Fluency Passages and Classroom Banner

This past weekend was full of projects!  The first one I tackled was a WELCOME banner that I will
attach outside my classroom door.  My school mascot is the bulldog, so this year I want to go with a dog theme.  So far, I have a bunch of paw print decorations from Really Good Stuff and some dog bone cut outs that I’m going to use to write students name on to put on their lockers.  After already diving into the dog theme, I realized that there aren’t as many dog-themed decorations as I thought there would be, so I’m going to make some on my own.

This welcome banner was pretty easy, but time consuming for me to make.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the scalloped triangle bunting, letters (which were a pain to get off of the cutting mat because of all the little pieces) and paw prints.  I glued it all together and then ran it through my laminating machine so that it can hang up all year.  After laminating, I hole punched some holes on either side of the top part of each bunting and used some black yarn to join them together.  Again, it wasn’t a difficult project, just a long one because of how long it took for the Cameo to cut everything.   I really wanted to use one of those wine glasses to have a glass of wine when I finished, but I figured that 2am was an unacceptable time for someone not in college to start drinking.  Instead, I went to bed.  🙂

Ok, now on to the next project, which took me a little longer than the weekend, but I just finally finished it today after working on it for awhile.  I finally just posted some reading fluency passages.  There are 15 fiction and 15 nonfiction.  Each passage is leveled with the 2012 CCSS Lexile Level and fall between 520L to 830L.  All passage have between 196 and 222 words.  This is perfect for third grade minute timed tests.

Each passage contains three components – A teacher passage with numbered columns and a chart to record words correct and number of errors daily.  Of course, you don’t have to use it everyday, because really, who has the time, but it’s there to keep track of the days you do time the students.  There is also a student copy which has a larger font for the students to read off of while you are recording on the teacher’s sheet. Lastly, there is a reading comprehension sheet that contains three questions in a short answer format.

I also spent, what seems like forever, making graphs for the students to record their cold and hot read in blue or red so they can keep track of their progress.  The first time the child reads would be the cold read and he/she will color in the graph in blue.  Then when the child practices and reads to you again, he/she will color in red their hot read.  It is really beneficial for students to keep track of their scores and see their progress.

Additionally, there is a weekly parent reading log.  It will help encourage parents to practice and record how they practiced the passage at home with their child.  All they have to do is have the child read to them,  read with the child, or read to the child.  The parent just has to circle the way they practiced and sign it each night.  I hope that this wouldn’t take more than a few minutes a night.

All the passages are organized by genre and in order of difficulty.  It would be super easy to refer to so you can start students at the lower levels at the beginning of the year and move down the lists as the year progresses.

If you would like to download a free preview of one of the passages you can hop on over and see it in my TpT store.  Just click on “Download Preview” towards the top of the page to read it.

I think I’m going to take the rest of the week off from working on school stuff.  I’m wiped out!