31 Days of Posting!

Well well, looks like I found my blog again. :) (Kind of true I had to google my own name to find it--lol!) I joined a FB group called write31days. For the month of October everyone writes for 31 days on their blog. I am not officially joining, because I'm not in a commitment place right now (I have enough on my plate), but it did push me into remembering my blog. I have so many things I want to share and things I want to say, but I never do it because I feel like I don't have enough time to gather my thoughts, and get pretty enough pictures, and edit them, etc, etc...

Some days there might be a list, some days there might be a picture, some days I might type too much, but I am going to try really really hard to commit to 31 days. I don't really have a theme except for "Made Me Happy."

I guess I have been living under a rock, because I just found out about Periscope like last week. OMGGGEEEEEE. I am so in love with it. There is a teacher on there, thewhimiscialteacher, who I am pretty sure we would be fantastic friends. I honestly kind of view her as a celebrity lol. She is funny and so easy to relate to. I look forward to her Periscopes!

I did one. It was tough. My face looked so huge. I got flustered. I didn't know what to say. Reading the comments on the screen while thinking and talking was a bit too much. I will try again later :)

I did get a really amazing idea from these two teachers' Periscope at the Ron Clark Academy, the King's. (http://www.elementaryshenanigans.com/)They did this super fantastic over the top lesson with life science and Jurassic Park. I was blown away and my wheels got spinning-- how can I do this, when can I fit something like this is! I teach Life Science in the spring like March, but I wanted to try with space/starts/planets the same concept.

I am going to do a whole themed day about space. I don't think I am going to connect it to a specific movie, but use different movie clips. Youtube a video that looks like a rocket ship take off from first person POV, decorate desks like a spaceship, have students run out of fuel, do a task to find out the size, color, heat of stars, use articles to read about the planets... So much on my mind! I have a friend at work I am bouncing ideas with. I really hope it turns out to be even better than I am imaging (and can get pulled off without spending a fortune!)

Think Happy, Be Happy!
Ventura

Zaption! Tech Tuesday Linky

Thanks for the kinky! I love love love technology and all its wonderful useds in the classroom. It makes learning more fun and engaging. It makes teaching more effective in terms of feedback and expanding resources. 

The techie thing I am going to share is a website called Zaption. I JUST learned about it this past weekend but am amazed. There's so much more it can do than I am going to share here (because I have not figured it out yet-lol). Pretty much you upload a video from your computer or a url and you can create questions and pauses within the video. It is awesome for making sure students are paying attention and to help focus on the important things. 

Also it's FREE! They have a pro version you can pay for with more tricks. 

Today I used it to preview Civil War information to see the students' background knowledge. Other ideas I have are for Flipped lessons or differentiation for my gifted students. 

Go check it out! You'll be impressed!! Let me know what you think!

Text Message Vocabulary Practice

Writing vocabulary words in normal sentences is so boring! I have a bunch of things I pull from for vocabulary for my students that is way more fun. Over the next few days I am going to share my vocabulary work. I believe in choice for my students' work, so there will be a few :)

Today is Text Message Vocabulary Practice. Sounds pretty much like what it is-- students create a text message dialogue correctly using their vocabulary words. You could do this for homework, small group work, or in Reading/Language Arts centers/stations.

In the above example the word is hectic and the student has to figure our how to use it and show they know what the word means. Students writing context clues is a skill you have to teach and model. I tell them the best way to start off is to try to use a synonym. (You will probably get at least one text message sheet that goes "hey what does hectic mean?" "it means franticly busy" "cool, thanks")

I uploaded a PowerPoint on to Teacher Pay Teachers that has the example (as seen above) and then the blank screenshots-- 2 on 1, full sized, and full sized with lines.

If your students are tech savvy and you are interested you can use a website www.ifaketext.com to do this online. Students can make the screenshot then save it or get a link to the screenshot. Depending on how you use technology in your classroom the students could then share it with you that way (class website, email you, drop box).

Please let me know if you use it in class or have any questions!

Teacher Wishlist Linky!

This is right up my alley because since I am still on maternity leave (for the next 13 days) I've been thinking a lot about next year! Even if I was at school I would be doing testing and during my "walking with a purpose" I would be thinking about next year!

Next year I am not sure if I will be teaching all subjects or team-teaching again, but I will be *grade chair* and I am really excited about that!

So far here is what is on my wishlist for next year...

The Complete 2015-2016 Teacher Planning Kit by Trew Studios-- she has almost everything I want except a unit planning guide, but I can figure that out on my own I guess-- or email her and ask her about it I guess.

