with a FOCUS. We have a year long list of topics and students have an assigned day to share. They get up in front of the class with their item and tell all about it. My kids stand beside me so that I can whisper prompts if they need help and I also record how they did in my Sharing Folder and write notes. When the student is finished sharing, they get to pull a stick for a comment, compliment, or question from our audience. We used to pull two sticks but when my class size went up, Sharing was taking TOO long so I had to cut back. My team tied in our Step Up to Writing program with Sharing so that students start to use transition and conclusion words in their speaking, as well. It involves a stoplight to help them organize their thoughts but you could also use the Hamburger method or whatever you’re used to. It is a BIG HIT every year. Parents tell me that even though their child is deathly ill, they wanted to come to school because it was their Sharing day. 🙂 Gotta love that!

I talk about Sharing at P.I.N. so that parents understand the expectations, such as, the item should FIT IN their backpack. I learned this one the hard way when the topic “Something with Wheels” came up and I got a phone call from the office saying that so-and-so’s bicycle was up there!!!! FOR REAL!! I also tell parents it should not be something SO SUPER SPECIAL that they have to drop it off in the classroom before going down to the playground. And, of course, it should be school appropriate (no weapon-like toys).

Here’s a peek of last year’s cover page:

And if you’re interested in seeing the whole thing, you can download it HERE. I hate how my fonts and spacing don’t stay true in google docs if it’s not PDF, but at least you get the idea.

Please leave a comment if you check it out and/or let me know if you do something similar. I LOVE new ideas!
Happy Friday!