Book Reviews

Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to participate in several book studies with the focus on improving my craft as an educator.  Here is a synopsis of those books:


Questions, Claims, and Evidence

This book really helped me shift perspectives for science instruction.  Essentially, this guided me through setting up my students for success and shifting away from teacher driven science experiments.  Instead, this is replaced with student created extension inquiry projects and helping them write about science.

Building Academic Vocabulary (Marzano)

Even after reading this, I struggle with vocabulary instruction.  It's the highest of the big five components of literacy (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and comprehension being the other four).  It's crucial, especially for my ELL (English Language Learners).  I feel successful with teaching academic vocabulary when it's content specific (i.e. math, science, and social studies) but struggle when it comes to what words to teach whole group. I'm wary of just choosing a list and going from that.  I tend to teach words that are associated with the novels I'm using and more specific lists with my RTI group.  I want to empower my students to monitor their own vocabulary acquisition and give them the space to share these words with their peers. 

I haven't quite decided how this will look in my classroom, so stay tuned!


Waiting for Superman

I led this book study at my previous school...and it didn't go very well.  Part of it was because I was leading it, not an administrator.  Part of it was because I was still quite idealistic about how teaching should work because I had just finished my first year in the classroom and thought I knew everything.  This book, while an interesting read, doesn't give enough credit to the teachers who are working really hard to change the system.

Read, Write, Lead

I was really excited to read this book as part of a book study.  My group was assigned chapter five, which is all about principal leadership.  While I have no issues with my administrators popping in my classroom on a frequent basis, this was a cause of major concern for some of my colleagues.  The chapter also talked about celebrating teachers and students, which I don't think is done enough.  This was my big take away from this book is that while programs and standards may (and do) change, good teaching is consistent.  Good teachers are reflective, collaborative, innovative, and push one another to do better.  

Number Talks

This gem isn't really a book review but rather an opportunity to share that this is a wonderful book that should be used wherever possible!  While the first few weeks of number talks are rocky, especially if students aren't familiar with the format, the pay off, if done consistently, is amazing.  For the past few years, my students have left my classroom with a strong understanding of number sense and problem solving strategies.  This book is a large part of the reason why.  It's worth the money if your school district doesn't provide this resource. 

Up next?  I'll be diving into Love and Logic for some new strategies to use with my whole class.  I also borrowed The Tough Kid Tool Kit to gain some new tips and tricks for dealing with difficult students.  I had a particularly troubled one last year that gave my whole school lots of headaches, but I'm glad next year that kiddo will get the services that are needed.  

What books would you recommend?  Which ones were educational game changers?

Division Day 1

As I previously blogged about, we've had some disagreements about math.  

Today was day 1 of division in my classroom and it went really well.  They really liked using manipulatives and working together.  We went over the vocabulary for the unit (dividend, divisor, quotient, remainder).  They worked on problems and generated their own strategies.  

It was nice to see them struggle and problem solve.  I did have to talk to a few students who immediately saw the connection between multiples and division. I pulled them into the hallway and shared that they need to observe, letting others make their own discoveries to take ownership.

I was pleased to hear how well the lesson went in other classrooms as well!

I think my students' favorite part was when I told them they could write on their desks with the expo marker.  

Today's (Work) Challenge

My school follows WIPR and is part of the Reading Rangers program.  This is my first year teaching with it, so I don't have enough evidence to make a sound judgment either way.

I do know that my kids have awesome reading stamina from years of following this program. I know they want to read. That in itself makes me very happy.

Today I had to do some classroom revisions.  Since I don't have any more bulletin boards, I shrunk the size of my "vibrant vocabulary" board.  Instead of an outdated word wall, this is where students take ownership over the interesting words, phrases, and vocabulary that they're encountering in their reading.

I dedicated the other portion of the board to Reading Rangers.  

(On a side note, I'm highly irritated that I'm short blue border! Off to Target I must go!)

