Oh Technology

I love technology but sometimes it fails. Last summer I had a hard drive crash and lost a lot of teaching materials.  I tried every possible rescue option, but it simply was lost.  Many of the materials weren't backed up elsewhere (like dropbox) and I've painfully learned my lesson.

However, there is a silver lining.

I did find paper copies of nine different teacher guides while sorting through my teacher materials.  I'm retyping them and revising to ensure that they're up to my standards.  Teacher guides that I made a few years ago need some revision, plain and simple.  As I've learned more, I've taken this knowledge and poured it back into my products.

The upcoming teacher guides are:

The Bad Beginning (#1 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
The Reptile Room (#2 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
The Wide Window (#3 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
The Miserable Mill (#4 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
The Austere Academy (#5 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
The Vile Village (#7 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
The Hostile Hospital (#8 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
The Carnivorous Carnival (#9 in the Series of Unfortunate Events)
Brian's Winter (a sequel to Hatchet)
The River (a sequel to Hatchet) 
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (#1)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (#2)
 

All guides will be available within the coming weeks on TpT!  You can follow my store and get emails from TpT as soon as I upload products.

Happy reading!

New Bulletin Board

It was that time again.  The bulletin board change time.

Normally, I don't mind.  However, bulletin board changes coincided with DRA testing and progress reports, so it was a tad stressful trying to get everything accomplished.

Since we've been doing a lot of comparing and contrasting with mentor text like Seed Folks, Tiger Rising, Sarah, Plain and Tall as well as Sign of the Beaver, I decided to carry on the trend.  

I had my small groups pick one event from their small group novels and write about how two different characters reacted to this event, drawing on evidence from the passage.  

We have to post an introduction to our bulletin boards (or as they're called in our performance zone, "Academic Wall Displays").  The introduction should include the task, the learning targets and what standards students are working on.

Naturally a final draft is WAY more exciting if it's on colorful paper!  

I had my students brainstorm and write rough drafts in their notebooks, edit with a partner, then write their final drafts.  Space on the back was provided as well.

(Following example not pictured)

One student wrote about an incident with a bear from Brian's Winter.  In this passage, Brian Robeson (from Hatchet) befriends a skunk (whom he affectionately names Betty).  I was worried I would get a shallow response about how one is a boy and one is an animal.  Instead I was pleasantly surprised when she wrote about how both characters are dealing with loneliness, homelessness and find comfort in their routines with each other.

I'm so excited they're "thinking deeply" about what they're reading!

Fun Writes!

I'm pleased to announce my newest station is available on TpT! 

In this "fun writes", I pose a series of task cards for students to write about.  These task cards are novel specific and challenge students to make connections between texts! Students can also make self to text connections, like with this question:

 Plus it's a lot of fun for students and truly challenges their thinking :)  For an added challenge, have them justify their answers with evidence from the novels!  With over thirty different fun questions , this is great for extension activities, whole group or small groups!

Snag yours here!

Hatchet has sequels?!

I read Hatchet for the first time around fifth grade.  

I loved the book, so I was excited to read this timeless classic with my own fifth graders.

(The covers have changed over time, which was interesting to discuss with my students.  You can read about it here!)

When I was first starting out, I used donorschoose to write a grant for copies of Hatchet.  In doing so, I realized something:

Hatchet has sequels. 

Not just one, but several sequels.  How did I not discover this until I was an adult??

So naturally I requested six of each and through the amazing generosity of friends and strangers, this grant was funded and I received the novels.  (I have another project expiring soon...)

The Sequels:

Brian's Winter: 

In this novel, Paulsen responds to reader's notes about the ending of Hatchet by posing an alternative ending.  Essentially, millions of readers watched Brian struggle for months and were a tad disappointed where he seemingly effortlessly flips a switch and is rescued within a few hours.  This novel looks at Brian's struggles through fall and winter.

The River:

Like Hatchet, I'm lucky enough to have several covers in my classroom which allows for great conversation about the illustrator's intent.  In this novel, Brian is asked to go back into the woods with a psychologist (Derek) so that the government can learn his survival techniques.  Naturally, things don't go according to plan and Brian must deal with the consequences of nature.

Brian's Return:

Brian returns (duh) to the Canadian wilderness he's grown to call home.  He works with his therapist, Caleb, and struggles to find where he truly belongs.

Brian's Hunt:

This is the final adventure with Brian.  Brian meets a wounded dog, worries for his Cree friends...and lots of tears are involved.  Consider yourself warned.

Just for fun, Guts

I've never done this novel with a small group but it's awesome to get an informational text from Paulsen.  I learned a lot about his life and how it truly is reflected in his books.  

I have teacher guides for all of the novels and am in the process of revising them to improve the rigor of the questions.  They'll be available individually and as a bundle pack on TpT soon!  

Happy reading :)

character charts

As we're finishing up our novels, we're posting our character and setting charts on the wall:

 I think I'm running out of space! I think I'll take them down, put them on a book ring:

And create a flipchart.

Plus, that'd free up valuable wall space!  Based on one of my fabulous neighbor's suggestions, I'm going to make a "shout out" board where I can post good examples of their "must do's" and work.

I had a major problem last week with a very small percentage of my classes not doing the must do correctly and on time.

Part of it was my fault for not explicitly modeling, but part of it was due to their desires to rush to do centers. 

So, as always in teaching, I'll make adjustments for next time.

I think having the positive motivator of being on the display board will definitely help! Stay tuned :)

Small groups in action!

Perhaps it's a point of pride, but everything I have on my TpT site was first and foremost made for my students and use in my classroom.

Last week I posted about a new Hatchet center and today my small groups enjoyed our station:

Granted, I had to clarify that the letters on the end aligned to the answer key and not to the order itself.  I told them it wouldn't be a challenge if the events were already in alphabetical order!

Silly fifth graders :)

Snag yours here! 

Theme Work

This week we reviewed theme in small groups.  I gave my students a paragraph stem (read previous post here) and they independently wrote their responses on post-its.

From there, they combined their responses to make a group response (above).

These became my new bulletin board:

A nifty fourth grade teacher helped me come up with the witty name:

I also added a picture of our anchor chart and put cut outs of our novels to provide others with the necessary back ground knowledge (you know, of what books we read!)

I think they did a great job at picking out themes from their various novels.  Our next challenge will be finding the quotes that support their answers and adding more details!

#72 Hatchet sort

Since my team (the Arizona Cardinals) is on a bye week, I had extra time to work on centers today.  I'm pleased to announce that #72, a chronological order sort for Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. In this center, students will put 22 events in chronological order.

This center can be done independently or as a small group after students complete the novel.  Since the sort does contain spoilers, students should finish the novel first so the ending isn't given away :)

Happy reading!

Coming soon...Hatchet novel unit and center!

My goal for the end of next week is to have my teacher guide for Gary Paulson's Hatchet and coordinating chronological events center available on TpT.

I just finished reading this novel with 2 groups and they're working on the center, so after I make some tweaks based on their feedback, they'll be available to download.

I also have teacher guides for the sequels: Brian's Winter, Brian's Hunt, Brian's Return and The River. I'll be tweaking this to add more rigorous questions, aligning to the Common Core and posting them to TpT soon...I just need to find my external hard drive :)

Happy reading!

Small groups in action!

I love small group reading :)

I feel like I'm a literacy specialist since so much of my day is spent with literacy:

9-9:40: phonics, whole group reading
9:40-10:40: small group reading
10:40-11:25: writing
11:25-11:55: science
12:30-1:05: intervention/extension block (fluency, comprehension and vocabulary)
1:05-2:05: small group reading 

Here are some snapshots of our centers:

Blogging:

My students are using kidblog to respond to one another online:

Snapshot of our afternoon blog:

They're doing such a great job!

Reader's theater:

They're doing a Greek mythology passage this week :)  I love that they picked one that aligns to our grade level read aloud, The Lightning Thief. We're also going on a field trip next week to see a performance of Jason and the Argonauts

Our new centers, based on the novels they just finished:

All are available on TpT!

We're also doing our weekly affixes:

On Tuesdays I challenge them to find non-examples of this week's affixes.  Today, it was words that appeared to start with un- or re- and end with -s or -es that were non-examples of these affixes.  They did a good job at coming up with ideas.

Since both of my groups (AM and PM) finished Hatchet, I had them compare their anchor charts:

They did a good job with picking out the same big ideas from the novel and analyzing how Brian developed over time.

Since I don't have enough books for both groups, one is reading The River while the other is reading Brian's Winter with the idea they'll switch when they're done.

We also looked at how the cover illustrations had changed over time:

They were highly amused by the early 90's version :)

My students are so excited about our books and that's just awesome.

new stations

New stations are posted on TpT!

The first one is a survival sort. 

I created this one to go along with multiple novels that have survival as a theme.  I created this to go along with Lois Lowry's The Giver and Number the Stars; Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay novels as well as Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, Brian's Winter, Brian's Return, The River and Brian's Return. Students work together to sort descriptions into various categories: emotions, shelter, dangers, etc.  My students love playing this center and as an extension, coming up with new cards to add to our sort.  I love when they are invested in our activities.

The second one is responses to literature for Lois Lowry's Gossamer.

In this station, students draw from over 20 different response to literature cards based on the novel.  Students will respond to the literature, then discuss their answers with their partner or small group.

This supports the CCSS RL 5.1 (quoting accurately) and W 5.9a (response to literature) standards.

Centers one and two are available NOW!

I'm currently working on the next two, which should be available by Sunday.

The third station is based on the Harry Potter novels.  

Students will have to sort descriptions into the characters that are being described.  The center includes descriptions for all the novels and has an "I don't know this yet" section so students can use this sort for any of the seven novels.

This epic sort comes in at thirty five pages and is quite the steal!

The fourth station is also based on Harry Potter, but has students sort descriptions for the houses of Hogwarts.  

Enjoy!

All of these stations are available on my TpT store.  Again, the first two are up now and the second two will be available by Sunday night :)

 If you purchase the products, thank you!  Please consider rating them as well :)

Surprise project!

My students are nearing the completion of their first novels in small groups and I love how much they're loving the books.   Between my 12 small groups, they're reading Hatchet, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Bad Beginning, The Giver, Number the Stars, Gossamer, and Hunger Games.  

One of my students decided to make a foldable today for her novel Number the Stars:

Inside, she worked on describing the main characters:

I love that she took the initiative to make her own foldable and wanted to share it with me :)

Week 7

This week in whole group reading, we were working on main idea, supporting details, alternative perspectives and inferencing.

We used the passage "we were here, too" (grab it for free here) and the kids did a great job.

First, we made a list of people we associate with the American Revolution:

 I was really proud of my students for acknowledging that slaves were important.

They read the passage with their table teams:

They also were working on their metacognition and recording their thoughts and predictions on paper:

They did a really great job with this activity :)

They were also shocked to learn that George Washington had slaves, but we talked about the historical context and how he treated his slaves.  I think I blew their minds with that fact though!

They are also working on fluency passages in small groups as a station/center:

One person watches the timer (the passage is to be read for one minute).

One person reads.

The other listens and provides meaningful feedback in the form of buddy coaching.

They have made some great growth on their words per minute (WPM) for their Aimsweb RCBM probes!

Also in stations, they were working on sorting different scenarios into survival elements:

(The groups that did this are reading Hatchet and Hunger Games, so survival is one of the themes of their novels)

Students then analyzed my sort and added suggestions on how to improve it or add cards to sort.

I like that they help me improve my centers and then have more input, thus more investment :)

(As a side note, you can see one of my polka dot rugs and my polka dot center bucket in these images...I love polka dotted things!)

It's Friday

We will celebrate the little things in life.

Here are our updated anchor charts for roots and affixes.

Here is our topographic map.

We talked about elevation and contour lines today in science.  We also made our key and shaded in our contour lines.

We also had some great discussions about the different covers of Hatchet:

My students really dug deep into what the illustrator's intentions were and how the covers set different tones.