The Idea Backpack

So one of the classroom management strategies I am loving this year is my Owl Behavior Clip Chart.

I have fifth graders, so I know that at that age sometimes people move away from the clip chart. My students have Chinese, Drama, and Art for Specials. One of the issues we had last year was inconsistency in behavior. My students would behave for me, but not for their Specials teachers. So what I did this year is I have the clip chart and each student has a clip with his name on it. The clip chart moves with the students from class to class. This gives consistency in behavior, rewards, and consequences among all teachers. I tried Class Dojo last year and it works well, but it was not something the other teachers could access. I needed a behavior management system that could travel with my students.

At the end of the day if my students make it to "Owlstanding Student" they get $1 Hoot Loot. I also give hoot loot for birthdays and turning in homework. Once a month, we have a class store where they can trade in their hoot loot.

One of the things I needed to make was a Behavior Think Sheet for when students got to "Think About It" on the clip chart. I finally made the think sheet, so I have a freebie for you.

You can click here for the Behavior Think Sheet. How do you use a clip chart? Have you found a great way to have consistency in behavior among all teachers for the same set of students?

This week I am linking up with Jivey's Workshop Wednesday for Word Work.

This year I really wanted to spend more time on Greek and Latin Roots. I also really wanted to do a weekly spelling list, but I wanted it to be challenging and really strengthen their understanding of words. I decided I wanted to do a weekly spelling list that consisted of Greek and Latin Roots.

This summer I purchased the Reading Olympians program. I loved the idea of the kids getting to earn different titles of Greek Gods as they mastered different sets of roots. I hoped the program would come with word lists to accompany each root, but it did not. It was my intention to just pick 3-4 words for each root and create weekly spelling lists to match up with the Reading Olympians program. Of course I never had as much time as I planned, so I decided to search TpT for a Spelling program based on Greek and Latin Roots. Reading Olympians really seems like a great program as a separate vocabulary program, but I did not feel I had time in my week for separate spelling and word work times so I wanted to combine them.

I was so excited to find One Extra Degree's Word Warriors program. We are on week 3, and it is working great! We start out the beginning of the week talking about each root and it's meaning. My students then match the different words from the list to each root. We talk about the meanings of all the words on the list. I usually have them do some sort of writing assignment with the words. I also have a Spelling City account, so I have been putting the lists into Spelling City. This way my students can play games with the words to practice them. Here is an example of our list from last week:

We used a flapbook on Monday to illustrate all the meanings of the words, write sentences, and group the words by root.

You can get a copy of the Root Word Study Tabs flapbook here.

Here is a peek at my week (1 day late):

Science

We are finishing up a project where my students had to design their own planet. We have been studying the planets and the solar system. I am going to blog about our projects later this week with pictures of what we have been doing. This week after finishing up our planets we are learning about the life of a star. We are doing a couple different foldables from this Space Science for Interactive Notebooks. For their reflection, my students are going to either write an acrostic for STAR or make a comic strip about the life cycle of a star.

Social Studies

We are working on explorers. We will be reading Encounter and discussing setting and point of view. This will be a great transition from Native Americans to the Explorers.

My students also will start reading The World Made New this week. They will be reading it on their own this week and filling out different assignments and activities to go with the book.

It is a great nonfiction book about how exploration changed the world.

Today we talked about Main Idea and Detail in Reading, so my kids read a passage from Readworks on Columbus. We cut up the paragraphs and glued them to colored paper, underlined the supporting details in the paragraphs, and drew webs to show main ideas and supporting details from the passage below each couple paragraphs.

Reading and Writing

Last Friday, we had the Plano Fire department come to our school and talk to the kids about fire safety. It was so much fun, and the kids were really engaged.

We are going to write thank you letters to the firefighters this week, so I decided to do a whole letter writing unit. I went to the library today and got some mentor texts to use as we discuss letter writing this week.

We probably will focus more on friendly letters this week and then maybe do persuasive letters next week.

Spelling

We are working on Week 4 of the Word Warriors program. Because we are working on letter writing, I am going to have them write a letter with their Spelling words this week. Today we discussed all the roots and their meanings.

Math

My Math 5 students are finishing up their unit on word problems and going to start reviewing multiplication. My Math 6 students are finishing up our unit on decimals and starting algebraic expressions.

In case you are interested, I also posted my "Peek at My Week" Dinner plans for this week on my personal blog, Balancing the Backpack. I am trying to start blogging about my workouts and what I am eating. One week down...

The last week has been super busy. My students have had a lot of fun studying letter writing. We started out talking about the parts of a letter. We made a flapbook to go over all of the parts.

You can get a free copy here.

We wrote our thank you letters to the fire fighters for visiting us. We used ReadWriteThink's Letter Generator to type our letters.

I have gotten some great text suggestions lately from Jivey. Not long ago, she suggested The Day the Crayons Quit as a great text to teach point of view.

I immediately ordered the book. A few days later I decided to cover letter writing with my kiddos since we were going to be writing Thank You letters anyway. When The Day the Crayons Quit came in the mail, I was so excited. I had forgotten the book was structured with letters. We had so much fun reading the book last week. We talked about point of view and character traits for each crayon. Over the next couple weeks, we are going to continue to revisit the book to discuss theme, conflict, plot, and some other reading skills. I am excited to use one book to cover many of the Common Core Literature Standards. I made a literature unit to go with the book.

You can get a copy here at my store. It has 17 pages of reading and writing activities that were created with the 4th and 5th grade Common Core Literature Standards in mind. Today for our journal writing, we wrote from the point of view of a school supply object. I am going to try and take some pictures tomorrow. They had some really cute ideas.

