We are making our way through the writing process and have come to the two trickiest parts- revising & editing. It always seems to hard to differentiate between the two-- during revising, I always see kids working on spelling or capital letters and the chance to really delve in and work on description and sensory details is lost. I came across some great help on Pinterest (of course!) and wanted to share my Revising (ARMS) and Editing (COPS) anchor charts with you: Analyze & Revise: Note: I didn't draw the cute guy, he's from Microsoft Clipart :) I also added the marks on the right-hand side so kids knew what to do to add (use the carrot), remove (cross off) or move (circle and use an arrow) a word or sentence in their piece. By the way, dead vs. alive words is SUCH a fun way to teach boring vs. exciting words. My boys, especially, LOVE to act out the fact that "said is dead" and hey, if that gets them to revise, I am willing to let them do it ;) Editing & Proofreading: Note: This guy is from Microsoft Clipart, too. I have also seen this done with "CUPS" where U=Usage, but that was a bit over my third-graders' heads, so I stuck with COPS and can now act like the Punctuation/Spelling/Capitalization Police if I want ;) We have a district-given "High Frequency Word List" for third grade that we use (it comes from Rebecca Sitton's 1200 High Frequency Word List). I also encourage kids to use their "best effort" spelling, especially on this first piece. As long as it's not on their High Frequency List (I have them glue that to the inside cover of their Writer's Notebooks at the beginning of the year for reference), it can be their best try and I'm ok with that. This also keeps my reluctant writers and strugglers from looking in the dictionary for one word for...the....entire.....writing...........period.... ;) And a great COPS display (that uses my favorite Scrappin' Doodles clipart!) can be found at The Eager Teacher- cuteness! What do you do to teach the difference between revising and editing?

Do you hate to teach poetry? Do you want your students to learn and enjoy poetry? Try these simple ways to learn how to teach poetry...

I'm linking up with Jivey's Workshop Wednesday to talk about launching my writer's workshop this year with some good old-fashioned Grammar Rock! I used to love to sing along on Saturday mornings to all those great tunes, some of which I still remember by heart. So, as I was thinking about spending the first couple weeks this year reviewing the parts of speech, I thought why not throw in some Grammar Rock! I knew I didn't have a lot of time to devote to this, and I wanted to make it as fun as I could to spark their enthusiasm. After listening to Grammar Rock songs over and over and over (my son was wondering what the heck I was doing as I sang along to Interjections!) last weekend I came up with a plan. My idea was to spend one class period (or less) on each of the parts of speech featured by Schoolhouse Rock: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, and pronouns. I would introduce the lesson with the song and provide students with a note-taking sheet to fill in while we watched the video on YouTube. We generally had to listen to the song a couple times to get the notes, and then we went over them as a class to make sure everyone had the right answers. Then, of course, we had to watch it one more time just for fun and to sing along! So, I passed out the lyrics and we did our best! After that, we would create a class anchor chart as a reference tool for students. These are some of our finished charts. After we did the anchor charts, students would do some kind of activity to practice using the part of speech. To go along with "Unpack Your Adjectives", students drew a picture of somewhere they went over the summer and then filled their suitcase with adjectives to describe that place. In another activity, students cut out different verbs and then fit them into a graphic organizer. After completing the activity, students were given a worksheet to complete independently to show what they had learned. Each time I started workshop out with the Grammar Rock song I would have several students go, "Yessss!", so I knew they were enjoying it. My hope is that as we talk about our writing and practice our word work throughout the year, this grammar unit will pay off. If you would like to try this Grammar Rock unit, you can find it at my TPT store! Subscribe to the Forever in Fifth Grade Newsletter for the latest info on freebies, classroom tips, and special sales!

