Vocal warm-up exercises for showing students how to sing through the break. These FREE singing warm-ups may be primarily an exercise in awareness at first!
The personal financial literacy math standards include challenging vocabulary and concepts. Use these 5 tools to make it easier and more fun for kids!
Style lesson #456: Earrings that dangle are good. Sentences with modifiers that do? Umm... Not so much. Do you ever stop to think what do your words say about you?
Today’s post features a response from Kimberly Kappler Hewitt and a number of suggestions from readers on differentiation strategies.
Help your students understand division vocabulary with these simple tricks that are sure to help them understand the parts and grab a freebie!
Louis Daguerre and the pioneers of photography.
Novel Quick Write Anchor Chart
Ok, just because I've been gone from 'blogging land' doesn't mean we haven't been working hard in 4B. I've definitely been documenting a lot of what we've been doing! To start, it was clear to me that our old way of peer conferencing just wasn't working. Kids seemed to be goofing around, not really helping each other, and it was a waste of everyone's time. It frustrated me when most of my one-on-one conference time was spent managing unruly PEER conferences. I knew something had to change. I decided to revamp our workshop so that our peer conferences would hold both the author and the peer more accountable AND work on our 6-traits language. I introduced our 'new' method for peer conferencing using this anchor chart to document our process. After students finish drafting, they are to grab a 6-traits peer conferencing sheet and assess themselves by circling all the descriptors for each trait that they feel match their own writing. Mind you, we did a lot of whole-class practice with scoring writing based on the 6-traits criteria so students would feel comfortable doing this process on their own (and being HONEST!). Through our mini-lessons we've learned that it's possible to have high scores in some traits but lower scores in others. That's how we grow! Here you see Devin circling where he thinks his writing falls on our 6-traits rubric. (Note: The link to the 6-traits peer conferencing sheet above will bring you to an even more updated version than the one shown in this blog posting! Just FYI!) Here's another student assessing her own writing after she's drafted. This student has finished assessing her writing using our rubric. She decides on a final number score and circles it to the left of the descriptors. Then it's time to meet with a peer. (We have a peer conference sign-up sheet in our room which helps students know which other students in the room are also ready to peer conference.) Here you see this author reading his story to his peer. After he's done reading, he will explain to his peer the scores he gave himself and why. It's important for the peer to listen carefully to the author because it will soon be her turn to assign a score to this author for each trait . On the lines on the rubric, she will write to explain the scores she gives him. The peer needs to follow the following sentence stems in his/her scoring response: * I give this a writer a ___ because... * This writer needs to work on ... This process requires peers to truly work together, hold each other accountable, and it gets the kids using our 6-traits language a lot more. The second sentence stem helps the writer establish a goal for what to work on when revising! To see more of this peer conferencing process, watch a clip of us practicing this stage! Our focus lately has been on the trait of organization. We've been looking thoroughly at different beginnings and endings of both student and published writing. Here is our anchor chart documenting what we noticed! In other Writer's Workshop news, these are a few additional anchor charts we have in our room to help keep our writing organized. This anchor chart reminds us of powerful words to use to spice up 'said'! In reading we have been working hard on purposeful talk.This is so very important to the social construction of knowledge in any classroom! It's essential to teach students purposeful talk behaviors before even considering literature discussion groups (LDGs). The majority of kids talk like...well, KIDS! So, if we expect kids to talk like mature young people about different texts they read, we need to explicitly teach them how! Talking about Text by Maria Nichols is a great place to start if you're interesting in learning more about purposeful talk behaviors. I taught each of the behaviors individually through two separate mini-lessons - one day to explain 'hearing all voices' in a concrete way (without text), and a second day to practice 'hearing all voices' using text. Then I taught 'saying something meaningful' in a concrete way without using text, and the next day we practiced 'saying something meaningful' using text , and so on. Eventually all of the purposeful talk behaviors kind of blended together and kids started to discover that we often need to use all of these things at the same time in order to truly talk purposefully about anything! We did a lot of practicing, and I've been taping students in this process. Here is a clip of students practicing their behaviors while they talk about their families. (We had read a few books about different kinds of families to foster a safe environment to celebrate the fact that we all have different kinds of families!) We also had students practice their purposeful talk behaviors while discussing their best or worst memory in school (which helped warm up their brains for a timed writing activity we did during writer's workshop). Here is a clip! As a class, we watched these video clips to analyze our body language and other purposeful talk behaviors. I think taping and analyzing is a very effective way for students to learn how they should look and sound in an LDG. 