Have you ever seen those mix-n-match books, where you have the head, mid-section, and legs of one character, but you can flip on piece of it to make an entirely new combination of characters and story?  My daughter has one and it inspired me to get a little creative in my class! We have been studying similes and metaphors in class.  To help the kids along, I read them "Quick as a Cricket" by Audrey Wood.  It is a very simple book, in which she uses simple similes to compare the main character to various animals. After reading the book, the students created a divided circle map in which they listed all the adjectives they could think of that described themselves, then all of the animate and inanimate objects that would also be fitting for a self-description. The next step was a tree map.  I had the students break their body up into 3 parts -- head, mid-section, and legs/feet.  They then used their circle map to create comparisons between themselves and th...
Identifying the theme in a story is really tricky, even for the most seasoned adult.  So you can imagine what it is like asking a 10 year old to try!  Yet, in our standards, that is one thing that appears quite a bit.  As a result, I have tried to make it as accessible to my students as possible. This week, our story has some underlying themes that are a bit easier for the students to grasp, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to hit them with a little theme lesson. First, we discussed what theme actually is (and how it differs from main idea...SO hard for them!!!)  We talked about how theme is the overall idea, meaning, or message that the author wants to convey.   They seemed to understand that the theme helps them to get an idea of what an author thinks is important and can give lessons that are useful in life. Then this is where thing begin to get hairy.  Most of the time, themes are not directly stated.  We have to use clues from the text to infer what the author'...
Here is something I blatantly stole found on Pinterest.  It is a Homework "Little Black Book" and it is from the Scholastic Blog Teacher Alycia Zimmerman .  I LOVE this idea and it really is working in my class. I have a black binder in my homework station.  It has 30 dividers in it, and a record form (again, that I just took from Ms. Zimmerman)  When a child doesn't do his homework, he fills out the record form and goes to Study Hall to do the missing work (my school has a "study hall" in place in the cafeteria at recess...which I know not all schools have.) It is wonderful because now I not only have a record of missed assignments, but the REASON why it was not completed.  Then, come Friday for the Weekly Reports or during parent conferences, everything is documented, in the child's own writing. Another thing I took from Pinterest is the idea to cover my file cabinet with contact paper.  Here was my inspiration pin   and here is how ...
This week, after FINALLY finishing the Columbian Exchange essays and Explorer "wanted posters" (it sure seemed like we were working on those for ages), we moved on to our unit on the 13 Colonies. After our initial discussion, in which we set the stage for why England chose North America to begin with, the students used their social studies books to create all EIGHT Thinking Maps....relating them to the Colonies in some way. We first brainstormed ideas for each map. How could we use the Circle Map?  What would be the best use of the Bridge or Brace Map?  How would a Tree Map best be applied?  The kids came up with some creative answers, which I listed on the board, and then set off to execute them.  They had free range to do pretty much anything they wanted from the board.  However I did stipulate that all 8 maps needed to be correctly used. Now, I have to say, this took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to do (about a week), but was well worth it in the end.  The kids were applying their...
Greek and Latin roots are really an essential standard the students need to master in the upper grades.  There are just so many benefits to them knowing the meanings of these words. To help the students learn them, we have been learning between 2 and 5 a week since the beginning of the school year. (you can read about what specifically I do here and here )   But the initial lesson just wasn't enough.  So during my intervention time, the students have been playing "Root Word Memory"...and they LOVE it. I created this specifically for the kids to use to help with root words, but the basic idea is the same as the children's game Memory.  An array of 48 cards is placed in the playing field face down.  The students then take turns flipping them over, looking for a match. I did change it up a bit.  Since the object is to actually get them to know the *meanings* of the words, one card in the pair is the root, the other card is the meaning. When it is a student's...
Reading maps is much like looking at coordinate grids.  The latitude and longitude lines resemble the x and y axises so much, that it is easy to make the comparison.  So when studying about the early European Explorers, it seemed natural to combine math with a geography lesson. I began by giving my students some generic coordinates to map on a coordinate grid.   Combined with an anchor chart, this served as a good way to introduce the idea of coordinate grids as a math standard in 5th grade.  They plotted individual points as well as connected ones.  They then were given more coordinates, but this time, the grid itself was overlaid on top of a map of Europe and the Americas.  I gave the students a set of coordinates that were roughly the stopping points on the journeys of a few famous early European explorers.   The students needed to then plot the journeys of Christopher Columbus and Leif Erikson, whose journey points they were given.  Doing this showed them how to not only plot p...
Making expressions fun is....well....difficult to say the least.  I mean, to *ME* it is fun (I know, I know...I also loved Logic in college) but the kids aren't so convinced of its redeeming qualities.  So to spice things up during a unit on Communication, I had the kids create "secret codes" using expressions. The students wrote each letter of the alphabet vertically on a piece of paper.  They then created expressions containing at least one set of parentheses and two different operations (I did this while teaching 4th grade, so that was the standard...in 5th I would probably add negative numbers or decimals into the mix).  It looked a bit like this: A   (5 x 2) - 4 B   2(4 + 3) C   15 - (2 x 3) The students then solved each expression to make sure the answer was unique (no two letters could have the same end product).  This part is VERY challenging for the students.  It actually took them two days.  The process of thinking of problems, and then mak...
The American Revolution has to be my number one, most favorite, can't wait until we get there unit.  It is fascinating to me how our country began and the events that lead up to it.  I always find that my students are interested in the same things (probably because I am so into it!)   During the unit, we read quite a bit of informational text, fictional accounts of the war, poems, and songs, all of which help to make this unit come alive.  Below are a few of the activities that really stand out in my head as being successful and worthwhile. First and foremost, here is a picture of my room.  I know how lucky I am to 1) have such a big space and 2) have such a beautiful building.  The wood floors were amazing and the high ceilings to die for.   (I say "were" because I have moved schools this year and no longer have the luxury of this wonderful room....though my school is amazing nonetheless ;) )   Research abounds in my class during this unit.  To kick it all off ...
If you are anything like me, your daily schedule is anything but regular. Between library, computer lab, science, psychomotor, the occasional assembly -- it never seems like I have a set time for anything. Every year, I begin with a schedule that looks like this. I have these high hopes that I will be able to stick to it and there will be no changes. Yeah...I know...I am laughing out loud too. So I decided that I would make a change. Now, I am sure that I saw this idea eons ago somewhere, but I have now taken it on as my own and thought I would share, just in case *someone* out there hasn't thought of it. I took all the main subjects that I teach and created placards with them. I then attached a magnet to each placard. Since my whiteboard is magnetic, I can post these in the front of the room, write the specific times I am going to teach each subject, and now account for all of the specials. I do try to stick to my overall schedule (meaning, I always do langua...
Reading comprehension is something that most of my students struggle with.  It is such a difficult thing to read between the lines, discover themes, make inferences, decipher metaphors, etc...All year, I teach these standards to the students with the hope that they internalize them and will be able to use them on "The TEST". But hoping isn't enough.  On top of the creative and engaging instruction (that the students are of course learning above and beyond making them so excited to be in my room ;) ), I also make sure that I am teaching them how to translate those concepts and skills into the TEST TAKING GENRE.  That's right, genre.  It is a complete genre, similar to Fairy Tales or mysteries, that we need to teach our students.  So while I am teaching all of the concepts and standards, I am also teaching this genre. Daily, from DAY ONE of school, my students are taught how to apply the comprehension skills we learn into a test taking format.  For homework each nig...