Hi friends! I wanted to share my readers use thinkmarks poster today. This is something my students really enjoy doing during guided reading or even independent reading. This allows them to jot down their idea, but not interrupt me. We have a different focus each month and last month was making predictions, and this month is making connections. We also cover visualizing, and inferencing as well. We cover a ton of things each month, but these are our focus! I just love teaching them. I love read alouds and would do it all day if I could. I wanted to see if I could show them think marks. So I whipped up this chart with them. They were REALLY excited to get some sticky notes - (note to self - I need more little ones, but am too much of a hoarder to share my own) I left out the ones that are blank because we haven't learned those skills yet. So as we learn, I will add more to it. I sent each child to independent reading and read to self that day with one sticky note. All they had to do was use one. I didn't want them using a whole pack because then it is work on writing instead of reading! They were so excited. I had one girl read her same book twice with nothing. I asked why she was reading her book again, and she said " I only have one sticky note, I want to make it a good one". Gosh I love first graders. Here's the thing. In order to use the think mark, you had to be able to explain WHY you chose it. If you chose LOL that is great, but what was so funny about it? If you chose prediction - you had to say what you predicted and if you were correct initially or if you had to revise your thinking. The best part was that there were kids with "C" written on their sticky, and even better * and ?. I let them know if they had those they had to explain. During snack, I had them all take out their book, and we went around to share our think marks. One kiddo said "C" because she didn't know that Penguin babies were with their dads and are 4 feet tall. (I was beaming with pride for her) she said it from her memory - then opened the book to the page to share with everyone. One little boy had a Henry and Mudge book and had an (!) - he said that it was exciting because Henry and Mudge were cracking the code of the lost cookies! HOW CUTE! Kids were using the vocabulary "I made a connection, I predicted, I thought so and so was funny BECAUSE". It was truly amazing to hear their thinking and even my lowest readers were able to put something down - even if it was a favorite part! I will eventually not have every kid share during snack, but not until I know that they have it down for what they are supposed to be doing and explaining. I will have the kids partner up and share so it is over fairly quickly. They want to talk about their books, but need guidance on what they can share!! I decided that once we learn all of our think marks, I will blow this up and put it on my wall. I will also print a smaller one for them to keep in their readers notebook, along with a bookmark with the other side being their reading strategies bookmark. I made this Story Map from this pin . I don't know who it belongs to, but I had a vision of this thing and this was it! Each time we read a story together, we complete this together. I have printed them their own and put it in a sheet protector. They will read their own books and days we don't use sticky notes, I will have them fill out the map and share with a buddy. I want them to be accountable, but like I said I don't want it to be read to self/writing - I also sent this home with parents with a dry erase marker and and sheet protector and said to have them do this after they read to or listen to their child read. This is my focus wall. This is the size of a regular bulletin board - Each day we focus for just five minutes on a couple of these things that we have covered in the month! I use panel wall clips so that the holes are only put in once and I never pull them out - allowing me to use this board for years to come. The kids love going over this board because they know all the answers!!! I only made the make a prediction sheet. The tattooed teacher made the reading strategies posters and the charts and graphs poster pack was free from here. I created these reading strategies along with bookmarks to use during guided reading and for them to use during read to self or independent reading. Click on any picture to snag these babies for only a buck a rooney! An example of one of the posters and the bookmark types. I am also going to use the circles during guided reading. As they use a strategy, they will grab it from their pile and explain what they used. I will put them on popsicle sticks. :) They go with my reading comprehension posters that you can find here for just a dollar! Aly

Looking for some lesson plans ideas for dialogue, imagery or point of view? Then this post is for you!

Author: Jadranka Bokan When we are learning German grammar, we learn it from the start gradually and in a straight line. We start with a subject in a sentence, then continue with an object, learn adverbs and adjectives and at some point start learning about subordinated sentences (wenn, weil, obwohl etc.). As we learn more, … Continue reading Everything about Sprachbausteine 2 (TELC B2) →

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Árbol de la vida, impresión A3 ecológica, póster de arte de pared, infografía, gráfico de correspondencia, celta, pagano, druida, impresión del árbol de la vida. ~°* Detalles *°~ Este póster infográfico y cuadro de correspondencia se pueden utilizar como recurso para aprender y profundizar su práctica de la espiritualidad basada en la naturaleza. También se puede utilizar como un hermoso póster artístico en la pared. En las antiguas religiones terrestres, incluidas las prácticas celtas, druidas y paganas, los árboles a menudo eran vistos como el puente entre los mundos. Este póster de arte mural ilustra este aspecto de la cosmología chamánica universal y le presenta una forma de trabajar con la imagen del árbol para navegar en la conciencia. El árbol en sí actúa como un mapa para viajar a diferentes dimensiones internas, como los nueve mundos del árbol del mundo nórdico Yggdrasil. El cartel también tiene instrucciones para una poderosa práctica de centrado que es altamente beneficiosa para anclarnos y conectarnos antes y después de cualquier ritual o trabajo de curación. ~°* Materiales *°~ Recibirá una impresión ecológica de alta calidad en papel de póster sin estucar de 250 g/m², impresa por una empresa profesional de impresión ecológica con sede en el Reino Unido en Devon. ~°* Tamaño *°~ A3, 29,7 x 42 cm o 11,7 x 16,5 pulgadas. ~°* Envío *°~ Publicado en un tubo de correo resistente semanalmente por Royal Mail, rápido y confiable, entrega gratuita en el Reino Unido incluida. ~°* Política y Compromiso *°~ En el improbable caso de pérdida o daño durante la entrega, me comprometo a reenviar una segunda copia de la impresión sin ningún costo adicional a mis clientes después de un período de espera de seis semanas para acomodar posibles demoras. ~°* Corazón del bosque *°~ Para ser parte de mi exploración en desarrollo de la creatividad inspirada en la naturaleza y las obras de arte mágicas, así como de las ofertas de talleres y eventos de narración, no dude en conectarse conmigo y seguir mi trabajo en las redes sociales o a través de mi sitio web: Sitio web ~ https://www.forestheart.co.uk Facebook ~ https://www.facebook.com/yannick.dubois.1986 Instagram ~ https://www.instagram.com/forestheart.art Etsy ~ https://www.etsy.com/shop/forestheartcelticart

