I love to read in my class.  It is just something that brings so much joy to so many, that I feel like it needs a place of honor in my room.  And while we do read our fair share of nonfiction, where I find myself (and my students) drawn to is the fiction stories.  They are just so full of awesomeness that I can't help myself. With those great reads comes great lessons.  Books (in general) have a beginning, middle, and end.  They start with introductions, take the reader through many different actions which lead to the climax, that point we have been waiting for, and then solve the problems with a nice, neat ending.  (OK, OK...I know not every.single.book does that, but I am talking in general!)  So this past week, I wanted to focus on that story structure we call PLOT and bring it to the attention of my students. One thing that I have been doing, and have written a bit about in the past few weeks, is take a large reading topic ( character , setting, plot) and teach it to my st...
As many of you know, I have been lucky enough to have a truly fabulous program called The Walking Classroom in use with my students.  If you have read my previous posts about it (you can read them here , here , and here ) you KNOW how much my students and I love being able to put those headphones on and head outside to learn. Well, because of this really cool program, something really cool happened to us at the end of April that I wanted to share with you.  We in Room 6 got our 15 minutes of fame!  We became TV stars for the day.  :) In a nutshell, Laura Fenn, the creator of The Walking Classroom, met the director of a show about the benefits of walking and exercise that is produced by a local PBS affiliate in my area.  She referred him to me, we set up the filming schedule, and 7 people armed with cameras and equipment descended upon Room 6. It was such a great experience for my students and I.  Having a camera follow you is such a trip!  I felt like a Kardashian!  ;)  Seri...
At the beginning of the week, we started to look at how to multiply decimals.  Easy enough.  I have always taught the algorithm, the kids follow the rules, they get it, we move on. But with the new CCSS, the students are asked to understand conceptually what is going on using models.  So, I thought I would break out the old place value manipulatives, show them the breakdown, give the models, and the kids would rise to the occasion and grasp the idea conceptually. I was wrong. I mean, they know what they are doing when it comes to the algorithm, but actually understanding the use of the models was a bit challenging.  Especially when it came to regrouping to create wholes. So it was back to the drawing board for me.  Upon reflection, I realized that it wasn't the idea of the model that was the problem, it was how I was showing them.  Using the place value pieces just wasn't working. Instead, I broke out the old hundreds grid graph paper ( here is a free one I found o...
Notebooks and journals are expensive.  I mean, $0.50 isn't ridiculous, but if you multiply that by 34, then again by the three or four journals needed throughout the year for the various subjects that are taught...well, that is just a lot of money out of my pocket.  And usually, I spend it, grumble a little, then move on because I know it is good for my students and a necessary cost. Then, the year goes on and, come the end, I realize that I haven't even filled half of many of the notebooks for whatever reason (I got lazy in my interactive notebook gusto from the beginning of the year, most things didn't require me to have the kids write it in the notebook, we didn't take that many notes....who knows) So this year, I decided to try and cut down on both the out of pocket cost and the lack of filling the notebook space and try something a little different.  I combined two notebooks into one, by flipping it upside down. The front of my notebook is for grammar.  All l...
This week, we began discussing character traits and how an author uses those descriptions to get you emotionally invested and interested in a book or story.  We did a few things that I found very successful, and wanted to share the ideas with you.  We did these lessons over the course of a week, so I am going to break down what happened each day, in case you want to recreate that timeline in your own room. Day 1 -- Introduction to Character Traits We gathered as a group to discuss what exactly character traits are.  Why does an author use them?  What purpose do they serve?  Together we created this anchor chart.  I made the chart while the kids took notes in their Reading Journals. I asked them to then look at the specific "Ask Yourself" questions and we opened up our class novel (Gregor the Overlander) to the first chapter.  We have read this chapter a few times, and dug into it quite a bit, so they are rather familiar with it.  I read the first question aloud an...
During Math Rotations, my students move through a Problem Solving station.  While I have them working on their Two Ways of Problem Solving , I also wanted them to think about how math works just a bit. So, while searching on Pinterest (of course!), I came across this pin and I just *knew* that I wanted to incorporate something like this in my room.  Here is my interpretation of what I saw. On Monday, I place an answer onto the pocket chart.  I have been starting simple so far and have done "5 hats" and "9 dogs".  Well....let me rephrase that....I started with what I *thought* was simple ;) To set up the board, I put the answer I am looking for at the top.  Each student has an index card with their classroom number written on it.  When they have finished writing the four different ways to come about that answer (using the four different operations), the students choose their "best" question, write it on the index card and turn it backwards on the p...
We started in on the common core standard Literature 5.1 this week.  You know, the one that states, "Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text."  I wanted to share with you a small little thing we did to begin with this standard that my kids found relatively easy and painless. We are reading Gregor The Overlander (Underland Chronicles, Book 1) by Suzanne Collins and the first chapter is pretty typical of a fictional narrative.  It sets up the characters and the setting fairly well.  So I had my students make a simple foldable out of a piece of blank paper, that was then cut into thirds.  The first flap was for setting, the second for characters, and the third for a summary of the story. I then asked the students to tell me the setting of the story.  That was easy.  An apartment in New York.  Then I asked them HOW they knew that.  "It tells me in the story!" said one eager friend.  Sev...
To introduce the students to our new novel, AND to get them looking at the various text features found in fictional text, I did something a bit different than I had done before and I wanted to share it with you. I told the students the name of our book, which happens to be Gregor The Overlander (Underland Chronicles, Book 1) by Suzanne Collins.  JUST based on the title, I wanted the students to draw a conclusion as to what the story would be about.  I didn't show them the book.  I didn't tell them anything else.  I just wanted them to use the title only.  I then gave them a sticky note and they each wrote their thoughts down.  They then shared with a partner what they thought, and we placed it on our anchor chart. Next, I showed them the cover of the book. I placed in on my ELMO, as I didn't want them to see the back just yet.  I zoomed in, so they could really see the detail and then asked them to pair share some ideas about what the story could be about now that t...
My first few weeks have been filled with a lot of activities designed to get to know my students both as people AND as learners.  I have done some really simple things, like have the students fill out a quick survey for me to give me some insight into who they are as kids, but most of what I have done is rooted in the standards in some way.  You see, just because we are in the "honeymoon phase" doesn't mean the standards take a back seat in our learning.  So I wanted to share a few of the standards-based activities that we have been doing in our room that have helped the students to learn a bit more about each other, but also get a kick start on the huge amount of standards we need to learn this year. If you read my blog at all, you know how much I love The Important Book .   I use is all.the.time.  It is just a great, great book that can be applied to so many different things.  So we started off the year reading this fast read and discussed what makes our own selve...