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

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.

Valentine's Day Gifts

Leads and other things

Shortcut by Donald Crews
- strong beginning and end
- helps students understand that one small moment of time can be captured and told with excitment and strong emotion

Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe
-helps student understand the importance of a beginning that is not too far away in time from themost important event of the story

Crab Moon by Ruth Horowitz
- shows students how they can span a larger period of time.
-Transitioning from one essential moment to the next and skipping everything in between.

Widget by Lyn Rossiter McFarland
-usually at the end of first grade, beginning of second (as children become proficient with words and adding details) the slump of sun-up to sun-down begins.
- clear beginning, middle, and end. Story map.


Creating a good lead:
Establishing the setting
- The Girl on the High-Diving Horse by Linda Oatman High
-Angels in the Dust by Margot Theis Raven
-Wingwalker by Rosemary Wells
- Own Moon by Jane Yolen
-Tulip Sees America by Cynthia Rylant
-Amber on the Mountain by Tony Johnson

Developing the main character:
-The Grannyman by Judith Schachner
-Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
-The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill
-Manac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

Introducing Characters Through Setting:
-Widget by Lyn Rossiter McFarland
-Tomas and the Library Landby Pat Mora

Lead--> Describing the weather (strong verbs and adjectives)
- Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto
- Cocoa Ice by Diana Applebaum
-Sugarbush Spring by Marsha Wilson Chall
- From Poppa by Anne Carter
- Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams 2 and Jean Stoick

Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6 [Paperback]

Lynne R. Dorfman

What did we do over break/snow day?

To incorporate our snow days into Language Arts, I had the kids write down three sentences about what they did over the break. The next day, we went back and edited our writing to make sure all of the necessities were there (capital letters, finger spaces, punctuation, etc). Then, we traded papers with our neighbors to do peer editing. On Thursday, after another snow day Wednesday, I had each student draw a picture to match their writing. I glued and laminated each piece and put it together to make a book. It is wonderful! I can't wait for them to see the finished product tomorrow!

Last week I also read the book "The Snowman Storybook". I didn't read the last page (which shows the snowman melted) and I had my class each write what they thought the little boy saw when he went outside the day after he built his snowman. So much fun! :)

Holiday traditions

We also did some Christmas sentence starters like: "Christmas is special because," "My favorite Christmas tradition is," or "I like Christmas because." Each kid made 2 hand-prints and 2 sentence starters to make our wreath!

 

http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/search/label/christmas

Personal Narritives. Amber Brown

Amber Brown. Here's how I did it...

After reading these 2 books:

we talked about the friendship that Amber shares with her best friend, Justin Daniels. From there, we began writing our personal narratives about our best friends. Here is the story that I modeled {I showed it to my friend, Sarah, and she cracked up :)}:

I had the students close their eyes and imagine their best friend: what they look like, things they like, what they do with their best friend, why they are best friends. We spent a lot of time talking about things to include in their papers. First, I had the kids write a rough draft in their journals. Then, I helped them edit the spelling and punctuation.

When I'm sick... creative writing

On Monday we started our week long journey with this writing activity.

(For my little sick guy, I copied Cara's Alliteration poster!)

First, we brainstormed a time that we have been sick. My students made a little bubble map in their journals to start their process. I love how this cutie made her bubble map into a sick person. The next day, we put all of our ideas together on the chart shown above!

Here's how our writing process went for the week:

Monday: Brainstormed with a bubble map

Tuesday: Charted our ideas and wrote 2 parts (What they were sick with, and how they felt)

Wednesday: Re-read what we had written so far, began writing the last two parts (What happened because they were sick, and how they got better)

Thursday: Finished rough drafts, began revising/editing

Friday: Finished final drafts and made little sick people when writing was completed!

Here's how ours turned out:

Love, Splat Valentine's Day

For Reading/Writing we read "Love, Splat" and made a text-to-self connection with a little writing creativity from the one and only, Cara Carroll :)

The students finished the sentence stem "I feel loved when..." Then they were able to put their little Splats together!

"What we are reading"

http://4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com/search/label/Book%20Whisperer

wanted the kids to be able to visibly see their progress in the classroom as well as in their data notebooks so here was my plan:

I made a What We're Reading board. Each time decides they are committed to a book or a student finishes a book, they get a note card. On the card they put their name, the title of the book, and the author. Then they turn the cards in to me and I punch a hole and put them on a metal ring and hang them on the board on a fat push pin. (now, I realize that there are only 12 hanging there....I have 22 students so........some are slower readers, some have given up on a book, others forgotten....it's a work in progress.)

