What I ACTUALLY use from my curriculum

As a teacher it is very hard to decide how much of the curriculum is appropriate for your particular set of students. The people who made that curriculum aren’t usually in contact with that age group or see their skills very often. That means some of the tasks in curriculums are way too low or way too high for our students.

That being said- using curriculum isn’t all bad, just figure out what works for you and your class.

I like to use:

Table top anchor charts- these help save paper and come already colored. They contextual information on the back so you can go in depth and use them in lessons!

Physical read alouds- many of the curriculum books we read are out of our consumable book. I like these physical books because I get to read it to students and then they get to read themselves while holding the actual book.

High frequency word cards- these word cards are show words that are in our story, on our spelling list, and words that are important. I love to go over them and have the student create their own sentence with their tables and then hang them on the board.

Sound/spelling display cards- these help out so much when we are learning a new way to spell a sound we already know. I tell the students to check their resources and try all the combinations to come up with the correct spelling.

Weekly overview- this one is more of a guide. I usually take two or three things from this whole week and use it in my own planning just to keep me on track with standards.

supplemental workbook- while activity and hand on based learning is my favorite approach, it can’t always be that way. Sometimes we actually have to take physical grades. I love these pages because they are challenging but also great short and sweet reviews. I never want my students to feel frustrated by their work and I feel like these are the perfect tool for that!