On Wednesday, we are going to read The Spider and the Fly which I read about via Jivey (who read about it via Head over Heels for Teaching).

You could easily follow up the book with a letter writing activity from the point of view of the spider or the fly.

I was thinking to get ready for Halloween and continue with the idea of a predator/prey relationship we would follow up the book with a writing assignment to be a piece of candy trying to persuade its audience not to be eaten. I may even pair up my students where some of them write from the point of view of a piece of candy trying to persuade you not to choose him and the other student writing from the point of view of a trick-or-treat sack trying to convince the candy to come with him. Then each student can present and we can decide who was more persuasive. Over the next couple weeks, we will be doing journal writing activities using my 95 Halloween Writing Prompts and Paper. How do you incorporate persuasive writing and letter writing with literature?

I was going to blog hours ago, but I got caught up watching the Series Finale of What Not to Wear. It was strange to me when they announced this last season to realize it was the tenth season. It dawned on me that I started watching the show right when I got married and now have been watching the show for my entire marriage.

I got married right before I turned 20 and in January I will have been married for 10 years. In February I will turn 30. It seems strange to think of this era ending that has been my twenties and the first decade of my marriage. Watching What Not to Wear on Friday nights has been a part of this era.

I am far from being a fashionista. I am a simple, low maintenance kind of person. I am wash and go when it comes to hair. I do not wear makeup unless professional pictures are involved. The only two accessories I wear regularly are my wedding ring and my college ring. One of the things I have always enjoyed about the show though is watching the women be tranformed. It is so fun to watch the insecurities be shed and their confidence blossom by the end of the show.

As teachers, we get to observe much of the same process. It just often takes a little longer. It is so rewarding though to look back at the end of the year and see the growth your students have made. I love watching that shy student who never said a word eagerly participate in class discussion or that reluctant reader get excited about a book. There also is that child that just absolutely struggled with Math, and it finally starts to click.

I know I am struggling with finding the time to fit everything in that I want to accomplish each week for home, work, life, workouts, spiritual growth, and graduate school. I find I often need reminders that it really is less about the lesson plans, the tests, and the cute activities. It is not even just about the learning. Teaching is about the transformation. I became a teacher so I could help students learn to really see themselves and accept their own strengths and weaknesses. We as teachers have the ability to be mirrors and catalysts of transformation. I need to worry so much less about checking off every item on my to-do-list and trying to cram in every fun idea I think of. I always have ideas because I am an analytical over-achiever. However, I need to focus more on choosing activities that will really encourage growth, reflection, and metacognition. How can you encourage transformation in your classroom?

Some how some way I will figure out my routine. Anyway, I wanted to share about my plans for the week. You can read my food menu plans for the week at Balancing the Backpack.

We are studying bats and spiders some over the next couple weeks. We are doing a lot of fiction studies right now, so I wanted to bring in some nonfiction. Last week, we read The Spider and the Fly.

We followed it up with a really cute writing activity where the kids had to either be a piece of candy convincing a trick-or-treat sack they did not want to go with them or a trick-or-treat sack convincing the candy they would not get eaten. The kids had a lot of fun with it, and it was a great follow up to our discussions of letter writing, persuasive writing, and Point-of-View.

This week we are reading Stellaluna and Bats to go with this Collaboration Cuties unit. We read Bats today and discussed Fact and Opinion. It was a great entrance into our week of researching bats.

We are also doing some close reading passages on spiders and bats from this Really Creepy Stuff unit.

I am excited to use several of them through this week and next. (Next week we are going to do some Monsters activities and use some more of the passages.) I am excited to introduce close reading to my students. We are going to discuss how readers have a purpose just like writers do. We will discuss the difference between active and passive reading.

To go with our reading about bats and spiders, my students will be doing some online research about bats this week and reading various nonfiction texts. They will be doing a project about what they learn about bats. They decided they wanted to research a species of bat and a species of spider, so we will be doing both. It may take us into the first part of November to do both, but I am glad they are excited about it. I am finishing up a bat and spider research project unit that I hope to get posted on TpT in the next couple days.

We have lots of other stuff going on, but that is as much energy as I have tonight. Do you have any favorite books or websites about bats and spiders?

On a side note, I went to the Dallas Arboretum on Saturday and checked out the Pumpkins. Here is a picture of me with the Pumpkins.

I am also going to link up with Denise at SunnyDays for my truth about fitness. Here is my truth about fitness:

We have had a fun week of studying bats and point of view. I am going to share more tomorrow about what all we have been up to.

I wanted to pop in and tell you I am excited about going to the iNACOL conference next week. The iNACOL conference is an education conference for online and blended learning.

I work at a blended learning school where we combine online learning curriculum with personal teacher interaction. It is a model that allows kids to work at different paces and levels, while still getting attention from a teacher in person. I am always excited to learn and try new ways to incorporate technology.

I am hoping to be able to come back and share about my experience with you and maybe some new technology tools. This will be my first education conference, and it is at Disney World, too. I get to stay in the park for the first time.

About a week and a half after iNACOL, I will be leaving for the NAGC (National Association of the Gifted) conference in Indianapolis. I am also really excited about getting to network and learn from experts on gifted education. This is my first semester of my PhD program in Gifted Education, so I am pretty excited to just go and learn. Hopefully both of these conferences will spark some great ideas to implement in my classroom and share with you.

I hope you are having a great week. I have to get back to trying to get some of that grad school homework done before I leave on Sunday.