Ideas to launch Writing Workshop in the classroom! Writing workshop printables, organization and activities to teach the Writing Process.

Equipoise: Yoga Closing Postures: Karnapidasana – ▶ Beginner Splits from Frog Splits with Kino :::Fourth Message from Antares :::▶ Galactic Federation of LIght :::sharing. * * * Monday, May 1…

Each school year a unique mix of middle school students enter the doors of my classroom. Each with a story, each with different strengths, each with different weaknesses. I never take this responsibility lightly because what this means for me, as their teacher, is that I don't get to take the already published book off the shelf and write the same story as I did last year. Instead, we create and co-author a new story together. A story that I could never dream up or predict until it happens the way that it needs to happen. After all, doesn't every new class that enters your classroom door deserve a story of their very own? Because of this, the walls of my classroom to begin the year aside from staples I keep up each year, begin as a blank canvas. The anchor charts that fill my room happen naturally, as our story is being created, new anchor charts are being created to match the learning that is happening in the classroom. When students need to be reminded of a concept we have covered or an expectation that is expected of them, they can refer to the anchor charts on our walls and be brought back to that moment in our journey. Anchor charts help with retention of material, they help with developing student independence, and they also help to anchor routines and expectations. Below is the story of our learning so far this school year. "Before you turn in any piece of writing, ask yourself..." This anchor chart is designed to help students self-assess their writing and be that self-talk that many of them need. Teaching students to be reflective is one of the hardest yet most beneficial skills we can teach as teachers. This anchor chart is a great reminder for my students and for myself. The best thing about it? My co-teacher who teaches the same group of our students math and science is on board with holding students to these same writing expectations with this same language. During our weekly sentence stalking, students can use this anchor chart to gather ideas of different items to notice so that they're not always noticing the same types of things. These are the symbols I use when editing student writing and also the symbols I want them to use when they self-edit and edit their peers' writing. This anchor chart is a helpful, quick reminder of the editing symbols. I LOVE this anchor chart for middle school students. During the first few weeks of school, we referred to it often to self-assess how we did as a class and as an individual with following the expectations in order to make independent reading and writing time productive. If we have a rough day with following expectations, I come right back to this anchor chart and reinforce the positive behaviors students ARE exhibiting. Our current interactive read aloud is Killing Mr. Griffin, and it's written in 3rd person omniscient. Students are loving the almost spooky way the narrator of the story seems to know EVERYTHING. We had an awesome discussion about point of view through that and now students are actively identifying the point of view in their independent reading books. Reading is thinking, and one of the strategic reading actions to show that thinking is by summarizing. I like to start the year with a few minilessons on summarizing because it seems to be a building block for the other reading minilessons. These are some of the criteria we set for what summaries should include and not include. Writers use transitions for a variety of purposes. Crafting transitions smoothly into writing improves sentence fluency and help make ideas clear. This anchor chart will be a great reminder to aid students in doing this in their writing all school year.

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Objective: Students will be able to create alliterations based on the poem “Bleezer’s Ice Cream” By Jack Prelutsky. Vocabulary: Alliteration Time: Approximately 1 hour and 30 minu…

In this blog post, read about my best teaching strategies to teach writing narrative endings. Grab all the freebies to help you teach.

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!

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Classroom Reading Organization Tips for guided reading groups, reading lessons and how to make your reading instruction more than manageable!

Hooray! I’m so excited to help host this section of our book study! Catherine from The Brown-Bag Teacher was such a wonderful coordinator of this study, and she knows me and my workshop addiction love, so this was a perfect week for me to host! Let me start off by telling you what Donalyn Miller suggests […]

Hello and welcome back to this series of “How to Actually Teach Reading Comprehension.” For more topics such as this one, I’d love for you to sign up for my monthly “How to Actually Teach” newsletters found HERE. Today’s topic is all about teaching Main Idea. This tends to be a very difficult topic for students, […]