Editing marks lesson

Write the editing marks on the board and have students discuss and show which ones they know.

Have students guess what the other marks mean.

discuss their true meaning.

Hand out the editing marks sheet

Have students come up with two sentences that are written wrong.  

Pass the sentences to a partner and have the partner correct the sentences using the editing marks. 

Select a few students to share their incorrect sentences and how they corrected them with the editing marks.

Biography Unit

This is my unit plan that I will be using for my EdTPA requirements. The unit is spread out over a week- week and a half time.

I started the unit out by discussing bio poems. We had done a bio poem about themselves the day earlier so they would have some prior knowledge to do this assignment. I used this bio poem template for the bio poem about themselves and tweaked a few things for when I used it for the biography unit. For this lesson I read a short biography to the students and then printed out copies of the biography

OAE Social Studies

Here is a website, made by Pearson, the maker of the OAE that I think would be a great study guide for the Social Studies test that I have to take.  I have been searching the web everywhere for a good study guide and finally found this one. What can be better than something made by the test makers!

Study this

Biography Unit

One my my biggest tasks I must overcome during student teaching is the edTPA. For the edTPA I must come up with a unit between 3-5 days long, I must record myself, show evidence of my students as well as assess my students learning. 

I have decided to do my unit on biographies because that is the next unit that needs to be taught. My plan so far is to  have students finish the poetry unit and begin the biography unit by writing a bio poem of themselves.  I would then like to read a biography book to them and have the students then write a bio poem on the person talked about in the book.  Next I would like to have students visit the library and choose a biography book to do their biography project on. The person needs to be someone interesting and new to the students. Once they have chosen their person  I will give them a worksheet to help with the note taking process as well as a sheet to help them form paragraphs to discuss their person. 

The project will be placed in a folder to show off the students work. I have found a wonderful website to show how I would like to create these folders.

a simple book

Student Teaching

I am student teaching right now and absolutely enjoying it! The kids are so lovely and kind, the staff are the same. It truly has been an amazing experience.

We have had many snow days and two hour delays so I have also been having a rare experience.

Anyways, I thought it would be a good idea to write about my experience and the things I have learned so I wont forget it.

4th grade:
Spelling Words
I have recently taken on this task of choosing spelling words and giving homework and reminders for the spelling words. This will be my job here on out. So to help me out I have found a few useful websites.

Super Teacher Worksheet

Smart Board Exercises

Learn how to tie your shoes

I thought this was such a cute way to learn and practice how to tie your shoes. This was given to the Y by JoAnn fabrics but I think you could easily make this. The kids loved coloring it and can take it home to practice! 

Wordle

Wordle is a nice and cute way to make spelling words, vocabulary words, or bold words that are found in the text book. When you make a Wordle, and you want certain words to be bigger than the others, you simply write that word more times than the rest. With Wordle you can also customize the way it looks by choosing the color scheme, the layout and the font.


http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/7041257/spelling_words_wordle

Helpful websites

 Khan Academy is completely free and caters to math practice. It has videos, worksheets and has a great way to keep track of your progress.
khanacademy.org

Quizlet is great for when you need to study. You can make your own flashcards or you can use pre-made flashcards that other Quizlet users have made. It also has practice tests to evaluate your knowledge on the subject.
http://quizlet.com/

Zamzar can be used to convert basically anything for free. This includes ebooks, mp3s, videos, etc.
http://www.zamzar.com/

Infohio is a great resource for both teachers and students. All the information here is correct and appropriate to the students. It is split into categories and grades in order to meet the students needs.
http://www.infohio.org/

Windows Movie Maker

For class we had to use Windows Movie Maker to make a video that we could use in our classroom. So here is mine about Ancient Greece!

Multigenre Research Project

I am still in the process of figuring out exactly what I need to do for this project so as I go along I will fill you in with what I have done.

Topic:
Choose a topic, either based on students interests or a general unit subject. The general unit subject could be choose a 19th Century British author, or Choose a Pharaoh from Ancient Egypt, etc

We were allowed to choose what ever topic we wanted, so I chose Abbie Hoffman, a Yippie activist that used gurilla-theatre tactics to make his views known during the 1960's.


Research:
Next find 10 books and 5 websites about your subject and make an annotated bibliography.

Research Paper:
I haven't started this yet, but I know I will have to do it eventually. Just the basic research paper, probably 3-4 pages, describing what I have learned.

Multigenre
I struggle with what exactly multigenre is so this teachers blog is a great source to help you understand everything about what it is. She has made a sheet explaing what she expects from her students and she lays out a list of the different genres and ideas on how to carry the genre out.

Great site about Multigenre projects

Making a Website

How to make a website... for FREE!! I am making a website for my technology class using Google sites. Its easy, fun and free!

Heres where to find Google Sites

Step 1) go to Google and sign in
Step 2) go click on your hub ((im not sure what this is really called but its the button with 9 little boxes at the top right)
Step 3) once you have clicked on the hub, choose "more" down at the bottom of the hub window
Step 4) choose "even more from Google"
Step 5) scroll down to the "Home and Office" section
Step 6) choose "sites"
Step 7) choose "create"

There you go! If you still cant find it, Google it or email me and I will gladly help you further.

Some basic buttons to get started.