This week my students have been studying Point of View and Bats. I am going to link up with 5 for Friday to show you what we have been up to.

I found this great little Point of View freebie pack from Chrissy at Buzzing with Ms. B. I hung up her Point of View posters in my room. We used them to discuss first person, second person, third person limited, and third person omniscient point of view. (Sorry about the glare. I really need a better phone camera than my iPhone 4.) We also did the point of view sort from this pack and glued them in our notebooks for examples.

We made this little flapbook for our notebooks. You can get a free copy of the Point of View flapbook here.

We have been reading about bats, so we read Stellaluna. As we were reading we stopped to discuss what point of view it was written in and how we knew. We also discussed how point of view can also mean the way we understand the world. We discussed how different things shape our point of view. We talked about how the narrator's and the author's point of view can be different.

After we read the story, my students had to write a quick write from the point of view of Stellaluna in first person. We discussed how she would have felt at different points of the story based on her limited experiences. My students all bring their own laptop to school, so they typed their quick writes.

We even talked about how the baby bird and mama bird's point of view would have been different. I wanted to follow it up the next day by having everyone write from the point of view of one of the baby birds, but we ran out of time.

We wrote cinquains about bats this week and wrote them on a bat template.

This week we practiced our nonfiction skills reading about bats. We started out doing some online research about bats, where my students recorded details and then wrote a paragraph. I also grabbed a stack of nonfiction books on bats at the library. My students read the books all week and recorded main ideas and details about what they read. They also listed questions they had about bats and looked for the answers they read. We used activities from my Bats Research and Writing Unit all week. It is on sale 50% off all weekend. Do you have any favorite activities for studying bats? My kids are excited about studying spiders next week while I will be gone at the iNACOL conference.

On a random note, here was one of lunches this week. I took Chicken and Corn Chowder, cheese and crackers, and an apple.

Last week I went to the iNACOL conference in Orlando on online and blended learning. It was a great experience and gave me a lot to think about. There were a lot of great discussions on personalizing learning and competency based learning. There was also much emphasis on the need to go deeper and not focus so much on just trying to cover "all the content." I find I often get side-tracked by all the material I feel needs to be covered. It is always good to be reminded that I need to keep the bigger picture in mind. At iNACOL, I heard a lot of talk around college and career readiness and 21st century skills. According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, these skills focus on collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. As I reflect on the activities and assessments my students complete, I want to keep these skills in mind. One of the speakers at the conference talked about how the answer to making changes in education isn't about using more technology, it is about what we do with the technology. It is also so easy to get focused on finishing all the units, getting ready for a test, or just surviving the year.

The people who succeed in the work world do not succeed because they are the smartest or contain the most knowledge. They succeed because they know how to adapt, think outside the box, collaborate with others, come up with novel solutions to problems, manage their time, evaluate what is working and what is not, etc. It is not about the covering all the content. It is about creating a generation of students who can think critically, creatively, and capitalize on finding the best tools to answer questions and solve problems. I want to give my students more opportunities for authentic assessment that enriches their learning experience and leads to greater self-awareness, growth, and sense of ownership.

Motivation is often a teacher's best friend and greatest enemy. You can plan engaging units and even project based learning opportunities and have students still only put the minimum effort into the process. Many students do not want to think or be challenged. I think before spending too much time planning elaborate units, I need to step back and give more thought to helping my students understand what motivates them. Students need to feel a sense of ownership, accountability, and choice in what they do.

I am getting ready this week to go to the NAGC conference about gifted education. I came away from iNACOL really thinking about how I can facilitate opportunities for my students to really reflect on who they are as learners. I think a big part of those 21st century skills is going to be recognizing one's strengths and weaknesses, knowing how to best work with both in different contexts, and knowing how to set and evaluate goals. Throughout the month of November, I am hoping to do some lessons and activities on goal-setting, learning styles, and a lot of self-reflection.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to share some meaningful posts with you as I mentally work through how I can best help my students become 21st century learners. How do you encourage self-awareness and understanding of learning styles in your classroom?

I just finished up a Statistics midterm, and my brain is tired. I wanted to link up with Holly's Tried It Tuesday though.

I actually have a few different websites I have been trying out with my class I want to share with you, but I will probably spread it out over several posts. Because I work at a Blended Learning school, my students spend a large chunk of their time working more independently on online curriculum that is provided by the school. I supplement that with other lessons, activities, group projects, etc. I have tried out lots of websites that I hear about in blog posts or stumble across just to try different ways to expose kids to material and ideas.

There are few websites I really love and use all the time. As I think about those 21st Century Learning Skills of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication, I am trying to really be mindful about what activities we use different pieces of technology for and what activities or lessons we approach other ways.

Non-Technology Tried Its:

My students do spend so much time working independently that right now I am really trying to re-evaluate how I want to bring in more opportunities for collaboration and even hands-on activities like task cards. We have used task cards a couple times in the last couple weeks and my students have loved it! Kids love technology, but they also need to interact with one another and do hands-on activities. I am not doing a strict interactive notebook this year, but I am trying to use a lot of foldables because they need the practice with motor skills and following directions.

Several people have mentioned close reading as their tried it this week. We have tried a couple resources for Close Reading, and I have really enjoyed them. I purchased Primary Polka Dots Really Creepy Stuff Close Reading Kit and used it in October. She also has one for Really Gross Stuff that could be used all year.

