That last few years, with Common Core and PARCC*, I feel I am always looking for ways to have my students read more non-fiction and read more on digital devices. This great new website combines my two needs in one. Newsela, http://newsela.com, describes themselves as "an innovative way for students to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that's always relevant: daily news." They offer news article under a variety of different categories for you and your students to read. Each article comes with different Lexile levels so every student in your class can be reading the same article but on their own reading level. After reading the article there is a quiz to accompany the article.
Go and create a free account on Newsela. Then add your students so they can also access the website and news artciles. Students do not need an email address. Once on the website your students can access articles of their choosing or you can assign an article to your class at a certain Lexile level.
The quizzes have multiple choice questions as select the paragraph to show your answer type questions. This is great as it matches the PARCC sample questions.
*PARCC-The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. It is a consortium of 17 states and D.C. that are working together to develop a common assessment for math and language arts. New Jersey, where I live and work is one of the 17 states. This test is taken online which means my students have needed to develop a new set of technological skills. While they already use a computer to complete many tasks, there are many things they will need to do for the PARCC test that they do not regularly do on the computer: type out math facts, fill in arrays, use digital rulers or protractors, highlight text to show evidence, type without a pre-write, and so more. Newsela will be an excellent for students to continue adjusting to computer based reading assessments.
A few months ago when purchasing books I came across this great series of fractured fairy tales, "The Other Side of the Story" by a three different of authors, Trisha Speed Shaskanm, Nancy Loewen, and Eric Braun. The titles include:
Honestly, Red Riding Hood Was Rotten!
Seriously, Cinderella Is So Annoying!
Really, Rapunzel Needed A Haircut!
Seriously, Snow White Was Really Forgetful!
No Lie, I Acted Like A Beast!
Trust Me, Jack's Beanstalk Stinks!
Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks!
Truly, We Both Loved Beauty Dearly!
The Story of the Frog Prince as Told by the Frog
No Kidding, Mermaids Are A Joke!
Each story is told from the point of view of another character in the story. For example, "Honestly, Red Riding Hood Was Rotten" is told from the wolf's point of view. The story starts out:
"Chomp! Chomp! Oh, I'm sorry. I was just finishing my lunch. my name's Wold- Big Bad Wolf. You may have heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood. About a girl and her granny? Seems everyone has. My tail is different. Did i say tail? I meant tale."
As you continue to read you learn the the wolf is a vegetarian and starving waiting for the apple harvest. In her beautiful red cape, what did Little Red Riding Hood look like... an apple. To make matters worse for this starving wolf Granny's house smelled like apple air freshener and she herself looked like a Granny Smith Apple. The Wolf does end up eating both Granny and Red Riding Hood but he finds she tastes a bit rotten, hence the title of the book.
At the end of each story is a Think About It section to further think about this story and a glossary. You can also find a Read More section to find related books, Internet Sites to learn more, and more books in the series.
I am extremely excited to find Must-Read Monday hosted by Teaching Madness. Finding new book recommendations by other teachers is always great and now finding them each week is so exciting.
This book is great for a read-aloud, reading groups, or an whole class read. Students with all kinds of interest will find something that appeals to them in this Realistic Fiction Adventure book.
The story is about a family, Jonathan, his parents, his disabled sister Abby, and their dog Moose, who go camping on Magpie Island. Jonathan's mother fell broke her ankle so his parents left him charge of Abby and Moose while they go to the hospital. Unfortunately for Jonathan, the ground starts to rumble and he, Abby, and Moose find themselves in the middle of a natural disaster, an earthquake. Jonathan must save Abby and Moose form the damaged island and pouring rain and find their parents.
It is a great book for teaching many different elements of reading: setting, character, mood, cause and effect, problem and solution, inferring... I can go on and on. The students are truly enjoying this book as did I. It has promoted sustained reading as this is a long complex book.
If you google "Earthquake Terror lesson plans" there is a plethora of resources out there to assist in teaching with this book. One I found to be very detailed is by Peanut Butter Published on readbymyside.com: http://www.readsidebyside.com/media/earthquake.pdf
A few years ago I had second graders write Valentines from inanimate object to inanimate object. It was a huge hit. The last few years I did not do this project and I missed it immensely so I brought it back!
