Owl Pellets

This was such a find! While dissecting owl pellets this year we watched this great Youtube video on the Smartboard.

On the same day in the computer lab we did a virtual owl pellet dissection using http://www.kidwings.com/index.htm I love this site!

Baseball poetry

The 4th graders have been reading Lou Gehrig The Luckiest Man  by Alder this week. Its one of my favorite stories in the 4th gradeTrophies anthology. I like to practice the visualizing strategy with this baseball poem after reading the story. It is called Before the Game by Paul Janeczko.The children pick out three different colored highlighters. We then make a key: what can you see, hear, smell or taste while reading  the poem. I typed the poem up on my Smartboard and made a key as well. We also discussed the theme, tone or mood of the poem. Its so evident in that line:                              Joy,                                                                       thick as perfume 

fills the air 

Makes you want to go to a ballgame! Christine

Studying Helen Keller

We've been reading Scholastic chapter book biographies for homework (Rosa Parks and Neil Armstrong) but in class we are enjoying Helen Keller by Margaret Davidson

 I have a class set so every child has a copy. The text is easy reading (third grade level) but my focus has been inferring both Annie and Helen's personality traits through actions, dialogue or monologue. To introduce the skill I refer to them as thoughts, actions, or words.This is the first time I have done this with my fourth graders and I thought they got the hang of it pretty quickly. We listed the trait, how it was revealed to us in the story, and the text based evidence with pg. number.

                      This is the anchor chart we developed for Annie, or Teacher, as she was fondly known

Several of my 4th graders have really become interested in learning more about Helen Keller. The following website for kids gives lots of info and pictures of Helen throughout her life:
http://www.afb.org/braillebug/hkgallery.asp?tpid=1
Its great for showing on the Smartboard. Christine

Inferring character's feelings

I love stories which have the character's feelings change over time. I got this idea from Emily Kissner's blog http://emilykissner.blogspot.com/ She used Shortcut by Donald Crews as the mentor text to help children infer the character's feelings throughout the story. I used her lesson on my Smartboard.

The children all had a copy of the story map as well.

We also discussed the narrative elements for this simple story using Beth Newingham's Story Mountain

http://blogs.scholastic.com/top_teaching/2011/02/my-february-top-ten-list-resources-and-lessons-for-reading-fiction.html

The kids LOVED that you could move the yellow star on the Smartboard to show the rising action, climax and falling action of the story. Great lesson, thanks Emily. Christine

inferring with poetry

This is a great poem for inferencing written by Gary Soto. Its a poem from his book: Fearless Fernie. It was used on the 5th grade MCAS test a few years back. You can see that I typed it for display on my Smartboard. You can easily infer the speaker's feelings:

• His hair jumped from his head..infer: excited
• It was his lucky day!...infer: happy
• He dug till his fingers were bleeding...infer: he is working hard!

I love that the poem ends with this message: When you leave something sweet behind, others come and get it. Try to get the children to explain what Fernie learned and apply it to other situations.Christine



Teaching text features

 I really like this nonfiction picture book about the White House to teach children about text features. I was able to get a class set a few years ago from Scholastic. The book includes a great variety of different text features such as: maps, pictures, captions and cutaways.

a page from the book which shows a map of D.C.

I also used this great site: http://panoramas.dk/US/washington-cherry-trees.html
  to show Washington D.C. on my Smartboard. It shows a panoramic view from a spot along the Potomac river. I had the children compare the panorama to the map above. You can see various monuments which help you to identify the spot it was filmed from.



This is the cutaway of the White House in the book

I printed these great posters from a website, unfortunately, I don't remember the address. I use them while we are reading the book, The Story of the White House to discuss different text features we come across.
Christine






A small moment:Saturdays and Teacakes

If you haven't read Lester Laminack's Saturdays and Teacakes go get a copy. I just love it! It is Lester's memoir about Saturdays spent at his grandmother's house. Its a great mentor text for teaching writing to elementary age students. He also wrote Cracking Open the Author's Craft which is full of writing lessons geared toward the picture book. Cracking Open the Author's Craft comes with a DVD of the story Saturdays and Teacakes. We watched  on our Smartboard as Lester read the book to us. I used the pages on baking teacakes with his grandmother as springboard for teaching a small moment: Baking cookies with someone special. Christine

