It has been way too long since I have been able to sit and blog away on my little keyboard. I've been wanting to come back for awhile now, but time was most definitely against me. Around the time I disappeared from the blog world, our district was hunkering down for state testing (AIMS here in Arizona) and then the due date for my National Boards retake was approaching very very quickly. Then, when I thought I'd have a chance to sit down and put a post together...the end of the school year sprang up. So, everything just drained me in general. Have you ever had one of those school years, weeks, or even days when you just need to come home and do mindless things to keep from collapsing from exhaustion (mental, emotional, and physical)? Me too!!!
So, I've been simmering over several blog posts I wanted to put together to jump feet first back in to blogging. Then, this linky party popped up over on Hands-On Teacher in First (Marie's blog) and it is just perfect! Now that I have some time on my hands I have a growing summer reading list with both personal and professional books I've been hankering over. Please join up with us and share what you plan or hope to read!
Professional Reads
Normally, I try to only pick one professional read...or I end up overwhelmed and try too many things at the beginning of the year. But I ended up discovering a new book by Michael Linsin who wrote Dream Class, which I read last year and just loved. So, the list became 2 deep. Then, came an invite from The Brownbag Teacher to join in for a book talk for The Book Whisperer's Reading in the Wild...which I also didn't get to read this past summer.
Teach like a Pirate by Dave Burgess | This particular text has been on my to-read list since last summer. But I had to worry more about the two books I had set aside to help me prepare and study for my Assessment Center exercises. I have only heard wonderful and fantastic things about this book and can't wait to dive into it! It is most likely the best book to read to make a comeback from such a rough year like mine. In case you haven't heard of this one, here is a peek into some of the topics: Part I - Passion, Immersion, Rapport, Transformation, & Enthusiasm; Part II - "I Like to Move It, Move It," Long Live the Arts, Stand and Deliver, etc.; Part III - called Building a Better Pirate. Sounds intriguing no? In case that didn't convince you, here is the synopsis from Goodreads: "Based on Dave Burgess's popular "Outrageous Teaching" and "Teach Like a PIRATE" seminars, this book offers inspiration, practical techniques, and innovative ideas that will help you to increase student engagement, boost your creativity, and transform your life as an educator. You'll learn how to: Tap into and dramatically increase your passion as a teacher Develop outrageously engaging lessons that draw students in like a magnet Establish rapport and a sense of camaraderie in your classroom Transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students This groundbreaking inspirational manifesto contains over 30 hooks specially designed to captivate your class and 170 brainstorming questions that will skyrocket your creativity. Once you learn the Teach Like a PIRATE system, you'll never look at your role as an educator the same again."
The Classroom Management Secret by Michael Linsin | I didn't plan on reading this one, but I get Linsin's monthly newsletter emails and one of them caught my eye. It closely related to the issues I was going through with my students this year, so I actually took the time to read it closely. Come to find out...he had also released this new book. I enjoyed his personable and user-friendly process to create a Dream Class (which I wasn't fully able to do because of how thrown off I was by my group this past year). I decided, despite management being my strongest ability as a teacher, I needed to rethink my system and make improvements. This way, no matter what kind of group I get next year, I will be ready! Before I bought it for my Kindle, I checked the Table of Contents and was immediately intrigued by the first several chapter titles: Why You Should Smile on the First Day of School, 7 Keys to the First Day of School, The Biggest First Day of School Mistake You Can Make, Why Coming on Too Strong Will Force a Mutiny in Your Classroom, and more. Here is the description from Goodreads: "In The Classroom Management Secret, you will learn how pursuing just two simple principles will allow you to grab ahold of the rewarding and meaningful teaching career you've always dreamed of. Based on the popular blog, Smart Classroom Management, the book progresses step-by-step through 46 keys, showing you how to manage your classroom in a way that inspires your students to want to behave. By the end, you will have the knowledge to take over any K-8 classroom and create the kind of peaceful buy joyous learning experience your students will always remember."
Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller | I was, and still am, a HUGE fan of The Book Whisperer. It changed how I saw and taught students how to love reading. It also changed the reading lives of so many of my students. They still thank me to this day for how I helped them become a self-selected reader who enjoys reading for what it should be. So, when I found out Donalyn was releasing a 2nd book long before it came out...I added it to my wish and to-read list. Sadly, I wasn't able to get to this one last summer either. But I just found out The Brownbag Teacher is having a book talk on it and had to join in. So...bring it on! Here is the synopsis from Goodreads: Teaching students to become lifelong readers A companion to the bestselling The Book Whisperer, Reading in the Wild explores whether or not we are truly instilling lifelong reading habits in our students and provides practical strategies for teaching "wild" reading. Based on survey responses from over 900 adult readers and classroom feedback, Reading in the Wild offers solid advice and strategies on how to develop, encourage and assess key lifelong reading habits, including dedicating time for reading, planning for future reading, and defining oneself as a reader.Includes advice for supporting the love of reading by explicitly teaching lifelong reading habits. Contains accessible strategies, ideas, tips, lesson plans and management tools along with lists of recommended books co-published with Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of "Education Week" and "Teacher Magazine" Packed with ideas for helping students choose their own reading material, respond to text, and build capacity for lifelong reading."
For Fun Reads
I usually have a HUGE list planned a couple weeks before my summer starts, so I can get to the library and start grabbing up books. But, alas, that just didn't happen this time around. However, I did come home this past Friday (our last day of school) ready to find a juicy and fun chic lit read from my long to-read list on Goodreads. My book club of lady friends is reading The Monuments Men this month as well...so these two are givens. As for the rest of what I'm going to be reading this summer? Perhaps I should read the 3rd book in V.C. Andrew's Dollanganger series. I'm hoping I get off the wait list for Emily Giffin's new book soon, since I've been on it for the last month already. I also have some Jodi Piccoult books I've been hoarding. So many choices and so little time!!!
How about you? What is on your summer to-read list? I hope you take the time for yourself to relax and enjoy some good reads...whether they are for work or play!
Being on Spring Break sure does have its upsides doesn't it?! One being the fact I am able to sit down and finally blog...AKA relax on my own terms. I have a Lifetime movie playing in the background called The Grim Sleeper. Did you get to watch it? What can I say? I'm obsessed with watching their newest 2 hour TV movies. Reading my book here and there when I want, going to the bathroom whenever I want, and snacking on whatever I want is definitely the bee's knees. It makes me look forward to summer break that much more!
As we all know (it's what nightmares are made of)...it's that time of the season. Testing is just around the corner and the pressure is on! With trying to fit everything on our district benchmark testing and the state test in to such a tiny time frame, it is that much more important I push that rigor and multiple opportunities for practice with my students. So, bring on differentiation!
By first having my students complete a multi-level exit ticket (which ended up becoming more like a post test) I was able to figure out which levels of area and perimeter each student met in or what they needed more practice in. As a gifted-cluster teacher, I try to do as many tiered differentiation lessons as possible. In this case, it means I have 9 gifted learners while the rest of my students are mainstreamed. It can get pretty hard when I don't have as much time as I want to plan them out, but each year I end up with more and more.
Below you can see part of a screen shot of the flipchart I had up on our ActivBoard during the day's lesson. Every time we tackle a tiered lesson, I go over the Owl's assignment first so those students can get straight to work on their extension. But I need my other students to sit and take it in because if they complete their activity and show mastery, they are able to move on. That's why I love tiered lessons!!
Extension/Tier 3 Group
**Always works solo/independently**
My group of about 6-7 Owls worked in the library on their own and had quite a time with their activity. They were doing so well I only had to check on them a couple different times to make sure they were measuring the area and perimeter correctly, since this was something we didn't do with irregular polygons as a whole class (we only had to use grid paper).
Extra Practice/Tier 2 Group
**Always works with 1-2 other students**
My Eagles were able to gather in the back of our classroom on the strip of tile we have in order to practice identifying the perimeter and area using square units. I found this idea for regular polygons on Pinterest, but needed to use it for the irregular aspect. Many of my students were having trouble with larger figures where they had to count and solve for the formulas when there were upwards of 20 or so square units and multiple "irregular" corners. By making it a bit more hands on for them and on a smaller (although larger...LOLOLOL) scale, that group of kids grasped on to the application of the formulas we had already discovered and practiced a lot easier.
