Teaching with Comic Books

http://www.teachforever.com/2011/10/using-comic-books-graphic-novels-in.html


Great resources and an interesting idea. Fun, original, and purposeful. Several comprehension strategies. Need SMART board to open materials.

Comparing and Contrasting- Candy

This is a project that can be used after comparing and contrasting has been taught. Assessment.

Students will each be given bite-sized a milky-way candy bar and a three musketeers candy bar. I will instruct them to not open them until we discuss the packaging, comparing and contrasting the two, recording their answers on chart paper. After we are done, students will open each candy bar and again, we will discuss and record any similarities and differences. Finally, I will ask them to pull each candy bar apart and look at the inside of each candy bar, recording again our comparisons. After I've tortured them long enough, they will be allowed to eat the candy bar.

Tomorrow's homework will be to write a five paragraph essay comparing and contrasting. It will not be due until Friday. Their introductory paragraph will be to tell the reader what the essay will cover. Paragraph 2 will cover our discussion of the wrappers of each bar. Paragraph 3 will discuss the outside of each candy bar. Paragraph 4 will cover their observations on the inside of each bar. Finally, the closing paragraph will be a brief critique on which bar they would recommend and why using information from paragraphs 2, 3, and 4. I am considering this their practice essay, leading up to Thursday and Friday's big event.

Thursday and Friday we are going to watch "Charlie and Chocolate Factory," the old (Gene Wilder)and new(Johnny Depp) version. Prior to watching the movies on Thursday, we will discuss any difficulties students may have had beginning their essays. On Friday, I will collect their essay, look them over on the week-end and hand them back on Monday. During that time, I will have copies of those students who I feel did the best and we will talk about why these essays were the strongest.

Thanks-http://middle-school-teacher.blogspot.com/2007/11/lesson-plan-share-killing-two-birds.html

Martin Luther King

Celebrating Martin Luther King

This idea came from Chris Smith. Have students dictate or write about what they want to be when they grow up. Take their photograph dressed as that profession. Develop the pictures in black and white and mount them on black construction paper. 

 

http://larremoreteachertips.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=50

Where you like to read

http://larremoreteachertips.blogspot.com/

I absolutely loved these two ideas!!

Write and draw about where readers like to read. Check out her post here. 

Literature Circles

http://bonniecampbellhill.com/Handouts/Handouts/NESALitCircleHandoutAthens07.pdf


• Use questions that come up during discussion as jumping-off points for writing
• Open-ended questions: "How are you like this character?" or "What do you think will happen next, and why?"
• Prompts: "I wonder...", "I wish ...", "What if ....?"
• Diary entries in the voice of a character
• Cause/effect explanation
• Letters to characters (or from one character to another)
• Sketching or drawing

We are all writers

Some of my favorite books for launching Writer's Workshop at the beginning of the year are books that help my students realize that they are authors too! Here's a small compilation of a few of my faves...

 

 

http://oneextradegree.blogspot.com/search/label/writing%20workshop

Mentor Texts

1. Saturdays and Teacakes by Lester Laminack {This is one of my all time favorites. It is beautifully written, and lends itself to teaching personal narratives and memoirs. I love the repetition, the white space, the interesting way he writes dialogue without quotation marks, and I love the nostalgia.}
2. Emma Kate by Patricia Polacco {This book is fabulous for teaching synthesis. It's all about a friendship between an elephant and a little girl. It makes the kids wonder whether it's fantasy and they really are friends or if the elephant is an imaginary friend. They change their thinking a few times, and in the end, they learn that the elephant has an imaginary child. I always re-read it one more time once they make this realization!}
3. Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe {This book always tops my list for teaching inferring! It's beautifully written, and it helps kids connect to their own prior knowledge!}
4. The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Susan Stevens Crummel. {Of course, I have a soft spot for golden retrievers, but beyond that, this is a fabulous book for teaching predicting! It's also very easily tied into the bucket-filler/bucket-dipper concept. I love Crummel's fun placement of the text!}
5. The Memory String by Eve Bunting {Beautiful story! Great for making T-S connections!}
6. The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg {Great story to teach inferring! The kids have to pay close attention to the clues to infer that the stranger is Jack Frost. This is probably better suited for upper-elementary, because it's a definitely not obvious, but that's why I love it!}
7. A Day's Work by Eve Bunting {This is a great story about "the important things" like honesty. It's a great story about a young boy's relationship with his grandfather. 8. Owl Moon by Eve Bunting {I love this book! I have taught just about everything from mental images to poetic devices to owl adaptations with it. In fact, I have a pretty cross-curricular unit for sale in my TpT store that I used with my kiddos in my old school district. It's so much fun!} 9. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White {Such an oldie, but a goodie. I LOVE Charlotte's Web, because you can teach so much with it, if you break it into manageable chunks. I especially love how it lends itself to teaching about imagery and sensory details during the barn scene. I also totally LOVE the characters. I mean, who doesn't love Charlotte and Wilbur?! Of course, this is another book I used to extensively teach with back in the day, and I also have a unit that accompanies it.} 10. Love That Dog by Sharon Creech {I always like to read this book to launch discussions about the writing process. I also love it because it approaches poetry in a fresh way, and it exposes kids to the classics in a non-threatening way. It's also great for the kids who say they don't like to write.}
11.
12. The BFG by Roald Dahl {This is one I truly enjoy reading for the sake of reading it. The kids LOVE the story... I think it's because of the whizzpopping. Of course, it's Roald Dahl, so I have to soften a few things here and there, but this is the only book I have a consistent character voice for. I have cultivated my BFG voice over the years, and the kids eat it up with a spoon!}
13. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss {I should be excited that they are making a movie about this book, because I LOVE IT, but I'm sad they are adding so much to a book that I think is absolutely perfect. I love the rhythm, the lesson, the adorable Lorax, and I even sort-of have a soft-spot for the Once-ler. This is a just-plain-magical book that teaches about environmental concerns in a kid-friendly way. It's wonderful for making connections and starting an Earth Day discussion! The word "unless" carries so much weight...}
Okay, I'm going to have to take this another direction, because this is taking me FOREVER, and I am having a really difficult time narrowing it down. :) So, here's what I'll do. I'm going to point you in a few different directions if you are interested in more. First of all, feel free to check out my Donor's Choose link on the sidebar. There aren't any active grants right now, but I was fortunate to have a few funded last year, and several of them were for books that I salivated over and love. If you click on the links and scroll to the bottom of each page, you will see the book lists I picked out. In addition, if you haven't read them, you need to read the following teacher books that address reading workshop. Many of them make suggestions for books based on the reading strategies. I could get carried away with this too! These are my favorite reading resources at the moment. If you're impatient, you can also find lists online, but I highly recommend taking a gander at these fabulous books. They have totally sculpted and changed me as a teacher over the last few years. You can find book lists HERE... and all over the web.