Ready for Anchor Charts

Instead of buying new ribbon to outline my anchor charts, I decided to use the yards and yards of white border I had in my classroom. #winning

I am only teaching writing, math, and social studies this year. My teammate will be in charge of reading and science! I am pretty excited about it.

Yay! I sewed my new curtains yesterday at my parent's house and I think they work well in the space. I am so glad to have the cluttered shelves covered.

A great place to hang our work.

I will be pointing to this board pretty often.

"Mrs. Morris, I'm done. What should I do now?"

I saw place value bubbles on Pinterest and knew I had to make them.

This was my inspiration:

Click to view her post.

Click HERE to download the place value bubbles. Please leave me a comment if you download them. I like knowing they are being used.

I will be back at school tomorrow. There are always things to do. I am almost ready to start making copies for Back to School Night! Our teacher inservice begins this Friday, so I only have a few days of summer left.

New iPad Parent Letter

Hello again! Thanks for stopping by and reading my post.

Do you have iPads in your classroom?

Last year I wrote an iPad letter to give parents some basic information about my 1:1 iPad classroom. I have amended it for this year. I felt like I needed to talk about internet safety.

Take a look at this:

A new poll released by Netmums revealed shocking statistics on internet use by children. The survey of 825 children aged between seven and 16 and 1,127 adults showed that 16.7% of parents allowed children three years old or younger to go online. However, the most alarming statistics show how exposed and vulnerable children are online.

1. 42.1% of kids admit they have seen online porn. One in 16 have been exposed to hardcore pornography.
2. One in 12 have exchanged messages with sexual content to other people, while one in 25 have sent graphic photos of themselves.
3. 25% of children get away with pretending to be older to get an account online.
4. One in 20 children admitted arranging a secret meeting with someone they met online.
5. Almost three in 10 parents (29%) let their kids use the internet without any restrictions or supervision.

**From Shared Hope International

 I just have to say, wow. Isn't that scary? This needs to be a discussion we are having with families everywhere.

Our kids are hearing things in music that they don't really understand. They are seeing situations and hearing words on television, movies, and YouTube that get their attention. They are curious and the internet has all the answers! All they have to do is type in a word in the Google search box and it will pop up suggested searches. Then they can jump over to see the image results. Those images can take them to horrible content. Just imagine all the families that don't have filters or parental guidance software!

All it takes is one word guys. ONE WORD. I just think of all the kids 12 and under I have seen at PG-13 and R movies. They are getting an earful.

We need to protect the innocence of our kids. Those images can't be unseen. Those actions can't be undone. 

What does your school do to help families prevent or deal with the aftermath of internet safety? 

Our elementary filters are really good in my district, but there are always some loopholes. I am going to be very proactive this year, as you can tell after reading this letter. I am going to be very clear about my expectations with my students without going into the inappropriate stuff. (Believe me, I don't want to go there!)

If you want a generic form of this letter, you can download it HERE.

Email me if you would like the editable version.

I would love to read any comments you have about internet safety. Specifically how you and your school handles it. Also, if you have children, how do you handle it at home? I welcome any pointers and suggestions!

Writing Foldable for Journals - BaDaBing!

Click HERE to download!

Gretchen Bernabei shares this great strategy to help our students beef up their sentences. Do you read sentences like these from your students?

I went to the store.

My friend likes my shoes.

He walked home.

Those just don't cut it. Especially in 4th grade!

How about this version?

The young boy sauntered through the park on his way home, when suddenly he saw something glinting in the dry grass. He thought to himself, "Could it be?"

I wish I had some examples of my kids writing from last year. We did this and I couldn't believe the difference! You start with a blah sentence, think about where your feet where, what you saw, and what you were thinking. Kids can try to put it all in one sentence or write several. I don't want to constrict them, since it is all about making their writing more descriptive and full.

Now, how am I going to use the graphic above? It is a flip book for their journals. The yellow piece stays whole, but you cut the flaps apart, so you can lift them like tabs. We will write the blah sentence at the top of the page, then lift the tabs to write what each means underneath. That way they have a reminder of what each symbol means. We will then beef up our blah sentence!