'Keeping the lines of thinking alive' is a tough concept for many youngsters. Sometimes what happens is that students take turns talking, but they don't really build on what the person before them said. In other words, they don't really DISCUSS, they just share and listen. We applauded the first group in this clip because they had good body language and were respectful as listeners, but we discovered their conversation needed to be more 'alive' by asking questions and making connections to each other's ideas and thoughts. Mrs. Pierce and I taped ourselves doing a weak LDG and a strong LDG. As we watched each example, we used dots and lines to 'map out' our conversations (see chart below). In the weak LDG, we discovered Mrs. Pierce and I shared a lot of individual thoughts. The thought started, and then it stopped. There was really no discussion about anything we said; and Mrs. Pierce wasn't even looking at me during part of our time together! How rude! ;) In the strong LDG example, we mapped out a lot of dots and lines that were connected because we took each other's ideas and built on them. We truly discussed the text to dig deeper. We introduced several conversational moves for students to use to help get their voice heard in a conversation. Students also have these conversational moves on a bookmark that they keep in their LDG books. After we learned the respectful ways to speak and act when discussing with others, it was time to teach our kids how to flag their thinking. This is a crucial step to holding a successful literature discussion group because it allows the kids to track their important thoughts while reading so they have ideas for discussion the next day. Here are the 'codes' we use to track our thinking on post-its. We encourage students to use one of our codes to categorize the kind of thought they have and then write a few words to trigger their thought. This helps them when they get into a discussion group; they'll actually have pinpointed ideas to discuss! Students kept a chart in their Thoughtful Logs with all of our codes on it for easy reference. Here's a clip of our students as they practice flagging their thinking for the first time. The next day, students put all their new learning to the test. We put them in small groups to discuss the text "Slower Than the Rest" which is a short realistic fiction story out of Cynthia Rylant's book Every Living Thing. On another day, we used a high-interest two-page non-fiction text about leeches to continue practicing flagging our thoughts. Here's a clip of our kids flagging their thinking just after we modeled it during our mini-lesson. Below are some pictures of the kids' flagged thoughts. In addition to purposeful talk, we've also been studying the historical fiction genre. We've read several mentor texts, including Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner and Dandelions by Eve Bunting. Our first round of literature discussion books are all within the historical fiction genre. Here are a few of our historical fiction LDGs hard at work: Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail Scraps of Time: Abby Takes a Stand The River and the Trace (I think I put my finger over the microphone at minute 2:00!) Oftentimes, historical fiction books will have a flashback in them. One group's book, called A Scrap of Time: Abby Takes a Stand by Patricia McKissick, has a flashback that occurs towards the beginning of the story. I photocopied some of the pages to try to explain this technique during a whole class mini-lesson. In the first section of the book, three grandkids are spending time with their grandma in her attic. They find an old menu and ask their grandma why she saved it. Chapters 1 through 12 flash back to 1960, where 'grandma' is just 10-years-old, living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time of a lot of civil rights protests. The menu is from a restaurant where a lot of sit-ins took place. Through the flashback a reader learns all about life during the 1960s. In the final section of the book, a reader finds him/herself back in the present - in grandma's attic, where the three grandkids ask their grandma some questions about her life during the sixties. There was also another flashback in the story Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner. We also read The Wreck of the Zephyr by Chris VanAllsburg as an example of a flashback in a fantasy book! In other reading news, here is a picture of the anchor chart that stored all the non-fiction text features we've learned. In social studies, we've been studying the economy of the five U.S. regions. Students have been reading small sections of non-fiction leveled readers to summarize a product or industry that is important to each region's economy. Students are typing up their summaries and we're calling those summaries 'articles' as they each create a magazine of our economy. Through this project, students have learned to: * Summarize main ideas * Center and left-justify their cursor * Use the tab key to indent * Change font size, color, and style * Bold, underline, and italicize * Safe image searches * Copy and paste * Cite their picture resources Here is the inside of one student's magazine. Next week we will be using this site to create magazine covers! Lastly, we had a chance to meet with our second-grade buddies earlier this month. We split the buddies up into two groups and one group stayed with Mrs. Adams to play holiday bingo. The other group was with me in the computer lab. Buddies used this site to play a variety of math and English games. One of the most popular games to play was called 'Story Plant' where students could click on different leaves to create the beginning to a unique story. Depending on what leaves were clicked, you would get a different combination of characters, settings, problems, etc. The computer generates a beginning to a story that the kids can print off and finish during writer's workshop! Have a wonderful weekend!
Help the learning process with these simple strategies for making studennt thinking visible. Perfect for middle and high school English classes.