I also purchased Jennifer Findley's Close Reading Mega Kit in the back to school sale. She has Close Reading bookmarks aligned to each standard. My plan is to glue the bookmarks in our notebooks and as we cover each standard also practice it with close reading. She also has some poetry close reading book marks. Her kit includes posters you could display as well.

I plan on using her poetry close reading book marks starting next week. I really would like to start analyzing a poem a week. I think poems are a perfect place to start with close reading because they are short, but allow for a lot of depth and critical thinking. My students have been asking when we will write more poetry since they wrote their bat cinquains, so I really do need to add in more reading and writing of poetry. I actually have copies of Love That Dog, so I think after reading Holly's and Jivey's posts, I might add it in as a shared read when my students get to their poetry module in their curriculum.

Technology Tried-Its:

Edmodo - Edmodo is a fantastic website and iPad app. It can be used as a communication tool, a planner, and even a gradebook and system for students to submit assignments. I send students notes about when things are due and if they have missing assignments. This way they can't claim I never told them something was missing. I would like to start posting weekly poems and quotes on Edmodo. As we discuss them, the students can respond to questions on Edmodo. I think this would be a fun way to even do a "close read" of a quote. As we do some more reflecting this month on who we are as learners, I am going to have my students put a lot more thought into creating their Edmodo profiles. There are so many more uses for Edmodo I have not even explored yet.

Raz-kids - Raz-kids is the website and iPad app version of Reading A to Z's leveled readers. We have read some of the stories this year and taken the quizzes. Raz-kids gives the teacher the ability to assign online running-records and assignments of the different leveled readers and corresponding activities. The only downside of the Running Records and leveling is you have to already have a good idea of the student's level. I would love to find a good paper running record resource that is matched to the lexile system so I can more accurately determine a student's level other than just trial and error. I would like to use some of the Raz-kids stories as close reads. We will pair them with Jennifer Findley's bookmarks for each standard. We can read through the story three times and focus on different things each time. I think we are going to start following up the close reads with written reading responses where the students have to cite text based evidence using quotes and explain the quotes.

I have some other websites I will share with you in some other posts. How do you help your students become 21st century learners while balancing out the technology with other methods of delivery to meet your students' needs?

The NAGC (National Association for Gifted Children) Conference was amazing. My head is spinning with both things I really need to consider as a teacher, as well as a graduate student. One thing I felt convicted about is really making sure we praise kids for their effort and not for being smart.

Carol Dweck has done research on mindset and delineates between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset develops when someone focuses on how much intelligence they possess. They focus more on grades and may not want to put forth effort because they are afraid to make mistakes. They would probably prefer not to be challenged because they do not want to make a bad grade. A growthmindset exists when someone focuses on seeing opportunities to learn. Not everyone may have the same intelligence, but everyone can get smarter. Here is an article from Duke on mindset.

This is an important concept to keep in mind with gifted kids because they have often been praised for being smart and doing things with ease. They tend to translate this to mean they should be able to do well on everything with almost no effort. When things become challenging, they often do not know how to react. I have found they often resist being challenged, whine when things get hard, avoid things altogether, and act like they already know everything you can could possibly teach them. In order to help students go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, we need to praise their effort and not their final products. Some students can make nice products with very little effort. We need to encourage them to reach to a level where they are really challenged. I have been thinking of creating rubrics that grade assignments and projects on process and not final product or at least put much less emphasis on final product.

I had already decided I wanted to spend some time this month on discussing setting goals. I really wanted to discuss SMART goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, have an action plan, are realistic, and have a time limit.

I got on TpT and found this lesson on SMART goals. I am excited to start using it his week.

I also decided to search for a learning style inventory. I meant to do this at the beginning of the year and never did. Here is a link to a learning style inventory and prezi for free on TpT.

Here is a link to the Prezi online. It has some cute videos to go with the explanation of each learning style. The videos make it a little longer, so I may spread the lesson over a couple days. Here is an online learning style quiz I may also use.

I think we are going to start by discussing what skills we need to have accomplished by the end of the year. My students are 5th graders, so they need to think about what they need to accomplish to be ready for middle school. I may have them create like a poster or template of what makes a successful middle-schooler. I think we are going to make like a data portfolio, but focus on tracking life-skills as well as progress with the Common Core Standards. I would like us to go through as a class and create some categories for goals/skills to accomplish. Some will focus on content standards, but I also want some to focus on things like computer skills, communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. I think I am just going to jump into this process with my students and see what kinds of goals we categorize, create, and measure.

We also are going to read some biographical sketches of famous people from the book Dare to Dream over the next two weeks. I think talking about successful people is an important part of thinking about goal setting and effort. We need to think about what makes people successful.

How do you teach goal setting in your classroom?

Did you know that November 18-24 is Global Entrepreneurship week? You can read more at this link about Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Go Venture is a company that has online games and simulations. They have a free lemonade stand simulation going on starting today through Nov. 24th. Students and adults can play the simulation to create a lemonade stand. They start out by creating a logo and naming their business. Then they choose the price of their lemonade, the recipe, and purchase their ingredients. As they go through the simulation, their profits depend on things like the weather, their cost, and whether or not excess inventory spoils. It is a great way to get kids to think about economics and what really goes into supply and demand. Go to this link to start playing the game. You can click here to register your school in the competition.

You could follow up the simulation by having the kids create actual logos or business cards for their lemonade stand. They could write up a proposal for a class business. We use hoot loot as a classroom economy and have a store at the end of each month where the kids buy things. I am thinking of letting the kids propose an idea for a class store where they could identify a product, think of inventory, advertising, profits, etc.

