The Wild Robot: Year-End Engagement

The end of the school year is quickly approaching, and with it comes all of the excitement of summer days. So how do you keep the kiddos engaged and interested in learning without feeling like you're dragging them to the finish line? Luckily, I was introduced to this amazing resource for The Wild Robot.

This book is amazing for 4th graders and has so many connections to animal studies! What's even better for this time of year is all of the ready-made resources inside the hyperdoc. My kids have had an amazing time reading, learning, and using tech tools. Here are a few examples:

Storyboard That for retelling or describing settings. 

(We used the provided template in the hyperdoc). 

Student response on the Hyperdoc after researching about robots (links also on hyperdoc).

Responding to reading with Flipgrid

Creating Scratch Animations about the story 

(These weren't my students' creations. We're still working on ours). 

These are just a SAMPLING of the what you'll find on the hyperdoc. These highly engaging activities, plus the interesting story of a robot trying to adapt to life in the wild have helped capture my students' attention so they can enjoy the last few days of learning and I can feel good about the learning taking place right up until the end of the year. 

Making Connections Lesson Freebie

As I'm in a new position now, I don't have my own classroom anymore. However, I still like to be in classrooms as much as possible, so I was very grateful to have the opportunity to try out a lesson in some second grade classrooms a few weeks ago. It was a great success, so I wanted to share it in case anyone out there could use it.

This is a modified version of the Connect lesson found in How to Teach Thinking Skills Within the Common Core.

Teaching kids to make connections can be complex. The purpose of the lesson was to help children make connections between the texts they'd read during the week and the weekly essential question. I started off by bringing in a beach bag with several related items inside such as a towel, sunscreen, goggles, and arm floats. Grouping students, I had them partner talk about each item as I revealed it. We took turns sharing what the partners said to one another. At the end of the activity, I had students look at all of the items and try to decide how they are connected to one another. The students jotted down their thoughts on the back of the graphic organizer I provided. 

This was the perfect segue into talking about what it actually means to make a connection. I provided this graphic as an explanation. We discussed how when we make connections we JOIN ideas together:

Next, we started to use the front side of the graphic organizer. 

I used an ActivInspire flipchart that I made to guide the lesson, but I've converted it to a PowerPoint to include in this freebie (because of image terms of use). I had students jot down what they knew about the essential question (which was about the environment). We took one text at a time and talked about ways that it fit with the essential question, jotting down our notes in the square sections of the graphic organizer. Finally, the students observed the similarities between the texts and the question and jotted a statement about how they were all connected. 

I had done a lesson very similar to this in upper grades previously and was curious as to how it would work with second grade. It went very well! The students understood the JOIN acronym and had no trouble connecting their texts. 

If you'd like the materials and the lesson plan I used, you can grab them for free here in my TPT store. If you use them, please drop me a comment and let me know how it worked for you!

CORE Academy

I'm very excited to be a part of JSU's CORE Academy for the next few days. I'll be presenting two sessions with my friend, Cara (Teaching...My Calling), over the next two days dealing with integrating technology and using social media.

Here's a sneak peak of our LiveBinder of resources we plan to share:

Hope to see you there!

Geometry Galore!

I was so excited to finally make it to the geometry section in our math book a few weeks ago. That is, until my kiddos gave me that worried look at the beginning of the chapter. I could tell they were nervous about these concepts and knew I needed to get busy! Enter these awesome resources that I made/found:

Looking for apps? Geometry Quest is a HUGE hit in my classroom! My kids absolutely adore this game, and I love that they're getting a constant review of lines, angles, shapes, etc...There is a lite version, which is what we started with, but my kids were so engaged that I bought the app. WELL worth $1.99! 

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via Farrah on Pinterest

We constantly play Guess My Number, a game in which the teacher thinks of a number and the students ask questions with yes/no answers to try and figure out the number. So when I found this free Guess Who? game about shapes, I knew my kiddos would love it!

We love "I have, who has" games! In my class we race to see how quickly we can complete the game and if we can beat the previous score. This game is a quick, fun review that encourages students to read geometry terms correctly. You can find it in my store here.

I created these task cards for a center. The students follow the directions on the front, then turn them over to check. You can find them in my store here.