Students walk into this picture on the SMART Board.
Then, I read aloud, Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane de Groat. We discussed how Valentines Day was all about telling people how much you like them. It did not have to be lovey dovey but it was about kind words.
I find that books by Diane de Groat are great on many levels. The students are always interested in the story. The characters are relatable, the images are large and interesting, and the while the story gives a lesson it is not so blunt that the students are bored; each lesson is carefully worked into the story so the students are well aware they are learning something but still get to laugh enjoy the story. She is always funny!
(Her books about Gilbert remind a bit of the Little Critter series by Mercer Mayer. When I was little I loved these books. I knew they were teaching me a lesson but I didn't care. Diane de Groat's Gilbert series seems a bit more interesting, but it is 2014.)
Students then helped me write a valentine. I told them I was going to be a foot writing to a sock and I really wanted to tell the sock how much I needed it. I always start them with... Dear Sock, I wanted to tell you how much I love you on this Valentine's Day.
One class came out like this: Dear Sock, I wanted to tell you how much I love you on this Valentine's Day. You are really comfortable on me and prevent me from getting blisters. When you are one me I feel warm on cold floors. When I kick a ball, you help the shoe stay on me. Love, Foot
Then we brainstormed things that go together. (Yes that last one says "Mom and Candy Crush")
Students then worked on their own to write their own valentines to and from inanimate objects (mostly). Their template is below.
Then we learned from Microsoft Word skills, typed them up and added a picture. Here are some examples.
The student below has been in our school about 3 months. She came in knowing little to no English. I wrote her rough draft after she verbally told me what to say and she typed it all on her own. Such progress!
This one is so creative for a second grader. I love it!
I was really happy to see one of the boys venture out into their own world instead of using one of our brainstorm ideas.
Of course, I had to include the Candy Crush one. :p The last reason is GREAT!
Students printed and brought these home this week. Years ago I made a game out of it. They didn't sign the letters and instead the class guessed who the letters were from. Since I only see my classes once a week, it takes 3 weeks to complete this and I learned it is way to hard for second graders to keep a secret for 3 weeks so this year they signed them.
This year to teach Digital Citizenship I needed something new. After looking at a variety of different sites I landed on Digital Passport by Common Sense Media. This site grabbed my attention for a variety of reasons:
1. Students have their own login so I can track their progress
2. It has interactive games so the students are interested and have to make decisions
3. It can be used at school and at home
4. It covers a variety of topics
5. As a teacher I can group students by class
6. Even their lesson plans are great
As an educator you need to sign-up. It is free and simple. Once logged in you create your class(es) by typing students names in or uploading a simple .csv file. This is the screen you see when you first log-in.
As the educator you can download Educator Materials, these are the lesson plans which I find to be written well and very useful. They are to the point, interesting, and a great introduction activity that help students grasp what they are about to learn. On this screen you can also Get Trained, find answer to some FAQs, learn about Mobile use on the iPads, or Preview the Games. I found the Educator Materials and Preview Games tabs to be the most helpful.
Here is a beginning of the Share Jumper Lesson Plan:
Here you can also change settings and view reports for your class(es). By clicking on the class' tab at the top you can add more students, manage which activities they can play, and view their scores/reports.
So now it is the students turn to login. (When I create student accounts at the elementary age I give them all the same password. This makes my life easier in future weeks when students do not know their passwords.) Students see this screen to login:
At their first log-in students are asked to choose an avatar and learn how to create a safe a password. I learned that this is a test on following directions as much as it is on learning to create a good password. Then they are brought to the following screen where they can choose their activities:
My students had mostly positive things to say so far. I started with Share Jumper and I used Digital Passports opening activity. They loved the game feel, their scores were good, and when we closed students retained information from the video, game, and scenarios played out for them. While I will not do all 5 lessons this year, I will keep using Digital Passport and build on them each year.
I absolutely adore Digital Storytelling. Since I started teaching Computers 5 years ago, I have taught digital storytelling every year. Most years, I have even run a digital storytelling after-school club.
