This lesson is designed for 4-5th grade ESL or EFL learners. The topic for this reading worksheet is technology with the theme of the world's first computer. ANSWERS INCLUDED!
It’s been awhile since I last posted, so thought I’d share what we’re working on in the art room! I’M SUPER excited because there are 3 NEW art lessons that we’ll be s…
Ms. Sapkarov, you type FAST! Yes, my friends, I really do. We're reading Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me in one of my 5th grades and t...
When I started at my new school last year, I came into a new reading program. I was used to doing almost all of my reading instruction WHOLE CLASS, but my school uses a guided reading model all the way up to 5th grade. I definitely had to rethink my reading block! I had done centers in the past, but wanted a really clear way to maximize the time and make the transitions clear for the students. Here's how I do my guided reading block! ROTATIONS We have Guided Reading/Centers Monday-Thursday from about 1:10-2:00 and I rotate through four groups. This means each center is 12 minutes long, with about 30 seconds for a transition. 12 minutes can fly by, so the students have to work on getting those transitions DOWN. I found a FANTASTIC resource by my friend Kristen of Chalk & Apples, and it has made centers SO easy. There are tons of different icons that can be easily swapped out on different days or weeks. I change mine up all the time! In a typical week, I do guided reading with leveled passages on Monday and Wednesday, and we do literature circles on Tuesdays and Thursdays. GROUPS My students are grouped according to DRA levels, because that is what my school uses. You might use AR, Lexile, or another measure. I have four groups: Low, Low-Mid, High-Mid, and High. Each group has a number, but I assign the number randomly so it doesn't match up to skill level in any way. I have 24 students in my class this year, so there will be 6 kids in each group. If you have a larger class, you can still make it work by having your higher groups work on their own while you work with a lower group and just check in! GUIDED READING I LOVE this close reading resource from Fifth in the Middle. I bought the entire bundle so I have TONS of options. Each reading comes in four reading levels, but they are on the same topic and look the same so students don't notice. There is also a paired text that I try to use for morning work toward the end of the week. There are several pages of activities for each passage, and I often have the students start these at the table with me after we've read the passage out loud. When it is their turn for guided reading, the students come to me at our back table with a pencil and a highlighter. I give them their sheets for that day and discuss what we will be looking for while we read (unfamiliar words usually) and we begin reading. I like to make sure each child reads, so however I have to break it up to make that happen. After reading through, I ask them to scan through again to find specific information. This changes week to week, so one time it might be looking for transition phrases, and another it might be looking for dates to create a timeline. Then, we talk about what everyone found and work on putting together the information on the worksheet. I, of course, provide a lot more scaffolding and support to my lower readers, while my high readers are able to do the activity on their own. LIT CIRCLES On the days that we have literature circles, the students still come to the back table with me, but this time they bring their lit circle book (which varies) and their lit circle binder. In their binder, they keep all of their jobs and their reading schedule. I have used about a GAZILLION resources for lit circles (including online blogs), but this one from Pocketful of Primary is my absolute FAVORITE: It is SOO easy to adapt to groups of different sizes and I found it very user-friendly for both the kiddos and for myself! I organize the jobs using a hanging file I found on Amazon. You can find it here: THE OTHER CENTERS So what do the kiddos do during their other blocks of time? Here's some options I cycle through: STAPLES: Partner Reading Each student has a partner from their reading group that they meet up with for this activity. I typically use "I Survived" books or similar short chapter books. I stock up through Scholastic! I have 6 shared books for the entire class, and I place a sheet inside the front cover so the students can write their names and where they ended each day they read. I always have new books ready to go for the students who finish. I do this strictly for fluency, so I don't do quizzes or worksheets. Silent Reading (KBAR) In my class, we call silent reading KBAR- Kick Back and Read. When we do a whole class KBAR, I sometimes take it outside. Spelling (Spelling City) I typically use Spelling City for centers, but sometimes do a worksheet instead. Vocabulary (Quizlet)Quizlet is AMAZING. I love using this for vocabulary! The students really enjoy it as well. Keyboarding (KWT) This is a tough one since monitoring the students' finger placement is so important. I don't do this OFTEN as a center, but throw it in now and again. Writing If we are working on a longer project (such as the state report), I have the students use this chunk of time for that. Otherwise, I sometimes provide a prompt or allow them to free write. Here's one of the resources I use: NoRedInk If you've never