Bentgo Kids Lunchbox- I am so over losing tupperware. Someone I follow on IG had this and said it was awesome. I want one for me and one for my 5 year old for first grade next year! Can you imagine how much time I won't spend looking for a matching lid?!

Diffuser: I recently started using essential oils because we were sick here for 7 weeks straight! No joke! We couldn't get a break. A couple viruses, a stomach bug, the flu, ear infection, common cold, and then it was the start of allergy season. I was ready to resort to voodoo magic if necessary. I tried Native American essential oils after some research and I love them. I can't believe I like them too because I thought they were such a scam, but honestly I don't even care-- we have been healthy for almost a month. Next year I want to diffuse in my classroom and immune booster and something calming. My best friend diffuses in her classroom and her class was the only one to NOT have the stomach bug strike in first grade. I mean...

Clicker: I can't believe for how tech savy I am I don't have a remote clicker to move through PowerPoints or have figured out how to cast from my iPad or iPhone to the computer, I need to get on that stat!

Of course I want all the beginning of school year stuff too like composition notebooks, a faculty meeting notebook that is insanely cute, lots of pencils-- ticonderoga only, markers, expo markers, new dry erase markers, washi tape for ya know... stuff, and that sorta stuff.

Thanks for the linky Mrs. Wheeler! That was fun!

More Close Reading

There is so much I want to say about close reading, but to not be too wordy I tried to stick to the basics of what I wanted to say in my first post

I'm the type of person who needs to see it to fully get what it's about so... Here is an example on Teachers Pay Teachers of my weekly homework. I uploaded it so you can check it out. Of course it is free too :)

This example is of a 4 day week we had, so Monday was combined into Tuesday and Wednesday. I chose this one because what kid doesn't love Minecraft?!

The article is on how teachers are using Minecraft in schools. It can be found here at Newsela. (You'll need an account to read the whole thing and download a PDF, but it's free!)

There's a teacher guide, a weekly homework sheet, and the weekly quiz. The teacher guide gives you a brief overview of what to focus on each day. The homework sheet I give the first day of the week. Some students write on the blank part, some staple paper. (I stopped putting space in the boxes because the kids were trying to shove all their writing in the box and I couldn't take it LOL.) The quiz is last. Some of the questions come from the newsela quiz and some I've added.

Please let me know what you think, if you have any questions, or have an idea to add! :)

Teaching Close Reading with newsela.com

Everyone and their brother has now heard of Close Reading, because it is a great way to teach reading for information and to build reading stamina. I do close reading in my classroom every week. Today I wanted to share a site I use to pull high interest articles that are on my students' level that we use in class.

www.newsela.com

Newsela takes current events/news articles from news outlets and rewrites them for different Lexile levels. In my classroom I teach the gifted cluster. So I have students in 4th grade who are reading on an 8th grade level, but I also have students who are barely on 4th grade. The content is the same, but the reading level can be changed.

They have a ton of articles. I try to find high-interest articles-- like the one on Minecraft, which the students LOVED. I also have used it to integrate content. For example, when we were studying light in science, I used this article on the Nobel Prize for physics about LED lights.

Here's the weekly breakdown of how I use the articles and close reading:

RACE is an acronym my school uses Restate the question, Answer the question, Cite evidence, Explain your thinking.


We do this everyday somedays it takes 10 minutes somedays 30 minutes depending on the difficulty, interest, and how much other stuff we have to do :). I don't always check it, I rarely grade it, but I do have them use it and the article during the comprehension quiz. Newsela even has quizzes for some of their articles.Yay!

The goal of Close Reading is to become familiar with a text through multiple readings. The way I use close reading over the week helps students become more fluent with non-fiction. I also feel that using a news article or current event helps us connect what we are learning about to the world.

They have resources I haven't even used yet like online comprehension quizzes and annotations. I would love to look into those aspects in my free time (LOL, like that exists!).

And did I mention this is FREE? They have a Pro version, but I haven't used it so I don't really know what I am missing between the free and pro.

Have you ever used Newsela in your classroom? How do you do close reading? Share with me :)

April Currently

Hello blog world! I'm starting my blog after 7 years of teaching I want a place to remember my ideas and lessons and to share my ideas. I am currently on maternity leave and miss teaching very much. However I am absolutely loving being home with my two girls.

I follow another fourth grade blog that inspires me to blog, oh boy fourth grade, and this is her "currently" that I decided to start with.

--Ventura