I gave them paper plates to decorate as their badges.  Every time they pass a quiz (with 90 or 100%), they get a neon star to add to their plates.

I'm also in the process of making a count down to graduation board, which will be up soon!

Classroom 2!

Keys in hand, I'm now a happy resident of room 71.  Perhaps it's silly, but I'm really excited my room not only has a blue stripe at the top (yay color) but also contains windows.  Sometimes it's the little things in life!

My classroom is in no way complete, but here are some snap shots of the work in progress:

Classroom library

I got book bins from a fellow teacher last year and love them!

I'm organizing books into categories, then labeling with twine and paper cards to make it easier for my students:

 However, I still have a long way to go!

I also set up my desk area:

I'm having one of my bulletin board areas be our calendar:

(Stain courtesy of a munchkin's science experiment from last year. I'll be covering it with polka dot border tomorrow.)

One of my goals for this year is to do a better job with vocabulary instruction.  I don't have a traditional (outdated?) word wall, so I'm going to make this vibrant words wall.  Students will put up words on note cards with the definition and examples on the backside.  

I'm going to add "our" in the same pattern as "words" (once I find it) to show my students that it's both interactive and theirs.  Naturally I'll model the first few times to allow for practice time and to clarify my expectations.

It's difficult to see, but the vibrant letters are glittery because why not add that pop of joy?

More pictures to come!  Open house is Friday...I can do this!

Math training, days 2 & 3

After tackling my homework for math training, grocery shopping, and spending several hours leveling my library (such a daunting task), I didn't have the energy left to process what I'd learned.  

However, today I was home much earlier so I could reflect on yesterday and today's math trainings.

Days 2 & 3:

We talked about multiplication.  We talked about it...a lot.  Perhaps it's because I teach fifth grade and have taught inclusion, but none of the strategies mentioned were new information.  I grasped the concept right away and helped my neighbor make the same mathematical discoveries.

However, I did learn a few new things over the past few days.  Here are my "ah ha" moments:

The minuend is the first number in a subtraction problem and represents the amount you start with.  The subtrahend is the amount that is being removed or subtracted.  

This discovery raised an interesting question within our group.  Why is it that other math vocabulary terms (addend, sum, factor, product, quotient, etc) are well-known but minuend and subtrahend aren't?  Why can teachers (and hopefully their students) use the correct vocabulary for the other operations, but stumble on subtraction terms?  I know I'll be incorporating these terms into my math instruction!

"Give One, get one, move on" strategy

The page is divided into four sections.  Students solve the problem in the first quadrant, which is labeled "give".  After time to process the problem, students then will stand up and find three other people to "get" strategies from.  The students will work in pairs to explain their strategies to one another.  Not only does this allow for movement, but students can explain their thoughts to one another.  During this time, the teacher is monitoring as an informal assessment to see what students are grasping the content and which ones still need a little more practice time.

The next classroom tweak deals with these manipulatives:

Found in almost every elementary classroom, I always called these "ones", "tens", "hundreds" and so on.  Most teachers do.

However, in doing so, you're limiting students' understanding of the relationship (powers of ten) between the manipulatives.  

These will henceforth be referred at as units (smallest), rods (long ones), flats, and cubes.

By doing so, a teacher is able to stress the relationship between a value being ten times larger or smaller than the value next to it on a place value chart.  

Referring to these as units, rods, flats, and cubes also allows for the manipulation in upper elementary.  If my "one" is now the cube, I can use these manipulatives to represent a tenth (flat), a hundredth (rod), and thousandth (unit).  I can also regard the unit as a thousand, then have students prove the other values. (Rod would be 10,000, flat 100,000, cube 1,000,000).  

Finally, we played close to 100 (from Investigations).  While this game was not new to me, I did appreciate the discussion about its importance in the classroom.  In playing this math game (and others), students are provided the opportunity to practice many math skills such as estimation, reasoning, critiquing the reasoning of others, operations, and place value.  These games take minutes to learn, can be a good task for students if they finish early with an activity, and can be used as homework.  I know my students would much rather go home and play a math game as their homework then fill out a worksheet.  