"The Black Book"

http://4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com/search/label/Anchor%20Charts

Make a big deal of this, before you have homework
Scary music!
Make them write in it, not the teacher.
It'll be shared at conferences


I also explained to them that the Black Book will be pulled out and shared during conferences.

I have to say, this is working. I talked this up last week telling them all that it was coming to the classroom soon. Then yesterday, their first night of homework this week, I reminded them that "the Black Book would be in the classroom tomorrow." This morning as students were coming up to my table to turn in homework one boy walked up, there were 2 piles, one for Active Reading Notebooks and the other for their math page. He had his Active Reading Notebook but couldn't find his Math....at one point he put down his backpack and I heard him say to himself "this isn't happening". I cracked up. He found his paper but was worried because the Black Book was there. I do have to add that out of 22 students there are only about 4 that tend to "forget" their homework, so hopefully this will be a way to get them back in the homework ballgame:)

The Story of the Frog Belly Rat Bone

by Timothy Basil Ering

Students need one sheet of paper folded in 4ths. and a pencil/crayons
Cover the cover with a folder.
Read a few pages give the students 3 minutes to draw and color

"I need to see what you've worked on"

During writing conferences I often hear my teacher say, "I need to see what you've worked on during writing" after she conferences with a student.

However, she often forgets to check back with them.... then it's another 2 weeks before she meets with them again.


To solve the problem stick a sticky-note on their anadoctals page to remind yourself they need to see you later.

Teaching books

Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading [Paperback]

Tanny McGregor

Interventions that Work: A Comprehensive Intervention Model for Preventing Reading Failure in Grades K-3 (Interventions that Work Series) [Paperback]

Linda J. Dorn


The Book Whisperer: Awakening the inner reader in every child

Donalyn Miller

The Daily 5

Gail Boushey

Power Struggles

Important Things to Remember:

1.   Reinforce consistently that- even good kids make mistakes, you’re just a good kid who made a poor choice. We can’t do anything about it now, but we can work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

2.   Know that kids have the power, but you can control the circumstances. Know also that if you take the hook, engage in the power struggle, then you will lose.

3.   Be sure to always help children save face in front of others. If you don’t, you will have a lot of additional behavioral baggage to deal with.

4.   Be aware that when you feel the heat rising, it is a sign of power behavior and your signal to take on your coolest, most blasé’ demeanor.

5.   The smarter the child and the longer he has practiced the behavior, the longer it will take to eliminate it.

6.   Consistency is key- if you once let the child see that you are invested in the power behavior, you will have to start all over with plan B.

7.   Forgive yourself.

8.   When eliminating a behavior, if you haven’t successfully addressed the cause, watch for another to take its place.

9.   It is extremely important to stay consistent when things get better.

10.                Most working plans have a regression factor where the old behavior returns. If you stay consistent, it will go away for good.

11. Be sure to deal with any situation as a helpmate- if a parent loses cool, children see it as a sense of betrayal and you will have to have a debriefing session before things return to the status quo.

12.                Again, don’t discuss the plan after it is made, act on it.

13.Be sure that the consequences of the behavior never become punishment. (They should always be reasonable, related and respectful).

14.Be careful with rewarding success. Feedback is great, material items work only short term.

15.Revenge behavior can follow power if power behavior is handled poorly or not addressed.

16.A plan must address the goal of the behavior as well as the behavior. Children typically choose misbehavior as a way to get their needs met when they don’t get what they want or need. Think of it as a choosing disability.

17.                CHILDREN ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO SHARE THEIR ANGER OR FRUSTRATION- THEY PROJECT IT TO YOU. SO IF YOU FEEL ANGRY- KNOW THAT YOU ARE DEALING WITH AN ANGRY CHILD.

18.                In order to chance your management style, be ready to accept that others may wonder what you’re doing.

19.                Don’t be a bleeding heart (no matter how much your heart bleeds) giving second chances or making excuses only prolongs the behavior and causes the struggle to continue that much longer. It really doesn’t do the child any favors.

20.               Always expect your child’s best. When something upsetting or sad has happened, deal with it. If you suddenly start allowing behavior you normally wouldn’t, the silent message sent to your child is, “wow, this really must be big- maybe it’s worse than I thought.”

21.                Use the self-fulfilling prophecy every chance you get (only genuinely)

22.                Give practice in delayed gratification- it’s a life skill that can’t be beat.

23.                Don’t make excuses- emphasize that your child’s success or failure is up to him!

Warm up your brain/ scoring guide

Caught it.

Hand Signals

: Create a classroom-wide hand signal for thing such as going to the bathroom and getting a drink. Any time the teacher sees these signals he or she can do the signal back giving the “ok” or simply say no. This is a huge time savor and decreases interruption in the younger grades.