There are many ways to teaching students to create a digital story. Since I usually teach it to first graders I provide the students with a planning sheet for Beginning, Middle, and End. Students usually have complete freedom of characters, setting, and plot as long as: the beginning introduces the story, the middle shows a problem, and the end solves the problem. If I taught it to older grades, there were more requirements. Students drew their pictures in a drawing program on the computer and combined it with their recorded voices in GarageBand.
This year, I did I did it differently and if I must say, it was awesome.
First I started the students out with the app Story Wheel of the iPad. There is a free and a paid version of this app. The free version gives students one theme to choose from, Story Teller, and the paid version provides Story Teller plus Space, Pirates, and Knights and Princesses.
Students work alone, in pairs, or in groups to create a story. First, they spin the wheel and land on an
image. They have 30 seconds to record a part of the story. If they make a mistake they can rerecord. Next, thye pass the iPad for the next person in their group to spin the wheel and do the same. Students are supposed to build on each others recordings to build a story. Once complete, the story is played back with the animated images. It can be exported and shared as an ibook. I do not like that the students cannot pause when recording or go back and change a recording after they have clicked Next Player.
First, I put students into pairs, or groups of three. I showed them how to use the app and gave them freedom of theme since we have the paid version. Groups who struggled to keep a single story going were told to repeat something their partner said while recording their own 30 seconds. The first graders had so much fun they asked to make second stories when they finished their first. They wanted to share all their stories with me. The next week, they saw the iPads and asked right away if we were using Story Wheel again. I think this app is great for storytelling, group work, creativity, and much more.
Never wanting to dissapoint, the second week I introduced the students to a new app, Puppet Pals. In heterogenous groups students worked together to choose characters and write a story. First they created a storyboard in which I emphasized the use of adjectives to help keep their stories interesting. Students then used the app Puppet Pals HD to create their stories.
Puppet Pals is another app that has both a free version and a paid version. This is one of my all time
favorite apps for elementary age students. The free version comes with one theme, Wild West. Each theme has different characters and backdrops. The paid version, or the Director's Pass, has many more themes such as: Pirates, Fairy Tales, Zombies, Political, Talk Show, etc.
This app is great for storytelling, speaking, character writing, listening, and so much more. Students will select their characters, their backdrops, and then record their voices while moving the characters around. Characters can be resized, rotated, and can change directions. Unlike Story Wheel, students can pause and continue recording. If you are savvy in Movie Maker or iMovie you can export multiple parts and combine them. This allows students to record at different times. (This is also great if you only have a few or even 1 iPad to share with your class.)
Here are some sample stories from my first graders:
Every year my students participate in Battle of the Books. As a member of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, I have access to a list of age appropriate books and questions written great local SLMS. The students get excited each year as do the teachers, and of course I do. This year I had a fourth graders walk into the library and say, "Battle is my life!'
Battle of the Books last about 4 1/2 to 5 months. Students work in teams to read 15 books. Here, I require each student to read at least 5 books to be apart of the Battle. After reading a book, a student must complete a memory jogger. Each memory jogger requires the students to identify the title, author, characters, setting, problem, resolution, and beginning, middle, and end. Memory joggers must then be checked and signed by their teacher.
After the 4 1/2 or so months, we BATTLE. Teams compete in 10 rounds to answer questions about the books. Each questions starts with "In which book..." and all answers are in the format of the title of the book and author. Teams have 30 seconds respond and if they respond correctly they get 5 points for knowing the title of the books and a bonus 3 points if they know the author. If the team does not know the answer the question dies, there is no stealing, so I always encourage teams to guess no matter what.
Class teams compete against each and then we have a grade level battle. As a small district we do not have other schools to compete against, but we are lucky enough to have 2 districts nearby that also participate in Battle of the Books. Our winning teams come together and we have a Regional Battle of the Books. The students always become quite competitive against other towns.
To start things off I usually pick a theme to get the students excited. Two years ago it was jousting, last year it was Battleship, and this year I chose Angry Birds. I introduce or remind students what Battle of the Books is and how it plays out.
With each title I read a short excerpt or show them a book trailer I find on TeacherTube, Youtube, or www.booktrailersforreaders.com. No surprising the books that have trailers the students are always the most excited to read.
The third graders really enjoyed the Book Trailers, I think I'm going to have them make some next project.
