Thursday Throw Down: Nonfiction Scavenger Hunt

I'm linking up for the first time with Erin from I'm Lovin' Lit for her Thursday Throw Down! I love the idea of trying to make lessons more interactive and engaging. I've been trying to incorporate interactive notebooks this year and get the kids up and moving whenever possible!

Today, we started our nonfiction Readers Workshop unit. To get things started students took a survey over all the "I Can" statements we will cover in nonfiction. They had to rank the statements on a scale of 1 - 4. "1" being I've never heard of this before and "4" being I could teach this to someone else. The handout below was created by an awesome co-worker! Click the image to grab your own copy.

 After previewing our reading unit, we went on a scavenger hunt! Kids were grouped in partners and had to use the text features around my room to create an example and how it helps readers decide what's important. I gave them the text feature and then they had to fill in the rest on their notes sheet.

My note sheet is a little different than the one above but I found this sheet online (after mine had already been copied). This handout from Really Good Stuff that allows for a scavenger "hunt" type lesson plus it could be copied front to back for my larger writers. Click the image for a link to this handout plus text feature posters!

 After we went over the directions and were partnered up, teams set off around the room to find examples and then explain how text features help readers determine what's important. Here are some of my posters -- most were from the teacher's edition of National Geographic Pathfinder magazine. A few others are from Scholastic News. Best of all -- they were free and I already had lots of them from all the years of magazine subscriptions!

 

How do you get your students interacting with texts?

Tried it Tuesday: Quick Letter Pads

I've been a little absent from the blogging world lately... our first Common Assessments are this week and I'm trying to get everything wrapped up before the end of the trimester. Plus, we've had a few last minute conferences and extended conferences over email before our report cards are due next week. So, I've been really trying to get everything up on the blog so all I have do is hit submit. We'll see how it works out this week :) I really love blogging - it's my me time and time to check out everyone else's great ideas but I also need to clean my dining room, finish up the dishes, and find some upper level nonfiction related extension activities for my gifted students. It's a little overwhelming for a Tuesday!

So this week, I'm linking up with Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper to share about a time saving and stress free product for Tried it Tuesday :) I've recently purchased the Art Skills Quick Letter Pads in black and white and metallic. I'm in love with them! They are letter post-it notes in convenient little pads. I used them for letter on several posters and signs hanging around my room. Although I love my Cricut, these letters were uniform, easy to adhere, and BAM! it was finished! I also used the metallic letters on my explorer station posters last month. The pack is a little pricey at about $5.99 (I bought mine at the grocery store) but you get several of each letter to use and they are already sticky. They also come in neon colors as well as a "Jumbo" size.

Here's what my pack looks like:

Here's mine in use:

 

If you're looking to create words or posters quick - these little post-it letters are your friend! They look nice and save you lots of time! Caution: You will want to laminate your finished product because they are thin like post-it notes and not quite as sticky as actual post-its.

What cool new things have you tried?

My Daily Schedule Linky

As I was doing some blog reading while trying to recover from this terrible cold this week, I stumbled upon a great new linky party! So, today, I'm linking up with Susan from TGIF for the "What's your Schedule?" linky!

So here's a peek at my daily schedule: 

Special thanks to Graphics from the Pond for the adorable border and smiles!

I essentially teach two identical 2-hour blocks of Language Arts (Reader's Workshop, Writer's Workshop, spelling, word work, and grammar) and Social Studies. Between those blocks this year we have some interruptions for specials and intervention. During our "switch" students go to math and science for an hour each. They have a separate switch time between math and science since they see four blocks of students while my LA/SS teaching partner and I only see two blocks of students.

Homeroom: Homeroom/skills time is when we: write in our planners, collect ALL homework for every teacher, give out write-ups, collect office notes, take attendance, assign class jobs, "pay" students each week, assign absent folder collectors, etc. After students finish with all the homeroom "business" they have a Science Studies Weekly reading assignment to complete. This allows for not only nonfiction reading time but also extra science enrichment/font-loading. Some students are exempt from this assignment and they use this time to practice math facts, get on MobyMax, or receive additional RTI. Teacher Tip: Since students are working on an independent assignment - this gives us, the teachers, time to meet with absent students, allow students to finish a test, work in RTI groups, reply to an email, or take care of any other classroom business!

Specials: In fifth grade, students go as a class to specials. Their specials rotate weekly so that they will see each teacher approximately the same number of days/weeks per trimester. Our specials include art, music, health, gym, and technology. 

