Literature Circles

I know. It's the middle of June and most of y'all are either out of school by now or finishing up. The last thing on your mind is probably school right now, but I was going through pictures on my computer and I realized I had never shared with y'all how I finally incorporated literature circles in my classroom. I've been wanting to do this forever and while it might be a bit harder to tackle in 1st grade, I do think it is doable. It worked wonderfully in my 5th grade classroom though, so maybe you'll walk away with some ideas and some freebies! :)

I did my first literature circle when we were finishing up our novel study on Tuck Everlasting. We divided into 3 groups of 6-7 each. The groups were randomly selected. I had started to let them group themselves, but I wanted to mix it up a little and have them work with people they aren't best friends.  After dividing up, I passed out these little buttons and assigned everyone a job. 

These little buttons were super easy to make! I found the clear buttons here and then created each job circle, printed, cut, and popped them in. The hardest part was sizing the circles to make them fit, but I've already done that for you! You can grab a free copy of the inserts in my TpT Shop here. 

I was worried that the kids wouldn't want to wear them or they would think they were babyish, but they LOVED them! I was actually surprised at how big a hit they were. 

Once everyone got assigned a job, it was time to get down to business. You can find the job description sheets here.

These literature circles helped aid discussion really well in my classroom and the kids LOVED it! I will definitely be doing this a lot more next year! :)