To go with doing the Lemonade Stand simulation, we are going to read Patricia Polacco's book The Lemonade Club. It is a very touching story about how a class pitches in to help a fellow student who has cancer. The whole idea of the book focuses on the idea of making lemonade out of lemons. Since we are discussing being thankful in the month of November, I think is a great tie in to the simulation game as well as the ideas of being positive and thankful.

How do you teach your students about entrepreneurship and economics?

I can't believe my first semester of my PhD is almost over. It is almost over, but there is still so much to do. Tonight I just have a quick post. I want to share a Thanksgiving Break take-home project idea.

I have been thinking a lot lately about wanting to give my students more authentic formative assessments with real-world application. Last week my students were learning about speed in Science. Our curriculum wanted them to understand the formula for speed being a relationship between time and distance. I could have found some problems online and printed them out to practice the calculations. I decided though I wanted to give them something that might have personal meaning to them. I told them the assignment was to plan a day trip their family could take here in Texas. They had to pick a city here in Texas that they could drive there and back in a day. We then got on Google Maps and they plotted directions from their house to the city. Even though Google Maps gave them an estimated time to get to their destination, I had them compute the time using the formula for speed.

For students who picked locations with an hour, they just used an average speed of 40 miles per hour to compute the time to reach the destination. For students who chose a city further away they assumed a highway speed of 60 miles per hour. We talked about how choosing a lower estimate allows some room for traffic and slow downs. It gave them a chance to practice computing the relationship between speed, distance, and time, but they also thought about what it would be like to plan for that in real life. Students who wanted extra credit then planned out what they would do on their day trip while visiting.

For my students in Math grades 5 and 6, I wanted to give them a take-home project for Thanksgiving that would allow them to think about real-world math applications. Many of my students are studying fractions, so I thought that Thanksgiving recipes was the perfect at home real world application. Before giving the project, we did a Math warm-up today answering some questions about a recipe. I got the sheet from this Thanksgiving Math pack from the Lesson Lady. I am using her math sheets as warm-ups all week. She has a variety of skills covered, so it has turned out to be an easy way to get some themed math practice in when I don't have much time this week for more elaborate games and task card activities.

I typed up the directions for the project today and handed it out to my students. I gave it as extra credit. They are going to choose a Thanksgiving recipe. They then have to transform the recipe for a different amount of servings (i.e. double recipe, triple the reciple, or cut it in half). I told them to really think about their family's needs on Thanksgiving. They then have to compute the new amounts for the ingredients based on the new serving amounts. The final part is to make the recipe. They will either video themselves making the recipe or take pictures of themselves making the recipe and type up the directions to the recipe to go with their picture. You could easily turn this into a Math and Language Arts project. I just assigned it for Math. Many of my students seemed excited about it, so we will see how many choose to do it. You can get a copy of the directions I handed out here. They are just simple directions in a Word document, but you can edit them as you need.

What are some ways you try to incorporate authentic assessments with real-world applications?

Well, I was really excited to have this whole week off, so I could get lots of stuff done along with the resting and being Thankful. I started off my break with a cold, and essentially worked hard this week at taking naps. I am thankful for the rest.

One of my goals this week was to really re-evaluate my Language Arts block. I have found a lot of great resources lately, and I have been struggling to figure out how to fit it all in. It just all seems important! I definitely still need to rework my scope and sequence for the year to really plan out week by week the Grammar lessons and reading skills for read alouds. One of the hardest parts to me of planning for the Language Arts block is planning the schedule and how much time to allocate to different tasks. On Tuesday, I am going to share with you how I decided to re-allocate time in my Language Arts block to better allow for student engagement and ownership. Over the next couple days, I am going to share some of my favorite Language Arts resources I have found for Common Core.

As you probably know by now, Monday and Tuesday are the big Teachers Pay Teachers Cyber Monday and Tuesday Sale. You can save up to 28%. I think I have over $100 of items in my cart right now. A good sale is the perfect opportunity to stock up on all those items you have been wanting. My store will be 20% off. You use the code CYBER to save more at checkout.

Here are some of my favorite resources for the Common Core Language Arts Standards:

Resources I have Made:

First of all, I organize all of my Language Arts resources for Common Core by standard. I put all the resources I have made or purchased behind each standard. It makes it so much easier when planning to have everything in one place. These are my Grade 5 Binder covers and dividers.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grade-5-English-Binder-Covers-and-Dividers-for-the-Common-Core-Standards-941172

I use my Grade 5 Common Core Reading Literature graphic organizers for whole-group lessons and also independent activities. They also work well for Guided Reading.

These are my Writing Graphic organizers, checklists, and rubrics for multi-paragraph writing:

These are my Writing Graphic Organizers, checklists, and rubrics for writing one paragraph:

These are my 25 posters for Theme. We use the list of themes and messages as reference when discussing stories. It helps to scaffold instruction as students work to identify theme.

This 2014 Writing Calendar makes a great monthly writing practice for the year, but it also can be turned into a calendar as a gift for parents. We made these last year, and they came out super cute. I just updated the file to include the calendars for 2014.

Resources I have Purchased and Use Often:

Lately, I have really been convicted of how much kids need spiral review in Language Arts as much as Math. They need to continually practice reading skills, writing skills, grammar skills, Figurative Language, typing, cursive, etc. Thus, I am trying to build time in my Language Arts blocks to weekly review all of these skills.

Panicked Teachers'Language Weekly Skills Challenge: We will use these on Fridays. These will be a great way to review figurative language. We are going to be working on Figurative Language in December, so these will be a great way to review the rest of the year.