used this site, CHECK IT OUT! It's one of the best ways to get some extra grammar practice into your day! Be aware that the initial set up takes a bit of time because the students have to select a bunch of their favorites from different categories: books, tv shows, movies. What's neat is the site uses their preferences and their name + their friends' names when building the practice sentences. The kids get a kick out of it! Task Cards (small group) Students work with their reading group and record their answers on individual answer sheets. I have a huge selection of task cards that I keep in one of these bad boys from Michael's: Cursive (Can Do) I love that my school teaches cursive, but in fifth grade, we don't have a lot of specific time for it. To keep the kid's practicing, I assign pages from our cursive book during centers. Reading Comprehension (Reading Plus) We use Reading Plus, but there are many online reading comprehension sites. Use whatever your district provides or what works for your class! Games I will occasionally throw in a review game for the kids to play with their small group. The key is they have to be short and not too loud! Comment below if you have other questions or want to add some advice on running smooth ELA centers with Guided Reading!
Disassembled iPod 5th Generation in display frame With it's iconic design & interface, the iPod revolutionised the way we purchase & listen to music. To celebrate it's achievements, we have carefully disassembled the iPod, delicately displayed and noted the key components and it's technical specifications within a display frame and securely mounted onto 350gsm backing card. It is perfect for anyone who has a passion for design and technology and will make an excellent feature piece for any home or office. The artwork display immortalises the iPod, re-kindles memories of the recent past and saves it from being relegated to the back of a forgotten drawer or destined for land-fill . Each frame size is 44cm x 32cm with the backing card at A3 size. Each frame is fitted with a high clarity styrene shatterproof perspex front. Please note - Whilst we only source the best iPods on the market, they are items that have been used on a daily basis and will show signs of use. If looking to purchase outside of the UK, please get in touch to discuss delivery options. Any questions, please fell free to get in touch and we will be happy to help. Thankyou
Ha, sorry! I learned this song in elementary school to the tune of "Danse Macabre" and it's stuck with me ever since. Here's the video from YouTube that I like to use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Eg8UifzmI Anyways, I thought I'd share some Halloween activities my classes have been doing. In the Hall of the Mountain King - Grieg This is the first year I've really delved into Grieg. I love the music and the melody really sticks in the kids' heads! I start introducing it in Kindergarten and 1st grade with Eric Litwin's (Pete the Cat!!!) song from The Learning Groove. It takes the melody and puts in words like "I can shake my shaker egg and sneak around the room." It's fun to add egg shakers and a little movement once the students have learned the melody. As they get older, I show my intermediate students a short cartoon of the story. It's only about 5 minutes, but also adds in the "Morning Mood" music, which many of the students recognize. In the future, I'd like to add a literature connection. I've seen some great picture books online, but haven't picked one up yet. Soon! I also add rhythm sticks to the main theme, with the help of Malinda Phillips' great active listening resource! Check it out - it's free :) From there, we move on to actually feeling the beat, tempo and dynamic changes in the music. If you follow my blog, you know I LOVE Artie Almeida. She has a wonderful guiro and kickball lesson for this piece. I tried it with my third graders last week and we had so much fun! I used basketballs because we don't have enough kickballs and it still worked out just fine. Here are some pictures from my students engaging in the music: It was Character Counts week, so they're all dressed up in the careers they'd like to have.The basketball coach had to come get the balls for practice at the end of the day, but we had a good time while it lasted. Artie's lessons are truly wonderful resources. I encourage you to check out her videos on YouTube and purchase this resource. You won't regret it! Some other activities we are doing this week are: singing the story "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat!" with melody from Kristin Lukow Halloween melody patterns from Aileen Miracle's 13 Nights freebie Halloween vocal explorations and "create your own" template from Amy Abbott Witch Witch (so-mi activity) and game from The Yellow Brick Road Spooky Music listening & rating from Music with Sara Bibee (this one is a fun activity for the older kids!) The last game we are playing is a favorite of my primary students! I discovered it on Pinterest last year and the students just love it. I can't seem to find the right recording for it, though. There is a faster version and a Denise Gagne version that has a different melody. I kind of plunked it out on my own and adapt it to my student's singing ability. Here's the video of the song I use and the game: It's really fun and a great way to reinforce steady beat. What Halloween or seasonal activities are you doing this week with your students?
