Guided Reading Folders with Freebie and Tracking Learning Poster

Today, I'm just another blogger linking up with Tara, over at 4th Grade Frolics, for her Monday Made It.  It's my first time linking up with her, so I'm excited.

As y'all know, I joined Pinterest last week and YOU WERE ALL RIGHT!  I'm obsessed!  I've seen so many cute project ideas.  I check my phone constantly and it was the perfect way to entertain myself while my husband watched all 4 days and all 72 holes of the U.S. Golf Open.  That's being said, both of my Monday Made-It projects are Pinterest inspired.

My first project was inspired by something I saw on What the Teacher Wants! She has a great post on guided reading, including free printables, so if you haven't checked it out, go for it.  This is what I loved:

Now, they do teach younger kids who move through their GR levels a little bit faster than 4th graders (due to excellent teaching, of course), but I loved the idea of having a folder to show the movement and growth of my students.  Right now, I typically only benchmark twice a year, but I will be benchmarking my lower readers mid-year as well.

I tweaked the folder a bit and made it my own and braved Walmart for the needed supplies.

The folders were only $1 and there are 3 totally cute folders in the pack.  Total cost...$2.00!

Here is the inside of the folder.  I had to cover one side with some white paper because it had these weird lines for notes.  Very strange. Anyway, since I teach 4th grade, I started with GR level J and only went through W.  I know I will have students reading below J, but a majority of my class will sit somewhere on these letters.  The GR level to grade level correlation varies depending on which scale you look at, but most seem to consider R-S end of the year 4th grade and T the beginning of 5th.  Once students make it to the blue part of the folder, we are good to go!  :)

I'm not much of a velcro kid.  I'm a post-it kid.  I use post-its for everything, so instead of attaching velcro and creating matching velcro pieces with student names, I just use post-its.  This is also easier when you have a high mobility rate and students are constantly filtering in and out of your room. 

I have always used folders to form my reading groups (yes, with the post-its), and I had two other cute folders so I created a new group folder and a folder for my notes.

The groups folder will be used to identify my reading groups. Very basic, but works great for quickly regrouping kids and remembering who is in what group.  The  post-its really help them stay flexible.

The notes folder will be used to hold my guided reading checklists for all my groups. You can get my guided reading checklist for free in my TN store, just click here!.  I did not come up with this idea.  I just retyped it and tweaked it to meet my needs. Let me know if you find it useful.

 So...that's my first completed project.  All I have to do now is... lllaaammiinnnaatteee!

My second project was another quick and easy poster for keeping track of exit tickets. I'm sure y'all have seen this floating around on Pinterest. The students complete their exit ticket (short response, math problem, etc.) on their post it and put their post-it on their number.  How could I not use something that involves Post-its?!?

Originally from Cheryl's Classroom Tips

 As soon as I saw this, I thought...exit tickets are like tracks of thinking, which led me to this...

Each paw print has a student number.  Students will leave their learning tracks post-it on their number.

I'm so excited to laminate it for next year.  It's going to be a great tool for both myself and my students.  The opportunities to use this are endless.  Ideas?  Please post a comment below.

So, those are the things I've made for my classroom this week.  Hopefully, once we get moved I will be able to get into some more crafty things.  I'm going crazy with everything in boxes.  My classroom is in boxes, my house in boxes, my life is basically in boxes right now. Ugh!

But, enough about that.  Before I go, I wanted to quickly tell y'all about another great 4th grade blog: Smiles and Sunshine.  She is newer to the blog world and is having a little end of year giveaway - $25 giftcard to Amazon.  Woot! Woot!  Go check out Kaitlyn at Smiles and Sunshine and show her blog a little love.

As for me?  I'm going to continue packing.  Time to tackle my closet, and believe me, that's a scary place. I might need to check out more great ideas from the Monday Made-It Linky first.  Um...pinning!