Panicked Teachers'Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences: Sentence Stretching Unit: I have decided to just start purchasing some of the great independent units sellers have created for teaching different concepts. Sometimes you just don't have time to create everything yourself. I love the posters in this set!

Lovin' Lit's Reading Notebook: I am excited to start using these in whole-group and small-group lessons.

Ashleigh's Spiral Language Review: For now, we are focusing on the 4th grade skills before covering the 5th grade Language skills.

Mandy Neal's Common Core ELA Assessments: I have grades 4 and 5. These are so handy!

What are your favorite Common Core TpT Language Arts resources?

I hope you are getting some great shopping in at the TpT Cyber Monday sale. I spent my fair share today, but I got so many great things!

I wanted to share some writing resources I am really excited about right now. When I first start blogging almost two years ago, I did a weekly series called "Weekly Writing Inspiration." This is something I started in my classroom several years ago. Each week for our journal writing we used inspiration instead of prompts. We had a quote of the week, a poem of the week, and a picture of the week. We discussed what we observed, the meanings, and how they could inspire our writing. It really got the kids to think critically and creatively. As creativity and critical thinking are two of the four 21st century skills, they are something I want to continue to emphasize.

Weekly writing inspiration is something I have done in my class every year, but it usually falls off somewhere during the year because I start running out of time to find a quote, poem, and picture each week. I have always meant to sit down and compile 40 poems, 40 quotes, and 40 pictures. It never happened as many great teaching ideas find themselves.

Well, the other day I found some resources on TpT that helped me fulfill my weekly writing inspiration goal.

Panicked Teacher's Quote of the Week

Panicked Teacher's Idiom of the Week

Picture of the Day (We just may not do it every day).

We started doing one of these each day before Thanksgiving. We discuss the meanings and use the handouts from the packs. Then, each day we use the quote, idiom, or picture to inspire our journal writing. I just will have to pick out a poem then each week. My goal is to get a monthly poetry pack made with poems to analyze. I made one for March last year. Hopefully, I can get one made for December in next couple days. :)

To help my kids get better at multi-paragraph essays, I want to make sure we do at least one essay per month for the rest of the year. I decided to start making a monthly essay menu with four choices for each of the writing types: informational, opinion, narrative, and research. They will be able to choose, but in 3 essays they need to do an opinion, a narrative, and an informative. I am excited to share my essay menu for December with my students on Wednesday.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/December-Essay-Writing-Opinion-Informative-and-Narrative-Prompts-1004315

What are your favorite resources for writing and the Common Core?

I'll forewarn you - this is a long post but lots of good ideas. Sometimes you just have to work through your thoughts...

This is my second year of working in a blended learning environment. By utilizing online curriculum and student-teacher interaction, students are able to work at different paces and levels. It adds a whole new level to time and resource management as an elementary teacher. I have a small-class size, but my students still cover a wide variety of reading levels just like with any class. In the past, I taught at a charter school and we used a Reading/Writing Workshop model with Guided Reading. Over the past two years at a private school with a blended learning model, I have worked more on getting adjusted to the Common Core Standards and figuring out the best way to leverage technology for elementary students. I have done a lot of whole-group reading instruction based on the Common Core Standards to supplement my student's online lessons.

I have found fitting in guided reading or small-group reading lessons a lot more difficult as I have also worked through what classroom management looks like when you add in a lot of technology and students working highly independently. I have found while technology is great, it also provides more ways to be off-task. I have found that some students need a lot of re-directing to stay on task. When students are used to all students working on the same task at the same time, they sometimes struggle to transition to an environment where everyone may be doing something slightly different. They worry more about what others are doing then focusing on their own tasks. At the same time, as part of the 21st century learning skills students need to work on communication and collaboration. I think learning to work in groups is important, but learning to focus and tune out distraction is also an important life-skill.

One of my goals for the rest of this school year is to do more differentiated small-group reading instruction, so finding ways to increase student motivation is important to freeing me up to have time to work for a block of time with specific students on reading skills. It is also important to help my students balance out working independently, working together, and learning to use one another as a resource.

In the last month, I attended the iNACOL conference and the NAGC conference. At both conferences, I came away re-convicted on how important choice, rigor, and depth are for student engagement. In the past, I have used a lot of choice menus for student assignments and projects. I have always been intrigued by the idea of doing project based learning for opportunities for depth and rigor. I also always really enjoy reading blog posts from teachers who use stations or rotation models to differentiate for their math and reading workshop blocks.

I decided for now to work on the choice element of student engagement for my Language Arts block. Because my students work more independently and may vary in the amount of time they need to spend on a task, a rotation model does not work as well for me. I decided to make a chart to plan out my Language Arts block in 15-20 minute increments. I then designated times for certain whole-group lessons/activities and small-group reading meeting times. Wednesdays I marked off as Writing Wednesday where we will spend an hour on a more in-depth writing assignment (such as our monthly essay writing I mentioned yesterday).

The rest of the blocks I left blank where they can work independently or maybe in partners or groups depending on the task. My students will each get a chart where it lists the tasks at the top they need to complete for the week. Some weeks it may even be broken into more of a must do and may do list of tasks. Using the chart each week will give us a sense of consistency, while allowing for flexibility to make changes to time allotments and tasks/activities.

They then will be able to fill in those blank "Independent Work" boxes in the chart for which tasks they want to do when. I made my chart for the week and a template for each reading group in PowerPoint. I decided to call them reading meetings instead of reading groups, and I think I will change the names for different themes throughout the year. You can get a copy of the PowerPoint file here if you would like to make changes for you.