This is something we are going to practice quite a bit at the beginning of the year. I have decided to go back to the basics and build our writing muscles slowly. So we will start with writing sound sentences. You would hope that 4th graders would start the year with sentences that started with capital letters and ended with punctuation, but that hasn't been my experience.

I am also going to share this with my kids. I found it on Pinterest!

It didn't link back to a website.

We will move on to paragraph writing by October. Stay tuned to see my strategy for teaching paragraphs.

Writing Journal Resources

Click HERE to download yours for free!

I have these set up to print 4 to a page. They will be for my kids to reference in their writing.

After these lessons, I will supply these small cards for the kids to tape into their journals.

If you haven't visited this blog, you should. She is a great teacher and posts a lot of teaching resources. She uses Gretchen Bernabei's methods for teaching writing. I got these from her blog post HERE.

I have to say that I am excited about teaching writing this year.

:)

Grammar Cheat Sheet

Click on the picture to download.

I was lucky enough to attend a Gretchen Bernabei Writing Workshop last week. I feel like I learned so much about who to break writing down into manageable pieces for my students!

I think I am pretty good at breaking math down into the basics. There are plenty of steps to follow and I feel like it is just a process to getting kids where they need to be. I have been wanting to know how to do that with writing.

I have a confession to make.

I am not a good grammar teacher. 

Sad day.

Gretchen Bernabei gave me some tools to help me be a better teacher and my kids better writers.

You should definitely check out her website and blog. She posts all kinds of free resources. Her chart is posted there, so I felt like I could share my version with you guys. I took a few things off that we really don't need in 4th grade and made the boxes a little larger to accommodate kids with large or sloppy handwriting.

We will be taping this onto the inside of the back cover of our Grammar journals.

This chart is for the proof kids will write to help them write correctly. Here are some examples of journal entries. We did these during the workshop.

She teaches grammar mini-lessons every day. Then challenges her students to use the proof in their writing. I can't wait to do this with my kids. Here is a list of all the proof she teaches kids.

This is a great way to teach kids to figure out if something is a complete sentence. I will be using this without a doubt! I have been a broken record just asking kids, "Is that a complete thought?" That doesn't really help, but I didn't really know what else to do. Pitiful, I know.

My grammar instruction is going to rock this year!!!

What do you think? Would you use any of this?

Monday Made It: Math Word Wall Cards

I saw a pin... I start way too many conversations with that phrase. Do you?

I love this idea! Click the picture to go to the original post.

I wanted to have a better way to focus on math vocabulary this year and this seems like a great solution! I have cards ready for each unit I will teach this year. I will put them on a ring and hang them under the unit name. They are available for easy access for review whenever we need. 

Great, right?

I'm not going to use the yard sticks. I will just staple the cards for the current unit after we discuss them. I will probably put the unit title and cards underneath the current stapled cards. I will put a picture up in August when I get it set up in my classroom.

I didn't want to pay for the cards, so I did some hunting around the internet. I found a great resource.

Link for A-L cards.

Link for M-Z cards.

These are great, but I wanted mine to have a border. I decided not to color code them by unit because of the wall color and my color scheme. My classroom will be aqua, black, and gray with some white. So multicolored word wall cards wouldn't look too great on my aqua wall...

The unit titles have gray chevron backgrounds and the vocabulary cards have a dark gray background.

You can download all 86 pages of my math word wall cards HERE for free!

Units include:

Place Value

Adding & Subtracting Whole Numbers

Multiplication & Division

Patterns

Fractions

Measurement

Geometry

Google Form for BTS

This was one of the best things I did last year. You can see I have my form all ready for this year's Back to School night. We have our BTS night the week before school starts, so I won't know any of my kids or parents at this time. Families come to drop off school supplies and meet their new teacher. 

I love that I can email this to parents who don't make it to our BTS night!

This is the one from last year:

I found out that, although it had a lot of good information, it was too long. Parents didn't want to sit at the laptop this long. Plus I didn't really use this information enough to make it necessary.