Close to 100 also reminded me of another quick math activity:

What an easy way to get their brains working during the first few moments of the day!

Stay tuned for a recap of days 4 and 5!

Math Taboo

One of my favorite math centers is math taboo.  It's a great way to practice vocabulary, incorporate movement, and get the students talking about math.

My fifth graders loved this fun challenge and it's nice to know that others enjoy it as well.  Since my dream team from last year is all going our separate ways, I made versions for their new grade levels for their upcoming students.

 I made fourth and third grade sorts as well, which you can snag here!

Character Analysis Cards

Many of my students struggle with character analysis.  They can describe the physical traits of the characters, but often have difficulty providing thoughtful answers.  I can usually get surface level descriptions: he's a boy with brown hair who is kind.  But for fifth graders, that's not enough. 

So to assist them, I made character analysis cards:

I also included synonyms underneath to help my students both understand the character trait and expand their vocabulary.  In all, 88 different character traits are included in the bundle pack, available here.

I've used these cards with both whole group read alouds and with my small group novels.  They're very user-friendly and encourage students to use more descriptive, age-appropriate vocabulary words.

Before using the cards with any particular novel, I had my students sort the character traits into "good" and "bad".  We created an anchor chart from the list, which helps students with their assignments when the cards aren't readily available.

Snag your set today!  

Tech Tip: Silence is Golden

We finished our FOSS kit last week and due to testing, I had two days after the assessment with my final science group.

(We departmentalized the science kits, so I taught the FOSS landforms kit to each of the four 5th grade classes.)

We tried a new strategy with our video streaming.  We watched "Thar She Blows", a short video clip from Discovery Ed on the eruption of Mt. Saint Helen's.  

The first time we watched, I had the students just watch for content.  The second time, they wrote down the crucial vocabulary words they heard.  After the second viewing, we made a list on the board:

The third time we watched, I turned off the sound.  Yes, we watched the video without sound.  The purpose was to allow the students to "be the expert" and narrate the video, using the vocabulary words.  They did a pretty good job with being the volcano expert.

I'll definitely be using this silence is golden trick again!

Vocabulary Day Parade

For reading week, we always read Debra Fraiser's picture book Miss Alaineus. 

In it, a young girl mishears a vocabulary word and instead of asking for the correct word, fibs on her homework.  Her dishonesty is brought to light in a humorous way and the book talks of having a vocabulary parade.

So, at our school, the last day of Reading Week is vocabulary word parade day.  After reading the novel, I make a circle map on the board of possible words:

My students have a week to figure out their costumes.  Last year, I was survival and wore a shirt with book characters' names who had to survive.  I believe there was Katniss (Hunger Games), Klaus, Sunny, Violet (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Brian (Hatchet), Ellen, Annemarie (Number the Stars), Harry, Ron, Hermione (Harry Potter series) and many more.

This year, we did a theme for our grade level.  We went as runners, complete with bibs and medals.  My word was perseverance while my fellow teachers were endurance and tenacity.  We talked to the fifth graders about how these words were ones we really wanted them to embody.  

They had such a great time making the costumes, sharing their words, then doing a parade around the playground at the end of the day on Friday.

It was a nice end to one of my favorite weeks of the year, reading week!

New Product: Teacher Guide for The Slippery Slope

Several of my groups are working on The Series of Unfortunate Events, so I decided to revise some of my teacher guides to post on TpT.  When I revise, not only do I increase the difficulty of questions but also clarify ones that my students struggled with during our small group literature circles.

All of my products are "field tested" with my own fifth graders and they love our small groups.

This teacher guide comes in at 13 pages with vocabulary suggestions, comprehension questions, homework ideas and more!  Snag yours here!

More guides to follow, happy reading!

Important Conversations

I had a very important conversation with one of my small groups this week.

