A Little of This and a Little of That

Busy, busy, busy just about sums up my winter so far.  A snow day here, another snow day there, too.  I took a bunch of pictures before I left my classroom today because upon looking up from my table I thought to myself, "There's a lot going on here!"  As a result, this post was born.

I'm really liking my new part of my dry erase board where I "post" my objectives.  Before, I had them typed out and would switch them out of clear pocket charts--a real pain.  They had to be refiled which means they were kept in a pile.  To fix this, I hung some letters with ribbon and clothespins.  I added a border and magnetic signs for each subject and viola.  I can erase and change my "We Can!" statements in just a few seconds.  Waaaaay easier.

We are well into our Lucy Calkins unit on Opinion Writing--I'm a big fan of her ideas, her language and her overall philosophy on how to teach writing.  The only problem I have, though, is that I have no more room to hang her anchor charts!  Completely out of room this afternoon, I had no choice but to hang a chart on my bookshelf--it's actually the perfect fit.  Don't you think?

  

On my writing bulletin board we are still enjoying our New Year's project of mine--"Ringing in the New Year."  Our resolutions are not only radiant.  They look pretty nice on display.  Check out this item by clicking HERE.

In science, we are studying matter.  In particular, we are learning about changing states.  We have two ongoing experiments with evaporation happening in our classroom.  Both are so easy and oh so interesting.  Today is day 73 of our evaporating orange water experiment.  All we did was fill an old snack jar with water and food coloring and made predictions on how many days it would take for the water to completely evaporate.  We have been marking its evaporation every so often.  Here's what we have so far.  Boy, this is taking much longer than I had expected.  You can see by my guess of 80 days.

We also started an evaporation race.  I put an equal amount of water in four different containers with four different sized openings.  I measured the water right in front of my young scientists.  We made predictions as to which container would cause the water to evaporate the quickest.  We are watching carefully for the winner.

Moments ago, I uploaded my newest item--  A Bloom's Taxonomy Jar.  I put color coded prompts for each of Bloom's level on large craft sticks in a spray-painted, recycled can (I added some fun accents).  I haven't used these yet, but I plan to send my students off with a prompt to write about after a guided reading lesson.  We will see how this works.  You may get this item by visiting my TpT store or by clicking HERE.  It also comes with a ladder visual to use in explicit instruction regarding the levels of questioning.

Well that's all my pictures.  I hope you have been able to be inspired!  

Mr. Giso's Room to Read's Bright Idea #10

Make a Story Necklace

You may have seen this idea before.  I've created a new graphic organizer to get the most out of my students this year, as shared on Classroom Freebies, Manic Monday.  I had such great results, I wanted to share.  Like usual, I selected three books for my guided reading book groups.  Each one is fiction with a predictable narrative structure.  Check them out in this photograph.

Next, I had a group of students read "A Job for Clown" with me, another group read "Spider's Web" with my fabulous student teacher and a third group read "The Chick and the Duckling" by themselves.  I was thrilled to have an extra adult for support.  Her job was to check in with the group reading independently.

After reading was completed, we each did a minilesson on what it means to retell the important parts of the story.  We made sure to stress that you need to pick the three most important events.  A trick I like to say is pick how it began and how it ended.  THEN, pick one thing you found interesting in the middle.  This works great with my first graders.

For the next step, each child got 4 index cards.  They completed the following.
•Card 1:  Write your name, title, author, illustrator
•Card 2:  Number it "1" and draw how the book began
•Card 3:  Number it "2" and draw an event from the middle
•Card 4:  Number it "3" and draw how the book ended

Check this out!  "A Job for Clown"

Here's another example.  "Spider's Web"  How fun!  Can't you tell Spider's despair by the look in Spider's eyes in illustration #2?

Next, students used the illustrations to help them record on a graphic organizer what happened in the beginning, middle and end.  This was the new part for me.  They wrote the retelling rather than simply using the pictures to do an oral retell.  After these were checked over, the students recorded this information on the back of the matching index card (using the lines).  See. . .

Lastly, we punched holes in the cards and tied them using a ribbon.    When this was complete, I paired students up with a buddy that read a different book.  Each student read the book over to his or her buddy using a reading wand (for fluency, of course!).  Then, students used their necklaces to retell what was read for each other.  My first graders liked this part the best.  They love sharing good books with friends.  Here's my Bucket O' Reading Wands.

This project ended up taking me two days.  Click here to printout the directions and the graphic organizer.  Enjoy this month's freebie.   I'd love to hear how this works out in your classroom.  

Introducing My Newest Item: 20 Reader Response Activities

Here's a bundle of 20 of my favorite Reader Response Activities.  I've created these over the years and have decided to give them a makeover with some fancy fonts and borders.  I enjoyed going through my binders upon binders from my former years in fourth grade to create these for my upper elementary educator fans.  I've put them together in a bundle which can be found by clicking HERE.

The activities are geared for grades 2 through 5.  They cover all the essential reading skills such as these:
•cause/effect
•asking questions
•making predictions
•vocabulary
•problem/solution
•point of view
•characterization
•sensory images
•analyzing story setting
•making connections
•visualization
•and...much more!

Here's a preview of a few of the activities for you.

Here's a telephone poem.  Using your phone number, a poem is created.  If the first number in your phone number is an 8, they the first line of your poem (based upon your reading) needs to have 8 words.  I think you get the idea!

This is a character map.  Students turn the stick figure into their character and record their thoughts as to what the character thinks, feels, does, etc.  It's a real comprehension booster and reaches the visual learners.

This setting map reminds students that the setting of the story is not only where, but WHEN the story takes place.  It also makes them think about if they'd enjoy a visit to the setting in the story.

This activity asks students to record their thinking in response to selected passages in the text. They record the text on the book icons and their thoughts in the speech balloon icons.

I hope you find this bundle useful.  Hope you all have a great week!