For now, I was playing with naming my groups seasonal names. Another teacher today said she liked the idea of naming her groups by color and then color coding their handouts by group name. I really like the idea of using color paper and color-coding the handouts, so I may change the names to my groups.

My hope is that if students have more choice of when they complete certain tasks, this will help them take more ownership to stay on task. As we have been talking about getting ready for middle school and SMART goals, this also goes along well with taking ownership of setting and meeting goals. This process will hopefully allow me to focus more on my goal of doing more differentiated small-group instruction.

As they get better at working independently and taking ownership for their time, we can add in more group-work opportunities for depth. I am intrigued by Jen Runde's blog posts on Genius Hour and passion projects. I think this would be a great way to add in some inquiry-based learning. I need to do more research. It seems like the projects may be more independent, but by encouraging students to do them in groups of 2-3 you could definitely work on communication and collaboration.

How do you allocate time in your Language Arts block?

So we started our December essays today. I printed the December Essay Menu on cardstock and taped it to the board. I explained that we are going to start doing one essay per month, but they would have choices. I went over the 20 choices on the menu. They were pretty excited. Many asked if they could do more than one essay. My student who was my most reluctant writer last year asked if he could finish his essay tonight at home. It really is amazing to see what choice can do!

Today they picked a topic and started planning their essays with graphic organizers. A few started writing. I explained we were going to go through the whole writing process. The pack on TpT includes lots of handouts for rough drafts and publishing. Most of my students wanted to type their essays, so we are going to type ours. I was excited to see my students excited about essay writing. Who gets excited about five paragraph essays, right? I think the choice menu each month is going to work really well. We will spend about an hour on Wednesdays working on it. The rest of the week they can fit it in as they have time. We actually may even turn our essays and stories into a multimedia presentation when we finish just for some fun.

This month we also are going to talk about figurative language. We will do some figurative language lessons from Lovin Lit's Reading Notebook and Figurative Language Close Reading Stories. We will use the close reading stories in reading groups. Of course, we have to do Jen Runde's craftivity for Figurative Language.

Now, this last resource I am super excited about. We will analyze Christmas Carols for Figurative Language.

A few years ago, I had my students get in groups and rewrite the words to Christmas carols to be about themselves. They came out so cute! We will type up the new lyrics and frame them in an inexpensive frame as our parent gift this year.

I thought I would share some of my favorite Common Core Math websites and how I use them. I teach math grades 4-6 in one room at the same time, so access to easy differentiated practice is awesome. My students work on lessons through our curriculum, but I supplement with a lot of websites and paper practice.

IXL

IXL is amazing for practice from pre-K to Algebra. The students can click on the exact links they need. It works really well because it tells students what they did wrong, and they can find exactly what they need. I also can send specific links to students via edmodo. The only downside is that I cannot assign links to kids. They just added grammar for grades 2-4 as well. They are supposed to be adding the grammar for grade 5 in January.

Sumdog

Sumdog is a great website that is common core aligned with math practice up to grades 6. They can play games, so it makes spiral review fun. Sometimes my students act like they don't like Sumdog as much anymore, but it seems like it would be more fun as a game. They have grammar practice as well.

Prodigy

Jen Runde mentioned this website on Facebook last night. I checked it out. I couldn't figure it out after like 5 minutes, so I gave up but it seems like it could be a more involved game instead of just small games.

Scootpad

I love Scootpad because for the $5 a month subscription you can assign specific skills to specific students. I am going to use Scootpad as more of an assessment and IXL as more practice. I love that Scootpad is one of the few with reading practice by standard as well!

Xtramath

Xtramath is great for math fact practice, and it is free.

BuzzMath

Buzzmath is a website for Common Core practice for grades 6-8. They have missions and little tutorials. My grade 6 math class likes this website. It is all led by a little mad scientist.

What are your favorite common core math websites?

Remember me...I used to blog. It has been over a month. That is the longest I have ever gone without blogging. December was crazy. I was finishing up finals for my first semester as a doctoral student, along with the normal hustle and bustle of December. Then, I used the holiday break to unplug. I avoided my laptop all together. I used my iPad and read 8 books on my Kindle. I love Young Adult Fiction!!! I am going to do some more posts to tell you about the books I read.

I knew I wanted to get my students to think this month about goal-setting and achievement in the month of January. I decided we would look at biographies this month. Reading biographies is a great way to practice a lot of those nonfiction Common Core Reading skills. I had researched read alouds to discuss goal-setting months ago and came across this recommendation somewhere. I purchased the book on Amazon.

Dare to Dream! is a nonfiction book with twenty-five short biographies about people with great stories. We are reading one biography each day. Each chapter is about 3-4 pages, so it is a great length for a nonfiction read aloud. As we read, we discuss each person's accomplishments and traits to describe that person. We also are keeping an anschor chart where we track "big idea" questions that we can ask about society or history based on the concepts each person stood for.

At the end, I am going to have each student choose one "big idea" question to do more research on.

I also started finally really doing guided reading this month. I have wanted to do more small group reading instruction the last year and a half, but sometimes you can only tackle so many things at one time. We have a www.raz-kids.com subscription. This month, I am assigning biographies for their guided reading texts from Raz-kids. They listen to the story first on their own. Then, we meet to discuss. They read a story a second time on their own, but I have them fill out a graphic organizer while they read the second time. Some of them chose to read and fill out the organizer with a partner. Then, we meet again to discuss what they wrote down. At the end of the week, they take the quiz and I give them a writing assignment as a response to the reading. This week, we had a field trip planned and some guest speaskers for Thursday and Friday, making it a short week for instruction time. So this week, we all read the same text on Raz-kids and discussed as a group since we were short on time. I chose a higher level text, since we were discussing as a group. We read "Historical Peacemakers" (a level Z text) because it mentioned Martin Luther King. We discussed what makes someone a peacemaker.