It's one of my higher groups (DRA 60) and they're in the middle of Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games.  They're mature enough for it and they picked it because it sounded interesting.

At our first discussion, they set up their notebooks to keep track of characters, settings, vocabulary words, etc.  They were excited.

But slowly over the course of our next few meetings, their enthusiasm for the book changed.  They could answer the comprehension questions, analyze characters and were fully participating...but they weren't enjoying it.

So we had the conversation about how we were truly feeling about the book.  I gave them each a post-it to respond on and sent them away from one another.  I stressed the importance of honestly giving feedback about the book.

When I collected back the post its, three of them didn't want to read it anymore because they simply weren't enjoying it.  One still wanted to finish the novel.

So I pulled them back together and we had the important conversation: it's okay not to love every book you read.  It's also okay not to finish every book you start.

They looked at me completely bewildered.  I went on to explain that sometimes there will be books that you have to read the whole text, even if you don't like it. I went on to explain that our small groups were different.  I wanted them to enjoy reading and to interact with literature.  I wanted them to fall so in love with these characters that when we were done, they would miss them like old friends.  I wanted them to become entranced with the author's word choice, to be so absorbed in their books that they simply don't hear the timer when it goes off and it's time to clean up. I want them to love reading and want to discuss literature.

For that to happen, they have to be making connections with the book they're reading.

As an adult, if I'm not feeling strongly with a book and I'm over half way through, I'll stop because I'm just not that into it.  I wanted my students to know that it's okay to do the same.

I told them they gave it an honest effort (13 chapters).  I told the one who wanted to finish that he would keep it until he was done and let him know what students would love to discuss the ending with him.

We are meeting again on Monday for our final conversation about the differences in the tributes' attitudes toward the Games and what it means before we switch to our new novel:

As a grade level, we ran out of time with reading The Lightning Thief.  So I'm going to start my group toward the end of the novel.  That will be a tad strange for me, jumping right into the end of the book but I think they'll be okay.

From there, we'll continue on through the rest of Rick Riordian's mythological series.  

I haven't done the Percy Jackson with a small group yet and I'm excited for this new opportunity! I know they loved reading it out loud, so I'm hoping we have the same great conversations in our small groups :)

After our conversation, the look on their faces was priceless: relief.  I told them I wish they would have addressed their concerns earlier because I don't want them to struggle to like a book they simply don't.  That's not my goal for small groups.

I want them to love reading. I want to mold them into life long readers.

Novel Guide: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Yet another product has been revised and posted on TpT!  Like my other novel guides, this product has suggested spelling and vocabulary words, pre and post reading activities, homework questions for each chapter and comprehension questions with suggested answers for each chapter.

I've truly done all the prep work for you! (Since I love reading and the Harry Potter series, it wasn't really work.)

Snag yours here!

Novel Guides

Teacher guides for J.K. Rowling's The Goblet of Fire and The Half-Blood Prince are now available on TpT!  

Each guide contains suggested spelling or vocabulary words, pre-reading predictions, comprehension questions with suggested answers for each chapter, homework questions and post-reading extension activities!



Both guides are quite lengthy (28 and 33 pages respectively) and are quite the bargain! I've done the prep for you :)

Snag yours here!

Happy reading :)

New chronological order sort!

A chronological order sorts for Lois Ruby's Steal Away Home is now available on TpT!  

The sort is 18 pages long with an included answer key. 

My students love these sorts and hopefully yours will too!

Acquiring vocabulary

In small groups, one of the skills we work on each day is vocabulary words and "interesting words."  With one of my groups, a student mentioned wanting to add acquire to our list.  We defined the word, found it in context and reviewed the meaning of previously added words.

One of my students turned to me and said "Ms. Vice, I think you've acquired a lot of scarves.  You have a new one each day. I also noticed that most of them are polka dotted."

Yup.  

At least they're owning the vocabulary!

Post Card Fun!