This Elementary Technology Curriculum includes over 200 lessons and activities for grades K-5 that will save you so much time coming up with what to do in the computer lab. It is ideal for a technology teacher, media specialist, tech facilitator, or grade level teachers with mandatory lab time. All of the work is done for you! This is for you if: You want students who can log in, access any programs, type efficiently, and use technology to learn. You want students who are confident in using the technology required for standardized testing. You have limited time– in one 45 minute session per week, your students can develop technology literacy while completing engaging projects. You need it to be effortless for YOU and fun for your students. My name is Brittany Washburn and I’m an educator obsessed with ed tech. This curriculum was created over 3 school years when I had nothing for materials for my technology specials. I was spending my nights and weekends scouring Pinterest and Google for ideas because I knew my students deserved engaging lessons even if I had to do everything from scratch. I found myself exhausted and frustrated and just knew there had to be an easier way. That is when I discovered the magic of having my own class website and screencasting my instructions. I created a modified-flipped-classroom before I even knew that was a thing. Students were working at their own pace and they stopped asking me to repeat instructions. I felt like I had struck gold! I tested and perfected the activities with them and now I’ve made them available to you!
Has your classroom turned into a 1:1 Chromebook Classroom and you are unsure of how to utilize these devices each day? Come learn about some meaningful ways to integrate these devices into your elementary classroom!
Credit: The 3AM Teacher, Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah Designs, KG Fonts, Hello Fonts It's no secret that I use my iPad ALL the time in my classroom. Some teachers are REALLY lucky and they have a cart of iPads or a class set. I only have one Wi-Fi iPad (my personal iPad) to use with my kiddos but we make it work! Before we begin let me say that I am lucky to have a Smartboard and projector in my classroom. I bought this handy little gadget to hook my iPad up to the Smartboard which helps ALOT to make the iPad more accessible to all students. This is a VGA adapter for the iPad, you can get it from the Apple website or at Best Buy. Now that we're hooked up, here are 10 of my favorite apps/activities using my iPad that benefit all the kids in my classroom. 1. iBooks This is a free app to download from the iTunes. Any read aloud book I read this year (Magic Tree House, etc.) I downloaded it from iBooks. To help with cost, I asked for iTunes gift cards for my birthday, Christmas and as a wish item for my classroom. When we read the book aloud, I would hook up to the projector so my kiddos could see the books much better than if I just held it for them. Sometimes my kiddos would read along on the Smartboard or have a specific set of questions they were working on while we read it aloud. I found that my kiddos were so much more engaged when I projected books onto the Smartboard. 2. mClass Assessment My district uses the mClass 3D Reading assessment (which also includes Diebels Next) as the K-3 reading assessment for our kiddos. I originally used a mini-laptop and a Bamboo tablet before I found out that I could use my iPad! This quickly became the only way to assess since it was so much easier! Sometimes I use a stylus when assessing but you could use your finger just as easily. (Note: my school also has Wi-Fi which makes it easy to sync, if you do not have Wi-Fi at your school you can sync when you take it home to your personal Wi-Fi or whenever you are in a Wi-Fi range) HERE are the directions to get the mClass button on your iPad. 3. Storia I have talked many times of my love for Scholastic Book Clubs, well the Storia app has added to that love. I send home Scholastic Book Clubs every month and my kiddos order books. I can spend my points to get FREE e-books using the Storia app, which I then project onto the Smartboard and read aloud to my class. They also offer some books with audio. 