This is another center activity I created to help familiarize students with the correct ways to name lines, line segments, and angles. They read what is on the card and choose the correct answer. Scanning the QR code tells students whether or not the choose correctly. You can get it here. 

We've been having a great time learning about geometry now. Hopefully you can use some of them, too!

On The Fence

Just a quick post to share a great activity we did today during our history lesson. I used this idea (that I "borrowed" from an EdCamp Birmingham class) as an introduction to our lesson on women's suffrage. I wanted to get my kids moving and discussing before we ever got into the specifics of how women got the right to vote.

On the Fence: The teacher poses an idea (some hot-topic item), and the children decide what their opinions are about the idea. Everyone stands in the middle of the room as they listen to the idea. Next, they can move to the "yes" side, the "no" side, or stay on the fence if unsure of their opinions. Each group talks about reasons to support their choice, then they have a chance to convince the children in the other groups to move to their side. 

My four statements were:

• Pizza should be one of the choices at lunch every day (my class was about 1/2 yes and 1/2 no).
• It should be illegal for small children to play games rated "M" (I had more no's on this one).
• Our school should have a uniform policy (3/4-no, 1/4 yes)
• Children should be allowed to vote (1/2-yes, 1/2-no)

What was really interesting was listening to the reasons presented by each side. Some of them came up with really great reasons that I hadn't even thought about. This activity also provided the opportunity to discuss the phrase "On the fence" and exactly what that means. It was a great lead in to our lesson, because I was able to talk to the children about how everyone was able to express their opinions and cast a vote, but women weren't always allowed that opportunity. 

This strategy was a HUGE hit with my kiddos...and an eye-opener to me. I need to teach them more about speaking and listening skills, as well as what types of reasons actually support an opinion. I'll definitely be doing this more often!

Calendar Math Routine Freebies

After participating in the Guided Math book study this summer, I set a goal for myself to implement a successful calendar math routine in my fourth grade classroom. This was something I was a little nervous about, because I've only used Saxon math's calendar routines in 3rd grade and I just wasn't too sure what to do in 4th. Well, I did it! I think I've finally struck gold! I've waited a while to post this because I wanted to make sure it actually worked for me and my students. 

I decided to include these daily/weekly routines to begin with:

• counting large numbers
• number line (using multiple markers based on Every Day Counts)
• date/day calendar questions
• daily depositor and coin counter (based on Every Day Counts)
• decomposing numbers
• rounding and place value
• elapsed time
• facts practice

My daily routine: I spend no more than 15 minutes total on this, so I don't always do every part every single day. We start with facts practice. Sometimes this is a timed drill sheet, or I use the links I put on the flipchart (file below). Then I pretty much follow the pages in my flipchart. Although we do the same activities every day, I like to keep it interesting by varying the way we do them. There are basically three formats I use on different days of the week:

1. Whole group using the the IWB. Any student who is not at the white board writes the answers on their individual dry erase boards.  
2. Small group: I used poster board to make 5 calendar math posters. The posters have the same things on them that we do on the IWB (file included below). I just laminated the posters, and groups of about 4 work together to compete each section. The first group to complete every part correctly wins a treat. 
3. Individual: I created a worksheet that looks like what we do on the IWB, and students write in their answers on their sheets independently, then we check together.

Every 2-3 weeks I test the students using a sheet similar to the independent practice worksheet. I'm so glad I've implemented this! It's a lot of math in a short amount of time, and a great way to review those skills that need to stay fresh. 

Now for the files. I've created a highly interactive Promethean flipchart that can be used on your whiteboard. There are also copies of the tests, worksheets, a PowerPoint version of the lesson (though not as interactive), and black and white printables to make your own small group calendar posters. Just click the link under the picture to download the zipped file. If you decide to download, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Calendar Math Files

Hurricane in a Bowl

We've all made the tornado in a bottle, right? Well, how about a hurricane in a bowl? I wish I could take credit for this activity, but I found it in my science book and just knew we had to do it. All you need are clear bowls, water, spoons, food coloring, and newspapers to help with spillage. Here's how:

Imagine the red swirling around really fast. 

I used the 5E model for this lesson (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate), and placed my students into groups of about 4 or 5. 

Engage: Activate Prior Knowledge: We had already discussed students' schema for hurricanes and read some sections in our book about how they form, how they're forecasted, etc...