Please ignore our dirty floor...the kids tend to bring in everything off our wet grassy field when they come in in the morning. Sigh.
Reteach/Tier 1 Group
**Always works with the teacher and/or small group**
For this group of kids, it was a bit tricky. Each set of students needed additional reteaching and practice with a different aspect of perimeter and area (i.e. area of triangles and parallelograms versus perimeter of squares and rectangles or even irregular polygons)
I decided to have them make flashcards for each formula, since many of the students in this group kept getting them mixed up between the different figures themselves or area versus perimeter. Then, we went from there with some extra practice on identifying perimeter and area using those formulas.
My students crave tiered lessons because they truly appreciate being able to have the chance to not only move on if they are ready, instead of sitting through another reteach lesson, but they appreciate being able to jump to the next level when they are done working with me during the reteach. Everything is very fluid and depending on the tiered lesson, kids are not always in the same group to start with. I use exit tickets every time to determine which group students will be in. Sometimes, I even find I have to reteach as a whole class. All students are a lot more invested in the outcome of their learning and they enjoy some of the hands on and project-based opportunities to show their learning. Sure, the planning can take a bit more time than regular lessons...but in the end, it is soooooooo worth it!
This summer, I plan on trying to put as many of my tiered lessons and choice/extension menus in my TPT store. But if you would like to check one of them out now, I have had my Plot Elements Choice Menu pack up HERE for a couple months (all based on Bloom's Taxonomy). It is starting to sell like hotcakes and that makes me so excited to know other students are able to partake in choices and extensions to show their learning! Yay!
Prepare yourself for one seriously picture-heavy post! I had way too much fun with this lesson and so did my students. Not only did they enjoy it, but they did phenomenally well on their post test. I would say that is a big, huge, GIGANTIC thumbs up to it all. Oh and also? Read all the way through because I'm finally sharing a bit of fun info from AAGT (local Arizona Gifted Education conference) that I attended a couple weeks back.
And I would like to thank Miss Nannini at YoungTeacherLove for posting her lesson on this exact skill because I was able to be inspired and applied pieces of her well-taught lesson and added elements to it that I knew would be successful for my group of kids. Since I'm especially lacking in my creative side for anchor chart creating, I used hers to help me out. We used a different book to practice mood and tone though so maybe others will get a kick out of it and like to use the mentor text I chose. Enjoy!
I've mentioned before on the blog about how our district is still sticking with state standards for now. So, while Miss Nannini quoted the CCSS version, our Arizona version is more focused on intended effect (AKA mood and tone). This is why I love Common Core...the language of our standards will be the same! Now if only we could go ahead and jump in. In the meantime, I'm trying to be patient. No matter what, it was a whole lot easier to get my students to grasp onto intended effect by teaching them mood and tone.
Okay so...we always want to reel in our students' with a BIG hook whenever possible right? Well, in this case, my team and I used music! Thanks to one of my teammates and what I learned at the AAGT conference, I used YouTube to bring in lyrics and music to my classroom to help students get a feel for mood and tone.
After we put together the left side of the anchor chart you see above and chatted all about the difference between feelings and attitudes we jumped right in to the juicy stuff...the music! Before I explain how I used three songs for the hook, let me give you a little heads up, especially if you decide to try this out in your own classroom...
While at the AAGT conference, I attended a session called, "Pop Culture in the Classroom," presented by DJ Graham. Due to a huge need for differentiation in a Gifted classroom (a bit different than other populations) and the importance of pulling in the upper 2 levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, he decided to tie it all together with how pop culture helps to make a connection between the students and teacher as well as making the material directly coincide with what is most relevant to our students today.
You MUST know, we as educators are allowed to use copyrighted video clips and music in our classroom under a fair use guideline, "Movies: 10% or 3 minutes (whichever is less)," and "Music: 10% or 30 seconds (whichever is least)" (from U.S. Copyright Office, 2009); (Harper, 2007). Also, if you want to use music in your classroom for teaching purposes, you should definitely search You Tube first. It is chock full of lyric videos...meaning only the lyrics play across the screen. There is no music video to worry about or content kids shouldn't see. Sure, you can print up the lyrics and have kids just read along as they listen to songs, but this is so much bigger for them! Just do a search for any song and add "lyrics" to your search and you'll get exactly what you need. As always, make sure you view the full video for content.
