tagxedo or wordle websites

I've been using http://www.wordle.net/ in the classroom for a few months and I really like it. I used it to make the cover of the class yearbook. Another thing I did with it was I took all of the character traits that applied to Karena in Is. of the Blue Dolphins and made a wordle out of them. I had the students pick three of Karena's character traits from the wordle and write a paragraph using text based evidence from the story. I just found this new site http://www.tagxedo.com/ and I like it even better. The shape option is really cool. Christine

Using Storybird.com

I really liked this site: http://www.storybird.com/ . You can use the beautiful artwork they give you and make up your own stories to publish and share. Its a great idea for kids and parents. I will have to work on potential uses in the classroom. Christine

vocabulary instruction

I keep this poster up all year as a reference for the kids. What do you do when you don't know the meaning of a word?It is really just a list of strategies. At the beginning of the year I use it in whole group/small group instruction with specific words we come across. Later on I have them show evidence that they applied the strategy. You can see this with my post on Titanicat by Marty Crisp, The column on the right of the poster asks the question: What helped you? Sometimes while reading, meaning breaks down because they don't know a word that is crucial to comprehension of the text. These strategies are tools that give them some idea of where to start. P.S. Notice that ask the teacher is at the bottom of the list! Christine

SMART Boards in elementary school

Lots of examples of how the Smart Board could be used in different subjects in the elementary school. Christine

5 Tips and Tricks for the SmartBoard

Narrative elements glove

I love this glove for teaching narrative elements (characters, setting, problem, solution) in fiction texts. I got the pictures online and then just added my own ideas. For many years I believed that explicit teaching/discussion of narrative elements was unnecessary in 4/5th grade. After all, don't they get this is the younger grades? I decided to make the glove more intermediate by fine tuning it to 4/5th grade standards. Instead of just asking children who the characters are I have them sort them into major characters and minor characters. We discuss whether or not the story has a narrator and through who's point of view the story is told. When we move on to setting we discuss the time the story takes place in and give text based evidence to support our answers. Another sophisticated use of the glove related to setting is when the story has a flashback (or flashforward).In order to understand that the setting/time has changed you have to have some strong inferencing skills. Problems and solutions: Another appropriate use for the glove in the upper grades involves a change in vocabulary. I introduce the word conflict and discuss the different types of conflicts: character vs. character, character vs. nature, character vs. society, and character vs. self (conflict within the character). They have to tell me which type of a conflict is now occurring in the story.We also discuss that some problems/conflicts in stories are solved right away and others are never solved. Many times one problem is resolved and another one pops up. Characters can also have many problems to tackle at the same time. What is interesting is that I can usually pull the glove out after the first page or two of a fiction text and have the kids nail down the characters, setting and maybe a problem right away. This helps immediately with future comprehension of the story. It also helps to set a purpose for reading. Don't you want to find a solution to that problem the character has? Don't you want to see what happens next?Christine

synthesis

Synthesizing is the most complex of the reading strategies. It is far more difficult to nail down examples of when you are actually synthesizing as you read as compared to a time when you are visualizing or asking a question. Synthesizing is that moment when we are reading along and then something happens to change our thinking. You are using your background knowledge, the clues in the text (inferring) and then BAM! You realize something new, something you hadn't seen before...it might be insight into why a character has been behaving a certain way. In the story The Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting, the clues in the text combined with our background knowledge lead us in one direction. About half way through the story, the clues start making the reader question whether the original assumptions about the characters were correct. A new perspective emerges. That aha! moment is true synthesis.