Teacher's Cabinet: Essential Questions

I am a firm believer that students need to know what they are learning, why they are learning it, and how they know they learned it. That is where essential questions come in to place. I start every lesson with an essential question. It does not matter what subject it is. Students need to have a purpose and direction.

Since we adopted a new reading program, it is important that I stand firm with this belief. The good new is that the program comes with these already in place. But, they need to be visible for students to refer back to throughout the lesson.

Since I am on the Implementation Team for my school district, I have written up these pages for you to hang on your reading wall. I have grades 1-4 available. Each page is labeled with the lesson, in case they get out of order.

Here is a sneak peak of what they look like.

Each week, I slide them in and out of a sheet protector on my reading wall. You could laminate them as well, but time is limited. I made them in grayscale so save on ink and it goes with every classroom decor. I refer back to our reading wall multiple times a day! My kiddos know that by the end of the lesson, they need to be able to answer the essential question with evidence. They can reference any of the texts and discussions, as long as they can support their answer.