4. Class Dojo About halfway through the year my kids grow a little tired of all the incentives I offer for good behavior. Around January I set up Class Dojo for a new, fresh approach. Now that Class Dojo is available as a FREE app it has gotten even better! The best part of this app is that I can I project my class dojo page on the Smartboard and then open the app on my iPad. While I am sitting with my iPad and teaching small group (which is usually the time that is most difficult for classroom management) I can give Dojo points by clicking on my iPad and it shows up on the Smartboard! I don't have to say anything, I just teach my small group, do a quick scan of the rest of my kids working on centers and give a few points (or take a few points) as needed. As soon as my kids hear the "ding" of points being given it becomes super quiet! It also has an option to pick a random student, no more popsicle sticks! If I need to call on a student, I open Class Dojo and pick at random! 5. Brain Pop Jr. App We LOVE some Brain Pop Jr. in my class!! Usually I just project the website using my computer but sometimes I want to watch a video while teaching small group. I teach small group reading and math instruction everyday so I spend a lot of time at my horseshoe table. (Note: you must have a subscription to access all the brain pop videos, but there is also a FREE Brain pop video of the week you can watch each week if you don't have a subscription). 6. Small Group Instruction I use my iPad ALOT in small group. I play short videos from Grammar Jammers, read short stories from iBooks/Storia or use skill specific apps depending on my kiddos needs. So, how do we do this without disrupting ALL the other kids who are working independently and want to see what's on the iPad?? We plug in headphones using this fancy splitter! I have heard of some teachers requiring students to bring a pair of headphones to school like any other school supply at the beginning of the year so that they have headphones ready to go when using a headphone splitter. I bought headphones from Dollar Tree so I would have enough to use, they aren't the most durable but they get the job done! 7. Tap Roulette App This is the simplest app but it is AMAZING! Do you ever have an argument in your classroom that you don't want to solve?? Well this app will solve it for you! Have whichever kids are arguing put one of their fingers on the iPad and you click "Pick Finger". The iPad will flash and then pick one of the fingers, solving the argument by random selection! If you need to solve a simple problem (who was there first?? who should get the first pick?? who gets the red crayon first?? ) then this app is a lifesaver! 8. Pandora Radio My kiddos LOVE listening to music! Sometimes we dance to pop music, play freeze dance, play musical numbers/words/operations and other times we write while listening to soothing classical music. I plug my computer speakers into my headphone jack on the iPad, we choose a kid friendly station and we are good to go! Pandora has it all! (Note: Wi-Fi is needed to access Pandora) 9. Mad Libs This is another app that I project to practice our parts of speech as a whole group or for just a fun brain break. This is a great review of the different parts of speech. There are many FREE stories and also ones you can buy. I usually move around the room and choose different students to fill in each blank. They always find the final story to be hilarious : ) 10. QR Codes I found myself incorporating QR codes into more and more activities last year. My kids were fascinated with them. QR codes are SUPER easy to make using THIS website. And I usually make QR codes with answers or hidden riddles for different centers/activities around the room. I don't let the kids walk around with my iPad scanning them because I know kids sometimes drop things and I would be so sad if my iPad dropped on the floor and broke. These FREE QR codes were fun to use for test prep and then I used these QR codes in HERE to countdown the last 10 days of school! The countdown codes were a big hit at the end of the year. I also have some ideas for them in the upcoming school year! And that's how we do it folks! I hope I have given you a few new ideas for how to use 1 iPad in your classroom of many!
I've been using the Notebook software for several years and have become somewhat of a go-to person on my staff for newer users. There are many ways to make
Teaching email in the Elementary classroom can be a challenge, and there is little to find online about how to do it.
8 FREE online resources for finding historical primary source documents.
Technology Enhanced Items are appearing on Common Core and state testing. We need to prepare our students with these type of testing items. Come learn about the different types of questions/responses and grab a list of FREE websites you can use for practice in your classroom and at home.