Excuse our noise... musicians at work! :) After reviewing rhythm patterns at the beginning of the year, 3rd grade classes began working on layering rhythm patterns together. This is one of the more di
You’ve done your thesis plan. You’ve written for weeks. And weeks. But now, despite your very best planning, you find yourself at a point where that carefully thought out thesis road m…
As we started back to lessons after Christmas break it became evident that my students needed a little extra motivation. Christmas music and Christmas recitals were finished, and most students got out of their practice habits over the break. Of course I wish that all my students could be motivated simply by the love of […]
Two pages of introduction to polygon vocabulary, interior angle sum, exterior angles, naming, and parts of the polygon. Twelve practice problems involve solving from variables, determining the number of sides of a polygon, and finding interior and exterior angles. Answer key included. The one-pag...
Happy Sunday, friends! Tonight I want to share with you one of my favorite Kagan structures – Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up (SU, HU, PU). Kagan Structures are all about cooperative learning – no…
Next week we will be starting a one-week theme of argumentative speech. On the first lesson you will get to settle on a topic, do some research, write down some ideas and then you should prepare to give a speech on the following lesson. The speech will be recorded on your computer in a private setting and sent to me for assessment - if everything works out well we will also listen to a few speeches together and give feedback on them. Here's a little intro for next week: You can find the plan here + a video illustrating ethos, pathos and logos here:
20 weeks later and "A Stick Figure Macbeth" has finally come to an end. In case you're just joining me, here's what happened during the past 20 weeks:
A board game where students must draw a card "Tell the truth" or "Tell a Lie" and then roll the die. The move their counter to the space according to the numbers on the die. Now they start talking about the topic according to the card. The other players listen and decide what they believe: Is it a lie ot is it true? Se further instructions on the second page of the upload. Have fun.PS: My students liked the twist of the cards. - ESL worksheets
Good Morning and Happy Saturday!! I sure am happy it's Saturday..this was an exhausting, yet busy week! Today I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for her Five for Friday! We've been hard at work researching and taking notes for our big Endangered Species Research Project. The kids are SO Excited and get so upset as they are learning more about why these animals are critically endangered. If you're interested, you can find these note taking pages along with the booklet we plan to use to present our final project with in my TpT Store. We've also been working on linear measurements this week. Third graders are required to be able to measure object to the nearest one-fourth inch. We've been practicing a lot with worksheets and measuring things in the classroom…. BUT what better way to practice measurements than getting outside and having some fun?! I invited some 6th graders to come in and teach my class how to make paper airplanes. The kids were so excited and it was also a great way for them to practice their listening skills! We then headed out to fly our planes and measure the distance that it traveled! If you'd like to try these activities out with your students, you can click on the image below :) Be sure to follow me on Instagram or Facebook for more fun updates ;) Also got to take some time out for some fun this week! We got to meet up with some friends from Washington. They're visiting Hawaii so we met them for some Happy Hour :) She is a second grade teacher…our classes were pen pals last year! We're also continuing to work on poetry and figurative language. This is always a tough one but fun at the same time. So far, we've covered simile and metaphors, alliteration, idioms, and onomatopoeias. I'm kicking myself right now because as I'm scrolling through my photos I realized I only took pictures of our alliteration pages! Landan the Lizard lights a leaf Marry the monkey makes a monster with a magical science kit Emmeline the elephant loves to eat eggplants everyday. Ayven the alligator loves to eat apples any day he sees one. Jayde the jaguar got a job at the jungle's Jamba Juice. Pretty Pam made chicken pot pie with pickles and peas. We're also did a science experiment today. The kids were so excited learning about the scientific method. Thats my week in a nutshell! Hope you enjoy your weekend :) I'm off to finish some work I had started throughout the week…and hopefully get a new Facebook Fan Freebie posted for you all sometime this weekend ;)
I recently assigned a one pager final project to my sophomores for their culminating Night project. I wanted to combine as many rigorous ELA content ideas as possible, while also designing a fun project for students that provided them with a bit of choice. This Night one pager project was the perfect way to finish the memoir!
Another one for composing with Boomwhackers with the colored dice I mentioned in an earlier post (scroll down to see other uses for these!):
This is a great activity for students learning the Pythagorean Theorem. Students will use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate distances. In addition, students will add decimals to calculate routes involving more than one stop. Lastly, students will explain the shortest route.
If you haven't read The One and Only Ivan, you are in for a real treat. This post contains several activities to use with the book.
When I observe teachers, I see this problem more than anything else. If they fixed it, they would notice an instant difference in how well their classes go.