The Japanese Paper House: MCAS

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzYWFkZmNjMDUtYWY2MS00ZDcxLWI4YjUtNTE5M2QxNTc4M2Qw&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

 Children have virtually no background knowledge about traditional Japanese design. They have never heard of the famous American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.That is what makes this MCAS question so difficult to tackle. I have to admit my mental file cabinet is pretty empty on the subject. Knowing that drove me to produce a Smartboard lesson to go along with the article The Japanese Paper House. http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2008/release/g5ela.pdf
While reading,you need to INFER that Frank Lloyd Wright was inspired by traditional Japanese design. He built Fallingwater in PA as a result. We watched this awesome Youtube video, a virtual rebuilding of the architect's masterpiece on our Smartboard. The video of Fallingwater combined with the Smartbook Notebook lesson on Japanese design features filled our mental file cabinets up. We are now able to visualize on a topic that was abstract before. Success! Christine

Here is the Smartboard lesson:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzYWFkZmNjMDUtYWY2MS00ZDcxLWI4YjUtNTE5M2QxNTc4M2Qw&hl=en

Building Background Knowledge

Vietnam is not a topic most fourth graders know much about. The story, Two Lands One Heart is in our Trophies anthology. It is the story of a family separated by war. The mother and son go back to visit family in Vietnam. To acquire background knowledge on the country before we read the story, I like to use this site:
http://www.pocanticohills.org/projects/bestwork.html The work on the website was produced by kids at Pocantico Hills School in Sleepy Hollow, New York. I was able to show the slide show to my whole class on the Smartboard. When you look under their BEST WORK you can also find topics such as:

• Ben Franklin
• Abe Lincoln
• The American Revolution
• Harriet Tubman

The kids like this because it was written by other children. Christine

Character traits

While reading Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott Odell we did some work on Karena's character traits. I made a Wordle of character traits that I thought applied to Karena during various chapters of the story. The assignment was to list the trait and the text based evidence.

http://www.wordle.net/Here is a Smartboard lesson I used after reading the story. Was Karena a real person?

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzMjBiYTk5YjAtZWY5NC00ODQyLTg3NjktMzg4MmRjMjI1YWMw&hl=en

Christine

Smartboard writing pictures

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzMWRiOGNkM2QtOWFhYy00MTkyLWJkZmItMDA0OGY5ZGUzNmQ0&hl=en

I have figured out how to post a Smartboard lesson! (Little things make me happy.) I have been trying to think of new ways to teach writing a small moment. I used these pictures recently to brainstorm vivid verbs and great adjectives. Take a look. Christine

Personal narratives

We are writing about a great day at an amusement park. I used The Screaming Mean Machine by Joy Crowley as my anchor text for writing a small moment on a roller coaster.

"map" of our roller coaster ride. The stars indicate great moments we could write about.

Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee is another option, but I think The Screaming Mean Machine is a better choice. I love the use of vivid verbs and similes. After we read the book, I did a Smartboard lesson review Joy Crowley's use of creative language. I have posted the link to the Smartboard lesson at the bottom of the page. Next, I had the children draw a "map" of what it would be like to go on a roller coaster ride. This helped enormously when we sat down to write. Here are some pictures of our writing folders. I used a binding machine to bind together three pocket folders. You can see that I labeled each pocket (rough draft, final copy and so on). The last pocket is for miscellaneous papers, mostly handouts. It really helps to keep things organized during writing class.
Christine

we take notes when we run across great words



We use stickers to show when we used one of our writing skills

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzZDdjNTk4MTItYWIxMy00ZGU0LTgxN2EtYTNmN2I2YTU1ZTg0&hl=en

Wilson Reading

If you use Wilson Reading in your district, here is a great Smartboard lesson I found on Teachers as Technology Trailblazers, Kristen Swanson's site.  http://www.kristenswanson.org/2011/01/smartboard-template-for-wilson-reading.html She is a real tech person, but I get lost of great ideas from her. Christine

