Anchors Away! Starting Point

The leisurely pace of summer is drawing quickly to a close. I only have three days of summer left before I HAVE to go to work. This Thursday I report for an official faculty meeting... sigh!

I've already begun 'working' in that I've begun to seriously plan my introductory lessons and materials. One of the first lessons that I do with seventh grade Language Arts students is that of recognizing and writing compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. I've already worked with this group of students for two years so I know they have the background skills (independent vs. dependent clauses) to prepare them. I'm planning on creating an anchor chart to serve both as a memory guide and an introduction to the types of sentences so I'm joining Deb's linky at Crafting Connections this week.

I found a great post about anchor charts over at Minds in Bloom. The post details a best practice for creating anchor charts. Boy, did I need to see this! I especially like the description for how to place information on the chart. There is even a sample template provided.

I'm not very artistic and don't always have a good sense of how I should design a chart. This template is a terrific starting point, breaking down the key areas of the chart and what information to include in each. I believe that if I follow a similar pattern on each chart that I create this year, my students may find my charts easier to read and use. Thanks, Minds in Bloom, for a great starting point; I'm actually looking forward to starting this one!

Be sure to stop by Crafting Connections for more blog posts about anchor charts.