Don’t miss out on one of our favorite toys for targeting all kinds of developmental skills...while making music!
Teaching schwa-A vowels can feel tricky, but it really isn't! This article will help you discover some useful ways how to teach schwa
The first part is a reading and the second one is a listening -an interview with a witness to spot mistakes in the reading above-. Keys, script and audio link and QR code included. - ESL worksheets
Teacher Burnout Explained in Two Pie Graphs This is a non-scientific (but probably pretty accurate) graphic I have created using my experience as a teacher. Another title for this chart could be "Teacher Burnout Explained
This ws is intended for beginners after they have been introduced to elementary vocabulary (colours, body, transportation, fruits, vegetables etc.). It is the well-known game of Odd Man Out that has inspired me to this ws. It is fully editable so you can easily adjust it to vocabulary you have taught. Some of the lines are harder than others. Have fun! - ESL worksheets
Bloom's Taxonomy is one of the central themes here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. I have been sharing a plethora of resources on it for the last couple of years and. just like you, I have learned a great deal from all of these resources. There are now several variations of the original Bloom's Taxonomy but the core learning concept is always present.
It is finally spring break. I can’t tell you how long I have been counting down to this vacation. Spring break is the perfect thing to prepare me for the craziness of testing season. It is…
Oh summer....you are far too wonderful! I have been enjoying my days playing with markers, colored pencils, and posters. Posters, posters, posters... This 150 hours of classroom work thing has been rather successful so far (80 hours down) as I prepare charts, decorations, and documents for myself and my coworkers. My circle cutter and I did some bonding way back in June, and I finally got those circles adhered to their respective posters. As promised: CHAMPS Posters! I've mentioned it before, but we use CHAMPS for our classroom management program. Throughout the activities of the day, we make sure to explain our expectations for (C)onversation, (H)elp, (A)ctivity, (M)ovement, (P)articipation, and (S)uccess. These expectations are displayed on the board for students to reference when they need a reminder. This summer's CHAMPS party consisted of creating these charts for our whole third-grade team. (dibs on orange!) One of my teammates came up with this great format last year, and we really wanted to keep our expectations the same across the grade level while we also use the Walk to Learn model this year. Her format is particularly wonderful because it prominently displays all of the expectations, and each one can be mixed and matched by moving clothespins around in their respective areas. Additionally, I've been avoiding the focus wall chore and drawing up some posters that I found on Pinterest. All that art training I have under my belt has helped me to make some very accurate recreations! We do a huge focus on writing in third, so I really wanted to have a cute chart up! Way back during the school year, I posted here about our whole school learning about metacognition. One of those strategies involves using paint chips to help students classify how they are feeling about certain assignments. By marking the darker color on the chip, students show that they are not feeling 100% (in the "dark"); marking the lighter color, students show that they are confident in themselves ("it's all clear!"). Yes, these can be flipped around and used in whatever color gradation you wish...but the point is, I want to implement this strategy with the previous poster so that the kiddos can explain how they are feeling throughout the many different concepts of the day. There are several more academic ones sitting on my desk, but I risk being too picture-heavy this time around....plus, I just wanted to toss in the birthday sign for my friend's baby...because that was fun to play with :) Soon to come: Exploration of the interactive notebook...and more posters...possibly another focus wall...!
American Symbols is one of my FAVORITE units to teach. It must be yours too because over 12,000 teachers have purchased this unit from Teachers Pay Teachers ! It meets the Common Core Standards for Informational Reading with rigor and brings your classroom joy while reading! Updated with more crafts and symbols see below! My students LOVED this unit! I got 4 parent notes telling me how much they enjoyed hearing their child talk informatively and passionately about Social Studies. One parent said that their child doesn't talk much at the dinner table, and now he won't stop talking about school and symbols! I think it's because the unit is written to be kid friendly and engaging! Here are a few of the Statue of Liberty pages I wrote a week of fluency for the Statue of Liberty too. Each Symbol has a full writing unit Remember the update has even more art! 2 Interactive Little Books have been included for launching the unit and explaining what a "symbol" is. Oral Speaking "pledge page" with assessment rubric Tons of Activities like these: Math Graphing Bulletin Board You also get full color pages of all 5 symbols to make your bulletin board so cute. Also, you need a great way to show your graphing data. I included all the pages that kids need in order to understand that symbols are everywhere! Need grades for your grade book? Me too! I created several tests. Bonus American Symbols Mock Election Material The Reading Fluency passage comes in three levels. Low First Grade First/ Low Second Second Grade Anchor Charts and Registration to Vote Time to vote Anchor Chart, Secret Ballot, and Graphing to discover the winner Easy Graph (Tally Marks) "Harder" Graph ******* Update 1 ****** I am excited art added and has become available as BUNDLE! The one above has art as a bundle If you don't want / need the art, you can buy without it too. 62 Printables and 6 art projects! Pick and choose or do them all. This has open house written all over it! 2 student books 3 math and literacy activities 1 game 8 fluency & reading comprehension pages 5 writing units (From pre-write to publish) Syllables Activity Vocabulary Word Searches Clues Page (possible assessment if you choose) 2 patriotic student writing pages 1 oral speaking activity with parent note & grading rubric 3 assessments 6 art projects ***** Update 2 ***** So many of you asked for The Washington Monument to be added.