The pencil icon is the edit button
The page with the plus sign icon is to add a new page to your website
         Some ideas for other pages- Intro, About Me, Important Websites, Homework
The More icon includes page setup, page template, manage site, etc.

Ms. Hannahs classroom site

Concept Maps

Concept maps can be used for collaborating, brainstorming, and can help organize ones thoughts. I was practicing using one to organize my to do list for my wedding.

https://bubbl.us/

text 2 mind map
example of text 2 mind map

my concept map

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a way to save all your favorite websites to one place that can be accessed from any computer. Its like a normal bookmark you make on your laptop or computer but you can look at and find those bookmarks using any computer anywhere! its like Google Drive, but with bookmarks!!

Heres a link to one social bookmarking site

Reading Strategy: Book Pass

The Book Pass is a neat way to get students to look through many different kinds of texts in a short amount of time. You would use this strategy as an  introduction to a unit to build background knowledge, to choose a new reading book, or select research texts for a project.You want to choose books from many different genres, including poetry, research texts, novels, etc. You want these texts to be based on a certain theme.

What you do:
1. You can do this with either the whole class or small groups depending on the topic.
2. Once you have decided the grouping, you want to pass out the Book Pass sheet, and then explain to the students that they should write the authors name in the author box, the title of the text in the title box and either comments, questions or something they have learned through the book, in the comment box.
3. Give students 2-4 minutes to "sample" the book. Once the time is up, say "Book Pass" and have students fill in the boxes and pass the book to their partner.
4. When everyone has gone through the books, you can bring the class together and discuss some of the things they have learned as well as any comments or questions they have.

Web Quests

Web Quests are fun and interactive ways to encourage collaboration and deeper thought. Teachers must create the web quest, and students once put in groups, would work through the web quest.

Im still a little uncertain about the webquest, but here are some websites to help me and you out.

example of a Web Quest




Web Quest Building:
http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=68367

http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=51190

http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=68364

http://zunal.com/index.php



Evaluating Web Quests:
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/processchecker.html

http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html



Web Quest Resources:
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/finepoints/index.htm 

http://www.webquest.org/ 

Web Quest Template 



My Web Quest

Reading Strategy: REAP

Read
Encode
Annotate
Ponder

In my content literacy class I had to give a lesson based on a reading strategy. My observation classroom does a lot of textbook reading so I thought the REAP strategy would be great for them.

What I did:
First I had students draw the four boxes with each letter separately written at the top of the boxes. In each separate box will be filled in with specific information relating to the letter in the box.

Next I had the students read by themselves, the first section of lesson two of the chapter.

Once they were done, we filled in each box together.

R box: the title of the section

E box: encode, which I had students write summaries in this box

A box: annotate, have students write notes about important aspects of the section they just read    include key terms

P box: ponder, have students think of questions they have based on the text as well as connections to other things they have learned from other classes

The first time around we filled in the boxes together. Once the students got the gist of what we were doing, I allowed the students to pair up, read and fill in the boxes themselves. When they were done we came back together to fill in my boxes that were on the smartboard.

I got to use smartboard with this lesson and it was so much fun!!

REAP reading strategy

Halloween crafts!

At the day care I work at, we decided to do some Halloween crafts. Usually the basic craft we do is coloring, but since we didn't have any printed, I decided to make my own!!

We also decided on an easy craft where the kids can get a little dirty (which they love). We will be making spiders with our hand prints, googly eyes and hand drawn spider web.  

Items you will need:

Fun colored construction paper (we used orange and purple)

Black paint

Black marker or crayon

Googly eyes 

Glue

You first want to draw your spider web in the corner on your paper.

Next get some paint out and allow the kids to dip their hands into the paint.

Place the paint filled hands onto the paper making sure only 4 fingers and down. 

Once the paint has dried, glue the googly eyes on and draw a mouth on him if you'd like and there's your little spider!!

Podcast Update

I was just given a few great video tutorials on how to use Audacity from my professor and wanted to share them with you. This program is usually not used for Mac computers, Im not sure if the program even exists for them or not. Anyways if you don't have a mac and want to learn how to make a podcast, here are three great videos telling you the basic steps on how to make a podcast using Audacity.

Video #1

Video #2

Video #3

Reading strategy: concept ladder

This strategy can be used for pre-reading, post reading as well as during reading.  I would use this strategy for text books. It encourages students to generate their own questions so they will be more invested and interested in their reading. 

At the top of the ladder you put the main idea of what ever you are reading. So for the example I have provided, the main idea of the chapter is the Nile river. 

Then as students are skimming the chapter they will write questions they have. This can be done individually, with small groups, partners or as a whole class.  You can add as many questions as you would like for the students to generate.  

In my example the textbook described the Nile as a giver and taker of life. So I asked the question "how can it give and take way life."  

While skimming, students may find the answer to their question, but if they don't, that's ok. The unanswered questions allow for further learning, whether it be as homework, extra credit or can be discussed with the class to see if they can figure out the answer on their own. 

Update on Reading Circles

Yesterday students presented their books and they were all great! I think the students really enjoyed the project, although some did not like the presenting part of the assignment. Other than that I think students really enjoyed doing the assignment and share their knowledge of the books.

What I was impressed with the most were the amount of great questions the other students asked. I could tell they were really thinking about what the presenters were saying and were genuinely curious.