I am feeling pretty good about this chapter because I feel like I do about 100 of them a day with the kids! I am exaggerating…of course…but sometimes I feel like we use them too much. I start doubting myself and thinking that we should be doing something else. Then, I read this chapter and I think I should maybe be doing 200 of them a day with my kids! Doesn’t research make you feel all warm and tingly inside?
No?
Me neither, really. However, I do like knowing that smarter people than me that study this kind of stuff are giving me the green light on what I’m doing in my classroom that is best practice for my kiddos.
I love doing 4 squares with my kids. It’s a great way for them to organize their thoughts and to draw a picture. I have used these throughout the different subjects. You can even use it in math. Think. One number in the middle and then representing that number in different ways. For reading comprehension, they can do the elements of the story or character traits. This might be my favorite type of graphic organizer because there really are so many ways you can use it across the different subjects.
We are going to be doing a lot of these after Spring Break with Fairy Tales. I love using Venn Diagrams to compare characters. This was one that we did back during our Gingerbread unit.
A circle map is another great graphic organizer to do with your kids. It’s a way to get ideas down and clustered together. This was one that we did when we were studying about natural vs. man-made.
I know I have more pictures but I don’t want to bore you with the same pictures over and over again! You need to get hopping around to other blogs to see what other ideas they have! If you are planning to link up, here is your graphic organizer 🙂
My wonderful friend, Michelle, at Fabulous in First Grade is hosting the linky party on her blog today so make sure to link up and check out all of the other great posts!
Isn’t that a hoot – you feel like you could be using them too much {don’t think that’s possible} and I don’t use them enough! I definitely have been motivated to incorporate them into our learning more!
Thanks so much for sharing all of the graphic organizers you use with your students! I love the math one that you shared where they show the number in different ways. I have used something like that before and might be something I need to pull back out to use! I love the idea of having students vote on which graphic organizer to use. I bet they would love that!! Thanks for sharing and have a great weekend!
recipeforteaching
I enjoyed reading your post. I really liked seeing the various organizers you use in your classroom. I had the same takeway: They are da bomb!!!
Love your take away and those graphic organizers!