For many, living with dyslexia is a challenge that presents itself on a daily basis. However, with new advances in technology and a deeper understanding of the condition, people living with dyslexi…
Looking for the most important classroom technology tools and skills to teach your students. Here is how I start my year.
Help your students understand animal adaptations with this google classroom digital learning resource! This resource focuses on both physical and behavioral adaptations of animals, along with important reading skills! In this digital resource or google classroom activity, students will work through important vocabulary related to animal adaptations, practice classifying the characteristics of physical and behavioral adaptations, along with comparing and contrasting the two, and practice reading a diagram. Students will also answer cause and effect questions. File Type PDF (Acrobat) Document File & Google Slides Be sure that you have an application to open this file type before downloading and/or purchasing.
Sub plans with NO TECHNOLOGY left for sub to use. Recently I shared how I use slides to make sub plans. Many of you said your subs can’t use your devices for one reason or another. Do your subs use...
I posted this on my ArtwithMrsG website (my website I share info with my students and families) but thought I should add it here too! It was such a success because the students were so proud of what they had done! The subject for our movie was a red ball that would roll into a scene, interact with that environment, change and then roll out into another scene. The students brainstormed ideas and then we put them together to flow with whatever color or colors of clay balls that were exciting and entering each scene. I was so proud of how the students worked together in small groups and then as a whole group. Even though no actual art was produced that art class - it was one of my favorites. The creativity and problem solving skills they were using put a huge smile on my face! Students each created a storyboard for their group's scene and then compared them to come up with what the group wanted to do. I gave each group a 12x18 piece of tagboard to fold to create the backdrop. They glued construction paper onto this, colored on it with various materials, and glued extra things on as needed. We propped these up by taping some metal book stands borrowed from the library to the back. Students used modeling clay and other items to create things in their scene that the clay ball would interact with. Once the back drop was done we began filming. We made sure we all had the clay balls that were coming and going from scene to scene all ready before we started filming. We doubled up on these so that many groups could film at the same time. For example if a green ball was leaving one scene and would be entering another, we created 2 identical balls so that both groups could be filming at the same time. The iPad app iMotion HD made this so easy! This app is free and a must have for the art room! Our iPads have smart covers so they were able to be propped up and worked great to keep the iPad in the same spot. After a group finished filming they exported the movie to the photo library and then put it into my Dropbox file. I could then take all the movies and put them together in iMovie on my computer. Watch our finished movie here ---> 5th Grade Claymation Project
Use these fun Google Drawings activities for engaging technology practice your students will love all year long.
This is a list of my Google digital activities that can be used in the elementary classroom. Disperse to your students via Google Classroom, Google Drive Shared Folder, your Learning Platform, etc..
Illustrate data! Use the shape of a line graph as inspiration for kids’ art. I first came across the of idea of illustrating data, or using a line graph as the inspiration for an artwork, when an awesome barrier reef line graph artwork by Jill Pelto popped up on my Facebook feed. Not only is …
Using movies, short films or animations in the classroom is extremely engaging for students. I use short films from Pixar Studios to teach a variety of skills
With so many good options, what are the best read aloud books for 5th grade? These books will make great choices for your readers.
Easy STEM activities for 5th grade provide the best way for 5th graders to explore science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)!
I took photographs of the students and used a computer drawing program to convert them to high contrast image. The portrait image was transferred (photo copied) to a clear overhead transparency. The students created a collage on white base paper under the overhead picture. To complete the project the artists added a personal phrase about themselves and mounted the portraits on a 12x18 sheet of heavy construction paper. The student portraits were placed around the multi purpose room for the 6th grade promotion ceremony and given to the families at the end of the program.
Use the free website, Mapmaker, to create maps and practice measuring with a digital ruler.
Podcasts in the classroom are so fun and engaging! Have you jumped on the podcast train yet?! I have a great system for using podcasts in the classroom...
If you follow the 5E Model for planning and add technology to it, you end up with a very powerful way to bring the curriculum to life for all students.