Intervention: Intervention time is when students receive pull out services. These services include support education services, speech, OT, gifted services, and pull out reading help. The students that are left spend the 40 minute block working on enrichment activities or in pull out math group. As a team we try to have a schedule for our intervention block. This year we have: Movie Mondays (educational videos), Teacher Choice Tuesday  (teacher creates an enrichment lesson for math, reading, social studies, or science), Games Wednesday (educational games like Apples to Apples or Quiddler, Spelling & Math Thursdays (spelling enrichment for students who do not need extra math help; math pull out for students needing extra math help), Friday Store/Silent Reading. * The teacher who creates Tuesday's lesson swaps with the Game rooms on Thursday to teach the lesson to those students and vice versa.

We've tried many, many different variations for intervention. Last year, intervention was last period for our team so it was great because we could swap kids and put them into different groups. It was nice to have a "switch" time for intervention. This year since it's in the middle of a teaching block, that is just not possible.

Team Meeting: Our schedule looks the same Monday - Thursday. On Friday, we have a brief homeroom time since we are collecting the morning science work with the other homework. We start class right after homework collection on those days.  Therefore, we take that extra time and move our "homeroom time" from 11:00 - 11:20 for our weekly Team Meeting. 

Other: We go to library every other week from 9:00-9:30 {Block 1}  and from 12:30 - 1:00 {Block 2}. My teaching partner and I go together and take 54 students at time. It's worked out great for book clubs and for days when we do "open wall" team teaching. We rotate what we skip that day due to library it could be - Reading, Writing, or Social Studies.

Don't forget to head over to TGIF to check out everyone else's daily schedules! It's amazing to see how everyone else's days look!

Happy Monday,

Visualizing and Veterans Day

Last week, I blogged about some great reads for Veterans Day. You can check them out on my earlier post here. But today I want to focus on how to incorporate reading strategies into Social Studies. I try and get the most out of my limited time with my students. So, if I can create a reading lesson from a Social Studies text, I try to use the "double whammy."

This week, we're in between reading units until after our Character Unit Common Assessment (end of unit test). So, in preparation for Veterans Day, we'll be reading America's White Table by Margot Thesis Raven. This historical fiction / informational text is a great read prior to Veterans Day or Memorial Day. The premise of the book is about a fictional family setting a white table for Veterans Day that is meant to symbolize what it means to be a veteran. Interwoven into the meaning behind the white table is a story about Uncle John and his heroic acts while he was in the service. The words and descriptions in the story are extremely vivid -  great for a visualizing activity!

Here's what my teaching partner and I will be handing out to the students after we read the story:

To try this activity in your classroom just click the image for your own visualizing handout. Or you can download from Dropbox here. Handouts like these are simple way to get our students using reading strategies in Social Studies. Hopefully, our students are starting to realize that they are always readers - not just a reader during Reader's Workshop.

Have a wonderful Sunday,

Five for Friday: It really can't be November!

It's November? What?! This week was a little jammed packed to say the least! So, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday to try and remember this crazy week!  I don't even know where October has gone. But, nonetheless here is a recap of our week.

We introduced our "Just Three Words" project for Veterans Day this week. Students started creating posters and other media to show veterans how much we appreciate their service. I learned this year that "Veteran(s) Got Swag".... we may need a few more mentor sentences to make it grammatically correct but you have to love 5th grade heart :)

My pups were dressed and ready for Halloween, too bad it poured down rain! Boo! Raincoats and umbrellas were the number one Halloween accessories in Cincy! So, now we have a large bucket of candy for our house and the pups had to be paparazzi'd since I didn't have any trick-or-treaters.

One one homeroom is half way through the great state race! They even acquired Hawaii! They have 26 postcards but the other classrooms are not far behind... I can't believe how motivated students are to get to the finish. Although, we did promise a "sweet" victory treat! If you want more information on The Great State Race check it out here.  

Our reading challenge ended with our Record Breaking Trike Race today! Students were super pumped for teachers and principals riding giant tricycles. The race was a close one at first but the White Lightning pulled away with a the win in the end! Here's a little recap of our celebration for reading 1,000,000 minutes as a school in a week!

After a very, very long Friday, I'm exhausted. Plus, I think I'm getting sick. I have a sore throat, my nose is runny, and my eyes burn. This is no good. I ordered pizza so I could get a 2-liter of Sprite and I've already take some E-mergency. I'm in desperation mode. I hope need I feel human again to get caught up on grading and some lesson planning for our next region. Ugh. At least I have a few days off to get better and a snuggle buddy!

Hope you had a spook-tacular week!