Color Coding for Language Arts!

Hi friends!  Just curious...how many of you have ever tried "color coding" your language arts instruction?  I just finished my newest packet (click here to see it) and couldn't wait to share it with you all! What do I mean by color coding? Well, each student has a complete set of colored pencils that they use to "code" their language arts skills and parts of speech in their writings, class chart stories, and sentences.
When I started teaching I was fortunate enough to be with a very energetic mentor teacher.  Whew...she was wide open "wild" with the energy of a wild child!  I'll never forget her (really...she could have been a stand-up comedian).  She taught first grade and one of her daily routines was to do a morning "chart story" and act it out with her students.  I was amazed at how well this routine of "clapping our ending marks" and "saluting our capital letters" helped our students retain the skills.  I followed her lead and used this technique when I started teaching and taught first grade.  My students LOVED this idea of acting out their grammar skills and following charts for coding their nouns, verbs, adjectives, and more!  Here is a sneak peak of my packet...Language Arts Code, Count, and Tally Tickets based on the same idea but designed to follow Common Core Standards:

 There are sentences and language prompts coded with the CCSS standards.  Each ticket has a writing prompt for students to write in their journals! 

On another note, I've been finishing up my fall conferences and I have LOVED using my Common Core Notebooks with my students!  I have to brag on my students for their first "student-led conferences" and their organizational skills.  I've loved hearing my students share with their parents their evidence of learning the standards and skills checklists.  Wow...it has made conferences so much easier!!! Yes, it was work at the beginning to train the kids with the notebooks but now it is all worth it!  They love writing new standards down on recording forms and filing work samples as evidence.

We are working now on goal setting and weekly reflection tickets.  My students are very familiar with goal tickets because we use them with our Common Core notebooks but I would like to try a weekly reflection/goal sheet.  I found this freebie I really like from some fabulous teachers at "Fab in Fourth" on TpT!  Check out their "Week at a Glance" sheet available for us all to use!  I am starting this with my kiddos this week and hope it will help them with goal setting and reflection of learning for each week in Reading, Math, and Science/Social Studies.  I'll keep you posted and let you know how our "week at a glance" reflection is going.  Thanks to the ladies at Fab in Fourth! Thanks so much friends and have a great week!-Yvonne :)