Explore: Have students use a spoon to swirl the water around very quickly. As a group, the should work together to time the next part carefully. Once the water is swirly rapidly, raise the spoon out of the water and add food coloring. The food coloring should swirl around in the water, showing "arms" like a hurricane. *NOTE: There is a bit of a learning curve to this. If students continue to stir the water, the food coloring will mix and they won't see the model.

Explain: We discussed what each part represented. What does the food coloring represent? What does the water represent?

Elaborate: Discuss how the model is similar to and different from a real hurricane.

Evaluate: Okay, I didn't really get to this part, but if I did, I would have had the students write a journal entry explaining what they did and how the model helped us visualize the bands of a hurricane.

We had to repeat this about 3 or 4 times so the kiddos could all get to use the spoon or the food coloring, but even so, it was a very quick activity. What's even better is that the kiddos were having fun and learning the whole time.

Multiplication Math Journal Goodness

This year I am learning so much about teaching math (thanks to our new math program). For the first time, I finally feel like I can scaffold students' learning appropriately and know what to do to help them when they don't understand. There have been some growing pains as we learn the new strategies, but I'm loving it!

We started a chapter on multiplication last week, and according to my pre-tests, students needed help with arrays, so I decided to take two days to front-load content as we worked in our math journals. Using this poster as inspiration, I introduced multiplication models. We modeled each one, spending a great deal of time modeling arrays with base ten blocks, then drawing them. I knew that they didn't quite understand that "3x5=15" means "three ROWS OF five equals fifteen" (which is why they kept getting arrays wrong. So I focused on teaching them the language. I think the color coding really helped. They drew the picture of the boat rowing across the lake as a reminder that rows go across. The smaller picture of the arrays is stapled to the back of the Multiplication page.

These activities gave the students the foundation they needed to understand the wording and expectations of our new math program, which requires deeper thinking. Plus, it gave them a deeper understanding about multiplication. I'm so glad I took the time to front load this knowledge and fill in some of the gaps they had!

ToonDoo in the Classroom

ToonDoo is an easy, engaging, FREE tool that you can use in your classroom. Super easy to use, my students just logged in and followed the on-screen directions to create their Toon. I made this set of instructions and uploaded it to VistaPrint, but I forgot to use them. Even so, my students caught on very quickly, which is a huge plus when using a web 2.0 tool!

Feel free to use this. I uploaded to VistaPrint and
put the image on Oversized Postcards.

I used ToonDoo this week as an extension for the story we were reading about Jim Thorpe. My class has a group on Edmodo, so I posted the link and the log in information for them there. They were to create a cartoon about sports. Here's an example:

By kilgosclass | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

My students loved this tool! They even worked on it at home! Of course, we'll have to go over expectations for correct grammar and mechanics for online projects. (Don't worry, that's coming up this week!) But for last week (3rd week of school) I just really wanted to get them excited about some of the tools we'd be using and make connections from our literature.

**Important Note**
I made one account and all of my students logged in at once, but you might want to make more because I noticed the process slows down or stops when more than about 10 are using at the same time.

How about you? Have you ever used ToonDoo or something like it? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Doing Word Walls and a Freebie

Many of us HAVE word walls in the classroom, but do we DO word walls? Are they just pretty decorations on the wall that the students ignore glance at ocassionally, or a real resource that students use on a daily basis? In this post, I'll show you how to take your word wall from static to fantastic, plus give you some super-cute word wall cards I made!

There's basically only two rules for making your word wall a living, breathing resource in the classroom:

Use the word wall in a whole-class activity every day. 

Hold students accountable for spelling word wall words correctly.

This is a daily reminder for the kiddos to use the word wall, and it sends the message "Here is an important resource for you." But you may be thinking, "What am I supposed to do with it? WHEN am I supposed to fit this in?!" This post is for you. Here are some things I've done that worked for me:

How Much? 10 minutes or less

When? I schedule my literacy block using the Four Blocks framework, so I have 20-30 minutes each day for word work. When I scheduled using the Daily 5 framework, the word wall activities were one of my mini-lessons.

Which? You may use frequently misspelled words (there, their, they're), vocabulary, or pre-made sets of words. I plan on using some of my choice, and some of the words from Month by Month Phonics because my school purchased them for each teacher.