In my former blog Project Postcard, I asked for post cards from around the world so my students could study geography.  I'm pretty well set for the United States, but if you're abroad and in a cool place, send me one!  (Also, if you're near Mount Rushmore, I would like one for that monument so I can discuss human-enviornment interaction, which is one of the five themes of geography).

Today we had ten minutes left after our vocabulary review and since it was Friday, I couldn't set up the next activity because air would dry out our clay/sand models that we'll use for stream tables next week.  

So we went on a photo safari instead.

I passed out groups of post cards to each table team and had them talk about the landforms they saw.

They did a great job with coming up with questions without even being asked, which of course is wonderful!

Yes, they got a little too loud but it was nice to walk around and hear them getting so excited about mountains.

Here are some snap shots of my young scientists:

Zacatecas, Mexico

Northern Lights, San Fransisco and Alscase, France

St. Louis and the Atlantic Ocean

Yellowstone, Michigan and Big Bear Lake (CA)

Yellowstone

Meteor Crater (AZ) 

Great Wall of China and Hawaii

Atlantic Ocean and Alcase, France

A beautiful mountain (I couldn't see the back of the post card, they weren't very eager to share with me)

Thank you for all the post card donations!  

I love when my students get so excited about science and geography.  We made some great connections with the 5 themes of geography.  You can download my TpT freebie about geography here!  If you like it, please rate it and give feedback :)  If it didn't quite meet your expectations for a free product, I'd like to hear that constructive feedback as well!

FCRR

One of my absolute favorite websites for free literacy centers is FCRR.org.  Funded by the Florida Center for Reading Research, the student activities are not only broken up into grade level bands (K-1, 2-3 and 4-5), but broken into the big 5 (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension and vocabulary).  Furthermore, because it wasn't awesome enough, the centers are fairly straight forward, almost everything you need is included and they're organized in a logical, straightforward manner.  (What isn't included is die, pieces, etc but those are easy to find).

Plus, they're aligned to the Common Core State Standards!

These are great for reteaching standards, literacy stations and interventions.

In a perfect world, I had my centers printed on different colors of card stock to distinguish fluency from comprehension and so forth.  It started out this way...but then I ran out of card stock.

Since that organizational strategy didn't work, I stuck to printing my lower level stations (2-3) on bright yellow card stock so I'd be able to quickly differentiate without students knowing.

They're accustomed to groups getting different colored stations (so I can easily pick up the forgotten pieces & put them where they go), but they don't always realize the colors signal the different ability levels.

Happy reading!

I respond to feedback :)

I appreciate helpful suggestions on TpT. Well, in all academic categories really :)

I stress to my students so much the importance of giving concise, meaningful feedback to their partners with the goal of improving. It'd be pretty hypocritical if I didn't live by that same philosophy.

One kind person purchased my Percy Jackson teacher guide for the Last Olympian.  They said it was helpful (yay) but would have liked a list of definitions to accompany the vocabulary words.  Valid suggestion, I'd probably want that too.

So, I made one and posted it as a free product on my site.  If you like it, consider purchasing the product!

Ninja words

I like dictionary.com, don't get me wrong...

but I much prefer ninja words.

Yes, you heard me, ninjawords.com

Here are screenshots as to why:

Try one: dictionary.com, "lightning" being the word of choice

Lots of junk, lots of ads...


Now, let's try the same word at ninjawords:

There's no junk for my students to get distracted by PLUS ninjawords is so much faster when loading.  (As it should be, ninjas are mighty quick!)  Additionally, you can review your past history which is helpful for students.

There's your tech tip of the week!

Interesting Words

For our read aloud of The Lightning Thief, we've been keeping track of characters, settings and interesting words:

We also keep track of these elements in our small group novels and my students are doing such a great job with our books :)

Of course, I'm still providing vocabulary instruction but it's empowering for the students to pick what words they want to add to our anchor chart.  They feel more ownership over the book and that's a wonderful thing!