I think my shorter version will go over much better!

How I Use This Form

1. Set up 3-4 laptops in the classroom.
2. Open the link I posted on my class website.
3. Rotate parents through the laptops. When one finishes, hit the back button, and reopen a new form.
4. When the night is over, go look at the spreadsheet!

Quick and easy!

Writing a Research Paper in a 1:1 iPad Classroom

Fun days! The end of the year can be a difficult time for teachers and students, but we are really enjoying our research project. 

Requirements

Each student will turn in a research paper to me and then present their research to the class using an app on their iPad.

Rubric

I am being pretty specific on these, so they know exactly what I am expecting.

Process

1. Research - We have access to encyclopedias through our school library webpage. My students are using these resources to gather much of their information. I also said they could look up zoo websites or other websites, but I am not letting them use Wikipedia. We had to talk about that because they wanted to use it.

When they found an article they wanted to use, I showed them how to copy & paste the information from the article into the Notes app along with the MLA citing information. They have it cited for you! At the bottom of each article, you will find 3 different methods of citing resources all formatted and ready to go.

    I recorded that mini-lesson using AirServer if you are interested in seeing how I showed the kids what to do. Click here to see the post.

2. Images - I have talked about using Britannica Image Quest and how great a resource it is. We are using it again for the picture on our cover page and the images in our presentations.

3. Writing the research paper - We had to really discuss how to use the research to guide our writing. Some students just wanted to copy & paste straight into their paper! It took quite a bit of explaining and rephrasing to get my point across. I always found this to be a difficult part of writing a research paper. 

     My school district bought Google Apps for all students and teachers, so my kids have access to Google docs. (After downloading the new Docs app, which was launched May 1, we were ready to get started.)

    Key features of Google docs & why I chose it for their writing

• Web based for seamless transition between devices - We are doing the bulk of our writing on the iPads, but I will have them polish it in the Computer Lab before they print.
• Basic formatting is available
• Sharing settings allow me to view their work in progress
• The commenting feature is a great way for me to help them edit and revise their work in real time.

Here are two student examples:

When you highlight a word or words and click the comment button, you can help your students make a change. 

You can see our comments back and forth on this paper. She sent me a question and I answered. Then we were able to talk back and forth. There are many more comments, but I couldn't show them all.

4. Creating a Presentation - I have 2 kids who are finished with their papers. They are working on a presentation. Mostly they have been playing around with different apps, trying to decide which one will be the best. I told them they could use any app other than Tellagami (it is too short), Puppet Pals (no images), and PhotoCard (too short and only 1 image).

I know they are going to present some awesome research. I will share their final products after they present. Do your kids like research? How have you used an iPad to facilitate research?

Any suggestions?

Movie Trailers with iMovie

iMovie

is awesome!

On the iPad, you have 2 choices. You can create a movie or a trailer. The trailers are so cool! I had my class create trailers for The City of Ember, since we just finished reading it together.

Here is a tutorial on how to create a trailer in iMovie. Here is another. I didn't show my kids anything. 

I put them in groups of 3-4 and they experimented with the app. They were over the moon about creating these! There was so much excitement in the air. They would ask each other for tips and glory in being able to teach other kids how to insert a video, sound effect, or text. 

Images were pulled from Britannica Image Quest which is a site our district pays for that has royalty free images for classroom use. Some of the kids acted out scenes and inserted those videos. The music is from the app.

Here are a few of their trailers.

I love his use of the background. He was the only student to choose this background. His words really enhanced the trailer.

I really like that this one has such engaging text. His words really get you interested in the story. He chose an exciting theme because it is a suspenseful story. I was really happy with how his turned out.

If you have read the book, you will appreciate the scenes acted out in this video. Some of them made me laugh and others made me so proud of their thought process!

Valentine's Day

I was strangely surprised that today was such an easy day...

Full moon and Valentine's Day? I wasn't expecting a red letter day, if you know what I mean.  :)

I just love my class!

We didn't get to have Valentine's Day parties, but we did exchange valentines at the end of the day and have a contest.