How did I bring this into my classroom for a lesson on mood and tone? Like I said, one of my awesome teammates had the idea to play Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri, Happy by Pharrell Williams, and Phantom of the Opera (from Broadway or the movie version). Each one covers a super specific and obvious mood and tone. I went straight to YouTube to find the lyric videos for these as soon as she mentioned she had played the songs for her kids...I wanted to step it up a notch!
My kids and I discussed how the lyrics truly set the mood (kind of like pictures in a picture book) and the actual background music sets the tone.
Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri
"...from the ice inside your soul," from Jar of Hearts
And here (below) is my favorite moment! I danced around the room as this one was playing here and there. But this student of mine couldn't help sitting in his seat any longer . He jumped up and started dancing right as I was taking this picture. So, I of course danced over to him and we did a little bit of the "Carlton" and sung the song at each other. Basically? My kids immediately identified and felt the mood and tone so overwhelmingly, there was no question about it!
"...clap along if you feel happiness is the truth," from Happy
As I played the 30 second clips, students jotted down certain words or phrases they caught under a T-chart with mood and tone written at the top. At the end of each clip, they did some quick Rally Robin style discussing, and we came back together as a class to share what we saw and heard. It went swimmingly and they absolutely loooooooved it!
Once my kids felt confident identifying mood and tone within music and lyrics, we read The Dark by Lemony Snicket, together. Through modeling, I made sure to inform them authors tend to repeat the same adjectives or phrases in order to make the audience feel and understand the mood and tone.
I was ecstatic to find my kids not only identified those key words, but they also figured out some really good ways to describe the mood and tone according to what they felt and were thinking exactly. I recorded them on our anchor chart. They realized that not only was the dark meant to be creepy but they also felt surprised and relief at the ending. Yessssss!!!
Pulling from Miss Nannini's lesson, she used the Aesop Fable, "The Ant and the Grasshopper" to assess her students and compare the mood and tone they read to what they saw in the Disney Silly Symphony version. But, I decided to use this as their independent practice. We watched a short clip near the end of the Disney video (downloaded from YouTube), meanwhile they jotted down any key words or phrases they noticed on a T-chart in their notebooks.
They used Close Reading strategies as they read "The Ant and the Grasshopper" text in order to locate those special key words and phrases that show mood and tone.
I decided to have them write a descriptive paragraph with text-based evidence for that day's exit ticket to let me know the mood and tone (intended effect) of the fable.
Have you taught mood and tone to your students yet? What sort of ideas or strategies have worked well for them?
Sure, I'm supposed to be working hard on my National Boards Entry 3 right now, since I'm at a Coaching Saturday event. But I really wanted to get this up first! Sooooooo...this is a bit of a Boards themed Currently.
Listening
I am at a Coaching Saturday event in order to work on my National Boards entry 3. There are a ton of people here getting coaching and work done, so there's a ton of talking around me and amazing conversations about collaborating, reflecting, and imagining. For me, I'm just supposed to be sitting here planning my next several Science lessons because I need to make sure I am using Math to move the Science learning forward.
Loving
It rained this morning. For about 3 minutes. Seriously Arizona? I despise you right now.
Thinking
I'm here working till 3 and the celebration starts at 5:30. Soooooooo...this is all about concentrating on my HUGE task at hand. You know? After I'm done with this blog post of course. LOLOLOL
Wanting
Did I mention this rainy weather didn't last long? I suppose I should at least be happy that the cloud is still full of dark clouds. So there's that.
Needing
I had really hoped to have videotaped my entry lesson by now. But it is testing season and so this hasn't happened. So, planning these lessons today will definitely help! Next step, figuring out who is going to tape me. My hubby did it last year but his new job is during the day...soooooooo I am in quite the conundrum.
?????
These are the items I really NEED whenever I am at these coaching events! Mountain Dew is especially essential after lunch when I hit a wall.
