My school district uses Benchmark Workshop as our reading curriculum, and now, on year three of implementing it in my classroom, I feel comfortable and confident not only using it, but also in supplementing it, in a way my students not only enjoy it, but also learn from it. Please know that my district allows us to supplement and use additional resources that work well for us, so this might look different from district to district. Please also know that I am not a perfect teacher. These work for us, but I can't promise they are perfect! Haha
Unit 1 / Week 1 - This week we focus primarily on asking questions, main idea, and the cause/effect text structure. During week 1 I teach all of the Benchmark mini lessons, but also supplement using the book "When Lunch Fights Back". This is the perfect book for practicing ALL THREE of our main focus skills for the week. I highly recommend it!
What our week one looks like:
- Day 1: Introduce the Unit: Partners in Survival
- Day 2: Ask Questions Mini-lesson (I focus on thick/thin questions)
We then practice this using "When Lunch Fights Back" / Chapter 1: Slip-Sliming Away - Together we read the story and generate good, strong questions to guide our reading as we read the chapter. I took pictures of each page of the chapter so students could follow along with me on the board. As we read, students fill out, what I call, a "Wacky H Chart".
- Day 3: Infer Central Ideas Mini-Lesson / Build Vocabulary Mini-lesson - I model writing the main idea on a table (with the legs being the details). We will use this method to write the main idea/details the rest of the unit.
- Day 4: Outside Practice using "When Lunch Fights Back" - Chapter 5 - "Here's Blood in Your Eye" -We practice asking and answering strong questions questions and inferring the main idea. Once again, I took pictures of each page of the chapter so students could follow along with me on the board. As we read, students fill out, what I call, a "Wacky H Chart". When we finished, we completed our "main idea" table.
- Day 5: Analyze Text Structure Mini Lesson - We then look back into yesterday's "When Lunch Fights Back" story and find cause/effect relationships. (This book is full of them!!)
- Day 6: Independent/Group practice using "When Lunch Fights Back" Chapter 3: Toxic Bubbles. I don't stress over completing each week in an actual "week" but if you do, you could easily give this as independent practice during small group time/centers time.
- Day 7: Week 1 Benchmark Assessment - I give the assessment as is, but I do require students to jot down questions do guide their reading. They write one strong before reading question, two during reading questions, and one post-reading question.
If you want to grab the (VERY) basic worksheets I used during week one, sign up for my email list
HERE. Once you are all signed up, you will be emailed these worksheets.
When Somebody Claps Twice // Cause and Effect Activity
I found this fun little team building game a couple of years ago and it is the PERFECT model of cause and effect relationships. Not my idea, but LOVE it.