I issued a challenge to my kids last week. Decorate your valentine bag or box at home and submit it in one of three categories: Funniest, Most Creative, or Most Valentinesy (not a word, I know).

May I present the winners?

Funniest

It was rigged to drop candy eye balls out the bottom when it was picked up.

Most Creative

I love the crown.

Most Valentinesy

I hope you had a great day!

Sequencing a Personal Narrative

We have been working on personal narratives the last few weeks. I decided that I wanted to show my kids several excellent essays written by 4th graders, but I wanted them to dig deep into them instead of just doing a cursory reading. That led me to the STAAR Released Test from last year and the resources available on the TEA Writing Resources page. I was very happy to find documents for personal narrative and expository essays with 4 examples of essays that scored from 1-4. 

I took the essays that received fours and typed them up. I broke them into chunks in the document. Then I printed out enough copies for my kids to work in partners (9) and we were ready to work!

I instructed my kids to read each piece and then work together to put it in the correct order. They needed to pay attention to order words and other clues. The first time we did this I had them glue the pieces, after I checked to make sure the order was right, on a small manila sheet. Then they had to explain their decision making process on a separate sheet of notebook paper. We went over the order and discussed things we noticed.

This is the second attempt. They were given a large sheet of manila paper this time and were instructed to write their reasoning around the pieces.

I liked what this group had to say about their reasoning.

I plan on doing the same thing for expository when we switch back soon.

Get your FREE copy HERE!

Do you do something similar? Any ideas on how I can make this better?

Big G - Teaching Customary Capacity

It is that time again. Time to teach conversions. It is not a fun time for a 4th grade teacher...

We will make it through this unit. That is my mantra!

Last week I introduced Big G to help my kids remember and visualize the relationships between a gallon, quarts, pints, and cups. This is the story I tell them:

In the land of G, there are 4 queens. Each Queen has a beautiful princess and a handsome prince. Each princess and prince has 2 cats!

(I am not a story teller... I love reading stories, but I am not an actress.) This is just a little thing I say as we draw out Big G. I am sure there are other more well thought out version you can find out there.

This year I wanted my kids to come up with their own story for Big G. Here are a few. I don't know if The Zoo or Goosh the Boat is my favorite.

Land of Geneses

The Zoo

The Garner House (I think it was inspired by Among the Hidden)

Goosh the Boat

What do you think?

Do you have any fun things your kids do with capacity?

Expository Writing- Revising and Editing

So we are getting into some serious writing these days. The first 2 weeks after the Christmas break we spent time writing 2 expository pieces. The last 2 weeks we have been working on narratives.

I am getting this ready for when we switch back to expository next week.

Here is my plan:

I am going to glue the typed up essays onto large pieces of butcher paper which will be placed around the room. I will put students into mixed ability groups to rotate through the posters. They will be told that each person must find something that needs to be corrected and something the author did really well. They will use markers to draw lines from the text to a spot on the butcher paper where they will correct a mistake or leave a compliment.



I am very blessed this year in that my students really enjoy writing. I have all ability levels, so conferencing can get a little chaotic, but I am not having the refusals to write like last year. #smallblessings

Writing teachers:
     What do you do to help your students revise and edit their work?
     Where have you found the best resources?

I will post pictures of our finished posters after we do this activity! Have a great week!

Text Support with Popplet

Popplet is a great app for showing knowledge visually.

Today we began reading Seeker of Knowledge from Reading Street (our reading textbook adoption). Our curriculum asked us to have the kids choose a hieroglyph from each page and explain the sentence from the text that provided more information about it. This was a great opportunity for us to use Popplet to showcase our learning instead of writing it on a piece of paper.

Here are a couple:

I was happy with the results. :) They had a time limit of 20 minutes to do this.

**************************

In our literature groups, the kids are reading Geronimo Stilton books. Have you seen them?

I have made QR codes with comprehension activities for the groups to do throughout the book. One of them was to create a Popplet:

This group is reading a different Stilton book.

What have you done with Popplet? I would love to hear your ideas.