For our quote of the week this week for our journal writing, we used a quote from Martin Luther King from my Activities for Martin Luther King Day packet.

Next week, we will listen to his "I Have a Dream" speech, and they will get sections of the speech to rewrite in their own words. We will do this as part of our guided reading time.

We will discuss what social injustice is, and how people choose causes to fight for. The idea of social injustice came up when we read about Nellie Bly as well. We are going to look at what social injustice has looked like at different periods in history. We are studying the Causes of the American Revolution right now, so I want us to discuss social injustice for this time period as well.

My students are going to be choosing a biography of their own choice to read. I am going to be handing out this Biography Study Guide this week that outlines what they need to do. You can get a copy here.

I have been using this study guide format for a lot of our units for the last month to help them take more ownership of their learning in a unit. I really want to be a facilator of learning and put more of the work back on them. I will blog more about the study guides in another post.

On a side note, since I have been talking about social injustice I want to ask you to consider reading and signing a petition. I try to not to blog about personal things too much. This petition is about getting the government to review how foster and adoptive parents are treated by state agencies. I am aware of this petition because my mom adopted my younger siblings. Often parents adopt children hoping to finally have their happy ending after experiencing years of infertility. They want to provide a good home to kids that need one. They hope that love and a good home will be enough for that child. However, often it is not. Children who experience early childhood trauma often end up having attachment disorders, which can result in a lack of empathy and even violence. As teachers, we have probably had children with attachment disorders in our classrooms. Adoptive parents trying to find the right mental health resources for their children with attachment disorders often end up having no other choice but to put their children back into foster care due to safety concerns. Some mental health resources are only available to children as wards of the state. These adoptive parents often end up being treated as abusive parents by state agencies (which only adds to the trauma they have already experienced themselves). It is a sad and very complicated situation that needs awareness raised, so that ultimately these children who have experienced early childhood trauma can get they help they need and find long-term loving homes where everyone feels loved and safe. Thank you for considering signing. They are trying to raise 1,000 signatures by February 1st.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/316/169/413/investigate-the-epidemic-and-systemic-abuse-of-foster-and-adoptive-parents-throughout-the-us/#sign

Have a great weekend!

Well, I really do want to get back to blogging more than once a week. The last week I really got back in the routine of being full-time teacher and part-time doctoral student. I had a cold this past week as well, so it took all my energy to work and do homework in the evenings. Overall though, I felt I had a very successful week. I was very productive. I spent at least an hour each night on my own homework and studying. I am trying to build consistent habits and avoid procrastination. I got my lessons plans done Thursday night and many of my copies done on Friday for next week. I absolutely love www.planbook.com. I played around for the first time with actually tagging the standards in my plans. I love it! They have pre-made drop-down menus of standards for each state, the Common Core Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, and even the NAGC programming standards. I really want to get more familiar with the gifted standards since I am getting my PhD in Gifted Education.

I made myself a weekly checklist so I can keep my tasks for the week straight. I really want to be more proactive. I find it much easier to concentrate on graduate school in the evenings the more prepared and organized I feel at work. You can get a copy here of the Word document if interested.

I have been doing guided reading the last few weeks since coming back from Christmas. We have been focusing on biographies, as a way to discuss what makes people successful. I felt biographies were a great unit for a new year as you think about goals and reflect on what makes other people successful. Since I hadn't taught guided reading in a couple years, I am always looking for helpful strategies to really guide my students as readers. In my reading for grad school this week, someone gave me an interesting article to read about vocabulary instruction. The article mentioned a really interesting way to teach word-mapping. I am excited to try it out this week. You can see the example from the article below. I love how they used the vocabulary to make connections about the person they were studying. I can see so many uses for this strategy. Often just introducing the words before reading seems very flat to me with older students. Word-mapping gives the vocabulary more context and utilizes higher-order thinking skills.

How do you teach vocabulary as part of your literacy instruction? How do you teach vocabulary in a way that is relevant and helps them make connections?

Owl Clip Chart for Classroom Management and a Behavior Think Sheet Freebie

Workshop Wednesday: Spelling Lists with Greek and Latin Roots

Peek at My Week: Life of a Star, Explorers, and Letter Writing

Science

Social Studies

Reading and Writing

Spelling

Math

A Letter Writing Freebie and Teaching Point of View and Persuasive Writing

Goodbye What Not to Wear

Peek at My Week: Bats and Spiders Research

Getting ready for the iNACOL Conference and NAGC Conference

Five for Friday: Bats and Point of View

Creating Learners with 21st Century Skills

Tried It Tuesday: Close Reading and 21st Century Skills

Growth Mindset and SMART goals

Entrepreneurship Simulation Game for a Lemonade Stand

Thankgiving take-home project idea for a real world application assessment

Common Core Language Arts Resources on Teachers Pay Teachers and a Sale

Weekly Writing Inspiration and December Essay Writing

Planning for Choice and Time in the Language Arts block for Student Engagement and Ownership

Christmas Writing Ideas and Figurative Language

Common Core Math Websites

Using Biographies to Discuss Nonfiction, Achievement, and Martin Luther King (freebie included)

Word Mapping for Vocabulary Instruction