Have any of my readers achieved National Board certification or are in the process? I am a retake candidate and am working on 1 entry and 1 assessment exercise this year.
One of the things I love most about my district is the amount of consistent and in-depth professional development classes they offer us. I try to sign up for classes often so I can hone my craft and really figure out ways to better my students' learning in the classroom...as well as keep myself on my toes. There is just no way I want to be one of those teachers who gets in a rut and that can be easy to do after 9 years of teaching.
Does anyone else have these kind of opportunities in their district? How often do you take advantage of them? Do tell!!
This past month, I signed up for a STEM professional development class that our STEM department put together alongside a grant via Arizona State University. These awesome gals from the department (I've worked closely with several of them multiple times) attended a summer class in which they learned about the lesson I am passing on to you here. They brought it back to our district and were even able to buy us supplies to take back to our classroom the next day.
Thankfully, I also got one of my first trainings in what STEM truly is. THE biggest piece I walked away with (besides the super sweet lesson below) was the knowledge of knowing I do not have to use Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math in every single STEM lesson. Phew! Somehow, this is what I thought it was. Remember how I said I try to hone my craft and keep on the latest and greatest? Since STEM came along long after I finished up my Bachelors, student teaching, and Masters degree, it is one of those huge elements of present-day education that I just don't know a whole lot about. But...I'm getting there!
Enough of the background...let me share this lesson already! This was based on the Ratio and Proportion CCSS and it can be used in grades 5-8. It also ties in measurement and data analysis. Score!!
The idea is to have students use measurement, ratios, proportion, and data analysis to see if they are in proportion to a Barbie or Ken doll.
I was nervous my 5th graders weren't going to feel comfortable enough with ratio. Despite teaching it and finding the majority of my students meeting our state standard (we have not fully switched to CCSS yet), I still did not know if they'd be able to figure out whether their measurements were proportional to the doll's proportions using ratios.
But I modeled my heart out for the first piece of it in order to make sure they knew what I expected and we reviewed equivalent ratios as well. They were seriously chomping at the bit to get started.
They worked in small groups since I only had about 8 Ken dolls and 8 Barbie dolls. By the way...have you seen Barbie dolls lately? If not, they are soooooooo cheap looking now. Blasphemy!! It was rough only having about 4 rolls of measuring tape. So, many of my students improvised and used the yarn they used for the dolls on themselves and then had to carefully use a meter stick. Part of this was also giving them calculators if they chose to use them. The idea is, it doesn't matter if they are doing the computation on paper, it mattered to me if they were understanding comparing one measurement to another and if they were finding equivalent ratios to compare proportions.
I was given copies of a graphic organizer that asked students to record different ratios for things like head circumference to height and head height to neck height, etc. Each student had to measure on both the doll and themselves.
Once they found an equivalent ratio for both, they had to indicate if they were in proportion to the doll or not in the last column.
As I was coming around to each group, I noticed some were having issues finding equivalent ratios with such large or mixed numbers. But I did find they fully understood ratios and how they relate to finding proportions. This was a HUGE success! I love that with STEM students don't necessarily have to do everything correct or perfectly. If they are grasping on to the concept and reaching it via discovery...then you know what? I determine that to be successful in a big way.
Once students have gathered the data, they create a graph from scratch. I had quite the goose-bump raising moment when my students took to creating double-bar graphs without any prompting from me at all. When I asked several groups why they chose to make a double-bar graph versus any other, they told me right away that it was because they were comparing two sets of similar data! Yessssss! What an amazing teacher moment. Don't you just love those?!
While I noticed they chose increments that didn't necessarily match the data, what I found was they knew exactly how to compare the data. My kids also had all the pieces of a properly made graph. After creating their graphs, they had to look back at their data and analyze the bits and pieces to explain whether they were in proportion to the doll and why or why not. This was another spot where I found they had a good understanding of proportions.
All in all, this was a successful lesson in my class for multiple reasons. Not only that, but my students enjoyed themselves and didn't complain at all about how difficult the math concepts were for them. They put both feet in and jumped right in to the measuring and comparing. I'd say they are definite fans of STEM as am I!
Have you used a lesson like this in your classroom before? How do you implement STEM in your classroom?
.jpg)
