I Can Statements

I think it is imperative to have students be involved in their own learning. It is one thing to perform well on a test or quiz, but to be able to take away the big idea after the lesson is over. 

For this reason, I love the idea of "I Can" Statements. These statements are student-friendly versions of Common Core Content Standards. For example, if the CCCS is "compare two decimals to the thousanths place based on the meaning of the digit in each place" , the I can statement is "I can read, write, and compare decimals to the thousandths". These " I Can" statements can be easliy found on Teachers pay Teachers to correlate with your particular grade level. Many of the versions even show what CCCS the statement correlates to. 

I have begun to implement these into my lessons! What better way to open a lesson than to allow the students to understand what they should walk away understanding?  I wanted to create a system where I could easily display the statements and the students could read them daily. I also wanted to be able to easily interchange the statements as we move from standard to standard. This got my creativity flowing.

I created a hanging chart for my board! 

I found colorful scrapbook paper, listed each of my subjects, and left a empty strip where I could continue the statement, "I can:". I laminated the paper so that I could write and erase with a Expo marker. This chart hangs at the side of my board. I takes up very little space which I adore. I list the statements correlating to the CCCS we will cover that particular day.  I caught a peek of a few of my boys gathered around it today trying to guess what our writing lesson would be about. I love that they are so excited to learn!