Oh my goodness, I so hate packing up my stuff at the end of the year. And I thought I was organized! Oh well. While I was cleaning, I took a few snapshots of some posters/anchor charts I've created for my room. If I can create them, you can create them. I've elaborated under the pictures in case you'd like to try it yourself! Category One: Anchor Charts/Posters for Listening Activities, Composers, and Musicians Here's a poster I based off of a Pin about "while authors write". It was pretty easy to draw everything and has been a great reference all year long. This is Maestro, our conducting elephant. Students of all ages love to use him when we try out a listening piece (it is a great motivator/reward for appropriate listening behavior). One student holds one end of the poster and another student holds the other. One student, the "conductor" stands behind Maestro and "conducts" through the whole. The conductor gets to use a long gray sock, just like the elephant's trunk. Here's another great reference poster for students to use when listening to a piece. Sometimes I ask for a specific question to be focused on, but usually I have the students prepare mental answers for at least one purple question and one black. I've used this poster as a reference for student-created posters (5th grade) during our Jazz unit. Students are supplied with the materials, a picture of the artist, a short bio, and 10 interesting facts. They need to create a neat, organize poster that includes at least 5 facts and present it to the class (working in groups of four or less). Category 2: Rhythm and Melodic Posters/Anchor Charts Here's a chant I created for K and 1 to help with our steady beat/rhythm lessons. There is a steady beat side (and we practice pointing to the hearts - I also have heart beat maps for this that they use individually) and stomping to the beat while saying the lyrics. I add some students to hand drums. And here is the rhythm side. Students practice chanting the rhythm on "ta" and "titi" while clapping, then using rhythm sticks. Here is a reference pocket chart the older students can use (it is up all year round): I love this music staff poster. The students can refer to it as they learn the lines and spaces on the music staff. Even my little ones know the poem: This is a poster I created for 2nd - 5th grades as we worked on sight-reading songs. It mirrors the format of most of my powerpoints. We often discuss things in the "cherry on top" as we go: Here's a simple poster for use in pentatonic Orff music (especially with Mallet Madness): This is a poster I use when discussing, well harmony, chords, and accompaniment (it does all three). You can use these in rock songs (or with your own or the students' own piano accompaniments) to discuss the harmonic progression of the song. Because there isn't "too much" here, 4th or 5th grade students can benefit from a mini-lesson on harmony, even if, like me, you don't delve into chords too much. Of course students can accompany a favorite song by following you as you point to each chord and playing their respective boomwhackers. I'm working with more of a specific lesson plan to use these chords with, hopefully including some favorite songs of the kiddos - will post soon! Category 3: Misc I did this lesson with my 4th and 5th graders two years ago, my first year at this school (they were going to see some live performances and needed to learn about the instruments - fast). First, I let them decorate their folder while listening to some instrumental works. While the works were playing, students could read about them on the screen at their leisure. In subsequent lessons, the students filled in the middle with facts, notes, pictures, and musings about the instrument families. I had a worksheet divide into four (one for each family) and the students were asked to write 3 facts, list all instruments in the family, and choose a favorite. I used sfskids.org as the main source of info, augmented with live examples and videos on youtube. On the back, the wrote about their favorite instrument out of all the families and reflected on the performances they saw. Best of all, they can take this with them and have a reference for their middle school band selections. This is "Brenda" (named after my own mom who always looks awesome when singing) and I used her as a reference during choir rehearsals. I attached her to my stand and all I had to do was point at a specific part of the poster to give the kiddos a reminder when something needed to be fixed. I told the kiddos, "This is why I don't teach art" but they seemed to love Brenda and I plan to give her a permanent spot in the room next year. I can't wait to create more over the summer!
It’s taken me just over a year to finish A Stick-Figure Hamlet . For those of you who have following along since the beginning, thank you! For those of you just joining me… you didn’t miss much. Let me sum up:
