Student Work Samples

This week we've been doing writing extensions in small groups.

Reader's theater scripts:

I'll have them pick a part of their novel and create a script:

One girl even color coded the parts! How cute :)

It's important to me that my students make written connections with their work and these extensions are a great way to challenge students.  I love how excited they get about reading!

Writing Choices

This week our must do in small group reading is a writing extension.  

Their choices:

1) Silently read & write questions for others (Battle of the Books)

2) Rewrite your favorite part of the novel from another character's perspective.

3) Create a reader's theater script of your favorite part.

Here's one student example for her favorite part in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

One of my students took the idea of reader's theater and ran with it:

She made it her own by combining characters from two novels!  

She used Rob and Sistene from The Tiger Rising and Percy and Annabeth from The Lightning Thief.

I love watching them interact with their material in new and exciting ways.  It's wonderful when they make connections with and between texts!

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.

Notebooking examples

Today my fabulous grade level and I talked a little bit about notebooks and our expectations for our students.  So I pulled out last year's notebooks to see of the work we did last year and which activities I'd like to do again to challenge students.

Reading

For this one, we were working on text structure and how it impacts a story (RL 5.5)

So I had students glue in 1/2 sized sheets of a reader's theater script (I believe from a scholastic workbook).  We looked at the structural elements and dissected the script.  My students did a really great job at realizing there is more to reader's theater and drama than just simply the dialogue.

Next, here's an example of some of our Greek and Latin word work.

We do a few Greek and Latin roots a week, go over the word's meaning, examples and non examples, then decompose multisyllabic words to determine the word's meaning.

We also look at Common Core Exemplars, as with the poem New Colossus

Here we practiced a close read and were trying to determine meaning.  This poem did pose a bit of a challenge for my students because they were unfamiliar with harbors and the layout of New York City, but they did a good job with scaffolded instruction.  

I like to type up the poems for them and have them glue/tape the pages in their notebook.  While this uses more paper, it allows me to spend more time facilitating discussions and they don't have to mindlessly copy the whole poem.  Instead, they can talk about the poem instead of just writing it.

Here we are just starting a unit with a K/W/L chart.

(K: what I think I know about the topic, W: what I want to learn and L: what I learned (for after the unit) )

We also do a LOT of circle maps in fifth grade to help us organize our thinking.

Lastly for reading,

We do a lot of highlighting and recording our thinking both on the passage and in thinking maps below.  I stress metacognition and that good readers are thinking critically while reading.

Math

In math, we glue in our thinking sheets...a lot.

I also provide them with guided notes:

It helps keep everything organized and requires them to show their thinking multiple ways or with different strategies.  This helps them work on their number sense and aligns with the 8 math practices.

Science

For science, much of our material is provided with FOSS kits.  However, I like to go beyond the provided information and do an extension unit on land forms such as volcanoes.

We watch video clips from Discovery Education and do a lot of exploring.  I also provide copies of notes for students, but they must fill in the missing information.

This really helps with my ELL students and students with IEPs.  They can focus on the content and key words without getting lost with copying all the information.  Plus, it leaves more time for discussions and they're still held accountable for paying attention.

Happy notebooking!
Ms. Vice