What? Every Monday when you add new words (4-6), chant them. Show the word and discuss its meaning. Next spell it, then have students say it and spell it aloud and write the word down in their journals or personal word walls. I like to have them chant the spelling three or four times and here's where it can get really fun. There are literally TONS of ways they can do this. Here's a great list of word wall chants. Each day choose 3 or 4 words (or more if there's time) to discuss, chant, and/or write, then do a short activity with the words.

• Be a Mind Reader (my favorite activity): Choose one word that students guess through clues you give them. Each time you give a clue, they write down a word from the word wall (spelled correctly). The clues start out very general, then narrow down the choices. Here's an example for the word community:
• It's a word on the word wall. (Students write a guess on their papers).
• It is a singular, collective noun (Students rewrite their word, or revise and choose another word). 
• It has more than three syllables (Students write their word again, or revise their guess and write another word). 
• It has 9 letters (Students rewrite their word, or write a different word based on the clue). 
• The last letter is a y (By now most should have it)
• Be a Mind Reader v2: Similar to the activity above, but this time you choose five different words. Give one clue for each word. At the end, students who think they have the correct answers raise their hands and you check to see how got every word correct and spelled it correctly. I usually give them some little treat.
• Wordo: This is just like bingo, except with words! You can read more about it in this post. 

There are many, many more, but these three are a great place to start. Now, on to your freebies! I've made two sets of word wall labels to share with you:

Polka Dot Owl Word Wall Cards

Polka Dot and Chevron Owl Word Wall Cards

I'd love to hear from you! Do you do a word wall? If so, what are your favorite activities to do with it?

Quirky Quotations

Need an exciting, fun way for your kids to practice correctly using quotation marks? Then this is the activity for you! This lesson is always a crowd pleaser and one the kids beg to do again and again. All you  need is some chart paper, markers, and this poster. (I'm not sure where I got the frame--if it is yours please let me know so I can give you credit :)

Direct Quotations Poster

Start by doing a quick mini-lesson on the proper use of quotation marks before the actual activity. I'm a huge whiteboard user, so I usually have my students practice a few lines of dialogue by writing it on their whiteboards (also great for formative assessment). Next comes the fun part. I tell my kids that they're going to be taking part in a silent discussion. They can only talk with their markers...no talking out loud! While I'm explaining, I begin hanging up some pre-made charts like this one:

Frame from ccteachfirst.blogspot.com 

Each chart has four or five famous people, including fictional characters, and a conversation starter.
I divide the class into groups, place them at the charts and let them start writing! The only rules are

1. No talking out loud.
2. All dialogue must be punctuated correctly.

I usually give each group about 3-5 minutes, then call time and the groups move on to the next chart. This is such a great creative writing activity with lots of practice writing direct quotations. Plus, its always hilarious to wrap up the lesson by coming back together as a whole group to see how the conversations end up! Be prepared to do this activity several times because the kids will want to use different combinations of people. 

How about you? Have you taught a lesson similar to this or do you have another great way to practice writing quotations? I'd love to hear from you!

Have you heard of Common Core Classroom yet? It's an amazing new blog with great ideas for teaching the new Common Core Standards. I'm honored and excited to be an author there! You'll find this post and many others that I'm sure will be a great help as we all try to learn and implement the new standards:

Switcheroo Zoo

I just spent the last 30 minutes playing on this awesome site! Switcheroo Zoo has games, videos, lesson plans, animal profiles, and more!

Build your own animal:

Facts about the animals you choose are listed in the blue boxes. Once you've finished you can take a picture of your animal, and there's an option to Add a title and add a story. There are even sample poems and stories that students have submitted. How cool is this?! I could definitely see having my kids create Pourquoi tales about their new animals like, "How the Zebeara Lost its Stripes." (No, spellchecker, I didn't misspell my new animal's name :)

Watch videos and listen to animal sounds and music:

I LOVED Dance of the Sugar Plum Furry!

Build and Online Habitat:

Change the animal, plants, weather, and location. What's great about this is that animal gives you feedback as you change the habitat! My lizard is telling me that he'll get eaten quickly in this habitat. 