Haddix books

My 5th graders are big Margaret Peterson Haddix fans. Uprising is coming out in paperback in January from Scholastic for $4 each. I'm going to invest in a class set. It is the story of the Shirtwaist Triangle factory fire, one of the most tragic fires in American history.The plot involves a friendship between three young women in New York City in 1911. Two of the girls are immigrants who work at Triangle, one is the daughter of a wealthy businessman. Only one of these girls survives the fire. You must wait till the end of the book to find out who. I made an introductory Smartboard lesson for it as well. The link is at the bottom.This book can be used to teach so many topics: immigration, the history of the american union, the concept of sweatshops. What is most interesting is that the fire was 100 years ago this March 25. Recently I have started researching my family genealogy. My great grandmother was a twiner in a factory in Boston at the time of the Triangle fire. She very likely knew about it.This is the only existing picture of her. Her working conditions were probably similar to those described in the story. It was a fascinating connection to make. Christine

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzY2Y3OTQzZjItMTM5YS00OTQ0LWJmM2EtZjdiNDA3NTIyYjVh&hl=en

Everglades: 5th grade Trophies

The entire story, Everglades, by Jean Craighead George, is in the fifth grade Trophies anthology. I found a great Storyworks resource to accompany the story.  http://storyworks.scholastic.com/reproducible-archive/november-december-2010 The magazine article , Monsters of the Everglades, can be shown on the Smartboard. The website also has a great short video about invasive species in other places in the US. Storyworks provides worksheets and tests as well. After visiting this website, I am considering buying a subscription for the next school year.

If you don't follow Mary Blow from Scholastic Top Teaching, here is a link to her post. She has a great post on the Storyworks site.
http://blogs.scholastic.com/classroom_solutions/2010/10/magazines-an-english-teachers-best-friend-a-few-years-ago-i-discovered-the-value-of-using-magazines-in-my-classroom.html

This is a vocabulary lesson from the story, Everglades, that I like to use. These words are all synonyms used on page 257 for a large amount.  You could also use a linear array to list the words in a different way. Christine

The new way vs. the old way



The NEW way (Smartboard)




The OLD way (poster and tape)

 I'm finding that a lot of my posters have become obsolete because of the Smartboard. I love the tools, especially the highlight option (so much easier than my highlighting tape!) We have been working on poetry quite a bit recently. I have found it is just so easy to quickly type a poem into Notebook and then use the tools to teach the lesson. Christine

My delicious

http://www.delicious.com/cjken42
If you are interested in sites full of Smartboard lessons for 4th and 5th grade check out my Delicious bookmarks. I have been adding to the account any site I like that has interactive whiteboard lessons.
Christine

Happy Halloween!

This week I read the story Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster  by Debra Frasier to both the 4th grade and the 5th grade. I was sure someone would guess what my Halloween costume would be (surprise: no one did!) I used the Smartboard to read the story to them. Here is the link http://www.berkeleycountyschools.org/17691092583317107/lib/17691092583317107/_files/Miss_Alaineus_-_A_Vocabulary_Disaster.pdf  Caution: 90% of the story is on the site, you will need the book to read 2 or 3 pages that are missing from the website. They loved seeing the book projected on the Smartboard and we had a lot of fun playing Hangman on the Smartboard during our Halloween party.  I have another post on the book Miss Alaineus ( a Youtube video).Christine

The comprehension toolkit

Here is a lesson I got out of the Comprehension Toolkit. Thank you Kathy D. for lending it to me! The toolkit comes with 4th/5th grade nonfiction articles and lessons to do based on the reading strategies in The Keys To Comprehension book by Harvey and Goudvis.It also comes with a CD that I was able to use with my Smartboard. This lesson, Summer of the Shark, was about adding new information to known (background knowledge). The topic of sharks is great because kids do have a good amount of background knowledge on the topic.The lesson also explores the idea of a misconception. I modeled my own background knowledge about sharks, and then hid a misconception so that I could correct my own thinking during reading. I then had the students read the rest of the article with a partner to see if they had any misconceptions. We also added our new learning as you can see from the poster. Christine 

This is the whole toolkit with some picture books

SMART Boards in elementary school

I want to try this SMARTboard application. Its from Laura Candler's website http://www.lauracandler.com/ Instead of pulling names from a cup to call on students or make groups you can do it on the SMARTboard. http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/misc/TheHat.pdf See Laura Candler's website for free materials. I also like her poetry cards. They cover our 5th grade standards pretty well. Christine