Small group genre conferencing
One of my goals this year is to get to know my students better and provide more focused interactions to help them find books. I love one-on-one interactions, but with many students and little time, it will take me weeks to conference with everyone. I decided to try mini-groups so I could address students' interests but do so in a way that will allow me to reach more students in less time. 3rd-5th graders began class by reading about 4 different genres. Students then wrote their name on a post-it and placed it on the genre that most interested them. I broke them into 4 groups according to like genre interests. Groups rotated through 4 stations: B3 (Big Book Bonanza) - looking at books of their chosen genre Book checkout Jokes Read it/Do It (looking at active non-fiction books) We had only 5 minutes at each station, but this kept everyone moving. Each group had a "Paper Manager" and a "Navigator" to help keep the group organiz...