There are so many great ways to use this site:

• Learn facts about different animals during your animal unit.
• Learn about habitats by actually constructing them.
• Create new animals for fun!
• Write stories or poems.
• Do research for projects or reports.
• Practice map skills and learn about endangered species
• Learn about carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, and scavengers.

For even more ideas visit their lesson plans page. I am so excited to have found this site and can't wait to put it to use next year! How about you? How do you see yourself using something great like this?

BeeClip: Digital Scrapbooks for Students

Have you seen this free tool yet? I came across it while reading a post over at CristinaSkyBox. Beeclip is a free digital scrapbook for students. You don't even have to log in! Similar to Glogster, students can upload images, add text, audio, or video, and change the backgrounds. You can even download and print when finished. Something else impressive--I tweeted my find, and almost immediately received a reply from @BeeClipEDU saying thank you and offering assistance. I had a few questions, which they answered almost immediately. They're on top of things!

Here's the one I made in NO time: I used some pictures and a video my kiddos made at the end of the year.

More than one student can edit the same project at the same time on different computers. You can enable or disable the ability to use Google Images, Flickr, and YouTube. And even after you embed, if you make edits to the project, the embedded project changes right along with it!

I can think of so many uses for this that would definitely take a whole different post. Stay tuned...

You've Gotta Have This App! iMotion

If you make movies in your classroom, you have GOT to try out iMotion for iPod and iPad! I stumbled on this great app the other day while on Twitter. A teacher had requested comments for her students on this blog post which included stop motion animation movies about money. Of course I had to check it out! I was so impressed that I immediately downloaded the FREE app onto my iPhone.

I have to say it is super easy to use. The first time I used it was on Father's Day: My family all met at my Grandmother's house and (of course) started playing with phones and talking about apps. I whipped out my new app and within 3 minutes, my dad and I had made this movie:

Yeah, I know its a little silly, but we were just playing after all. :)

My cousin's little girl downloaded it and made two movies right then and there. And I started thinking..."If we can do that in almost NO time, what could my kiddos do with this app?!?"

I was so excited about it, I knew I had to use it again soon, so I had my 3rd-5th grade Sunday School class make one during our Sunday School lesson:

It's easy to use. Just open the app and click start. It is automatically set to take still shots every second. You can adjust the speed of the snapshots, or choose to take them manually. You can pause and restart.You can even change the speed of the movie once you've finished.  The only downside is that you have to pay $1.99 as an in app purchase if you want to share your movies to Youtube, Facebook, or whatever. I thought it was worth it because I know I'll be using it a lot!

How about you? Have you ever made stop motion animation movies? What do you use? I'd love to hear from you and steal borrow your ideas! 

Are You a Whole Brain Teacher?

I first found Whole Brain Teaching the year that I had "that group." You know the one...you love those kiddos and do everything you can, but nothing seems to work. After some web surfing I found my light at the end of the tunnel. When I first found it, it was called Power Teaching. Chris Biffle has created many, many downloadable books all dealing with classroom management strategies and learning activities. All of his items are free, and he even has a YouTube channel with videos of the strategies being used with actual students.

Here's a video with the basics of WBT. It's seven minutes long, but well worth it!

Some of the things I really like are the daily reviewing of rules and procedures, the scoreboard, and all of the active participation strategies such as Teach/Okay, Mirror, and the use of gestures in so many different ways.

Since that year, I've used many aspects of Whole Brain Teaching, and I'm still learning. How about you? Do you use WBT or some other form of classroom management?

Integrating Technology into the Language Arts Classroom

I'm so excited to be presenting at AETC again this year with my good friend Cara (Teaching My Calling)! We're collaborators, colleagues, fellow 4th grade teachers, and we sometimes feel like we share a brain. (Maybe the rhyming names have something to do with it?)  We, like many of you, share a passion for using technology in meaningful ways to engage our students and make learning meaningful. If you're at AETC this year, hopefully we'll get to meet up during our session or some other time. If you're not there you can still check out our livebinder full of resources and examples we plan to share during our session:

Integrating Technology Into t

Area of a Name

My kids loved this activity! After a short review on area, I had my students draw their names in block letters and calculate the area of each letter. They then found the total area of their names. 

I found this fun idea on Kelley's blog, Buggy for Second Grade. She has loads of great ideas!Thanks, Kelley!