Guest Blogger: iPods and Differentiation with Miss Peluso

Hey there! It's Gina from Miss Peluso's Kindergarten.  I am SO beyond excited to be here today blogging for the amazing Kristen! Thanks for the opportunity, doll! I am fairly new to the blogging scene, so if you haven't stumbled upon my blog yet, I hope that this post will make you want to hop on over and check it out! I am a kindergarten teacher from Connecticut and I started blogging about a month and a half ago to share my love and passion for teaching and creating with all of you.  Today, I want to tell you all about one way I am transforming my guided reading block for the new school year. This past year, one of my teammates and I applied for a grant and each received 2 iPods for our classrooms.  I am so excited to have an iPod listening center instead of using a large CD player with a splitter.  Now, when students choose to go to the listening center, they will take an iPod caddy, book, and response sheet to a quiet spot in the room.  To make my iPod caddies, I personalized some small caddies that I found at the Target Dollar Spot {my favorite place!} with mod podge, a glue gun, and my Cricut.

You can see that in the caddy, there is the iPod, pencils and colored pencils, and headphones.  Everything my kinders will need to complete their response sheets! No more wandering around the room to find what they need!

I uploaded each CD from the Scholastic Listening Library onto the iPods.  I love these audio books because they come with 3 tracks: a track with page turn signals, a track without page turn signals, and a comprehension question track.  My favorite thing about having these iPods is that I uploaded an image of the book cover along with each story.  This will allow my students to find the book that they are listening to without having to worry about reading the titles.  All they have to do is match the book cover to the picture on the iPod! AMAZING!

So, I bet you're wondering, how am I going to hold my students accountable for their work at the listening center?  I love products that allow my students to work independently, so what I created is just that! We all know that every student in our class is SO different, so I made multiple versions to allow me to differentiate for all of my students' needs. Here's an example for your kiddos who need extra support, or for the beginning of the year in kindergarten.

And here's what the same recording sheet looks like for more advanced students.

I've created an entire Listening Center Snapshots pack with 12 differentiated recording sheets.  Here are just some of the recording sheets that are included: ~my favorite part ~retelling ~character swap ~setting switch ~different ending ~problem and solution ~compare/contrast

I love collaborating and sharing with other teachers, and I'd love to share this pack with you! If you would like to use these recording sheets in your classroom, I will be giving them away for FREE on my blog today. All you have to do is head on over to my blog and follow me {click here}! Later on today, I will publish a blog post with this entire pack for free, and all of my followers will be the fabulous recipients!! After that, you can purchase this pack for just $1.50 in my TPT store, {here}! Thanks again for allowing me to take over Easy Teaching Tools today!!