Fable Lapbooks

Now I've posted about lapbooking before, but as a reminder, lapbooking is all about creating a product that is interactive and that students can learn from.

This was a project we did in class about fables. We were studying what a moral is and then how to apply it to a fable. We read aloud several fables beforehand and even read some stories that weren't really fables, but still had a moral. This was also a great chance to practice retelling.

I chose several short fables from the book Fables by Arnold Lobel. I copied the pages and then had students highlight key details from the story and then write what they thought the message was after rereading their key details. (This was important later for the lapbook retelling portion)

Here is our finished product!

These were hung up in the hallway where any students could walk by, read the summary and then pull out the card to read what the moral is. It was kind of a fun game for the students to check themselves.

I love making lapbooks and the students had a great time as well! I can't wait to make more later this year :)

Too much to tell: Strictly Photo Update

Technology plus Inquiry

Wow! I've been so busy that I haven't gotten to updating this for a month! A lot of exciting things have been happening in the classroom-- we've had birthdays, the walk-a-thon, a field trip, writing projects, centers, and most importantly, FUN and LEARNING!

Sumdog

Technology

I've had the chance to use much more technology this year, including a lot of wonderful FREE sites like Edmodo which is like an educational facebook.

For math I've also started using Ten Marks and Sumdog which are great tools for challenging advanced students and giving extra practice.

For reading I'm using the Lead21 curriculum site (which has virtual books and vocabulary building Star fall (which focuses more on phonics) and Game Goo which is a bit of everything.
activities),


Game Goo

There are many more sites I'd love to have students on, but sometimes those s
ites have games that aren't really educational so I'm always looking for more!



Symbaloo

I've been really happy using Symbaloo. Instead of going to a favorites tab, it shows images and then takes you to whatever you click. I use it for my home page on my computer, but you can also use it to organize resources for units. Like this Life Cycles Symbaloo I created has resources used in class and additional ones for students to learn from more. I uploaded it to my edmodo account for them to keep on learning even after we're done. I love it!

Inquiry

I'm new to inquiry lessons, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Our first question, we all chose the same question which was "What do my different roles say about me?" Here are some examples of our finished product!

 This time our focus is science in the community so we had a brainstorming session together and had the class pair up by interests and each pair is doing their own project (probably a poster this time). We'll see how it goes since the inquiry questions range from black holes to car motors to weather! Hopefully I can keep up with it all; I know the students will keep up the good work!

Classroom Adjustments and Extras

As it always goes, once the school year starts we teachers realize that we want to tweak our plans for our classroom.

Level Library

I have made it my goal to expand my leveled library so that I can provide books for students that are at their level each week in their "book bag" at their desk. I introduced that book boxes to the kids today and they were so excited about them!

I pick out two books at their level from my library and let them choose two other books that they are interested in. I can't get them to put it down! So that a wonderful thing!

I have also written each student's name on their bag in the color of their reading group-- to help me when I'm choosing books at their level. Super excited that I could have "book bags" again!

I got lots of books from Savers yesterday (Buy 4 get 1 free) so I am sure that in not time I will have much fuller baskets in my library! I also appreciated that families that donated books to my classroom. The students and I are very grateful!

Literacy Centers

After trying to use the smartboard to project the stations, I decided that it was too confusing for students. I want them to be able to move quickly without interrupting the guided reading time to ask where they are going. This is why I've started using the group baskets!

It says their rotations and has their book from guided reading time so that if they finish early, they could be rereading those books.

I have a basket for all four of my groups. Each day someone is designated to carry the basket to the rotations and be the leader-- pointing other students to their next spot if they forget.

The entire class is really enjoying word work activities and game goo!

Author's Purpose

I've done some work with the P.I.E. (Persuade, Inform, Entertain) idea before, but now I've expanded it into an interactive bulletin board! While students have done their silent reading, they decide which "piece of the PIE" the book their reading is.

I'm planning on getting some more persuasive texts from the library this week so students can see the difference. I think they've really taken off with it and it'll be a piece of cake in no time :)

 Classroom Community

Our class is truly coming together and will continue to build on our relationships using the morning meeting model. 

This was an activity we did our first week of school-- an all about me pennant. I've hung them all together to show that we are a community. The students haven't seen what I've done with them yet, but I think they'll be excited :)

First full week of school

We are wrapping up our first full week of school. We've spent a lot of time on placement tests and getting things organized and routines in place, but I'm also happy to share some of the fun things we've gotten to do!

Reading Centers

We've practiced the Daily 5 rotations which are: Silent reading, Reading to someone (partner reading), Listening to reading, Writing (which is actually done in our writer's workshop after centers) and word work.

The students have gotten very good at moving through the centers and had a lot of fun today working on the different word work stations.  The word work stations put a focus on phonics, sight words, and sentence construction AND they're always very hands-on so they are always a crowd pleaser. I'm hoping to create more this year too!

Math

We started math with a math about me project to display for meet the teacher night. This was my first time doing this project, but I was very pleased with how they turned out.

We also started the new Math Envision curriculum. I've been very pleased with it so far and the students love the workmats that come with each lesson, interactive videos, and center activities.

Science

We studied nutrition and the food pyramid as well as building well-balanced meals. We put this into our science journals-- we also saw a very good explanation of the new food pyramid, but it was through United Streaming so I can't share that link.

Very soon we will kick off our research unit on insects!

Social Studies

We just started looking at communities and will start looking at urban, suburban, and rural communities and then we will move into leaders.

Behavior

 

As shown in the previous post, I am using a clip up system for individual monitoring. I like that it's more positively focused and it gives students the chance to turn their days around (not "stuck"on red). I don't have a picture of the exact same calendar I've been using as a recording sheet, but here is an example one.

Many students got the chance to "cash in" their 5 good days today (green or better). Some of the things they can earn are: a hat day, no shoes, positive note home, prize box, bring in a stuffed animal, show and tell and if they save up for 10 days they can do lunch with me-- I usually go outside if the weather is nice :) They seemed very excited about "cashing in" today!

I hope this has been an insightful update!