Camp Thunderbird - Part 2

Here's the second set of pictures from camp...

Camp Thunderbird - Part 1

I've finally gotten around to put some of the photos together from Camp Thunderbird.  As you're watching this slide show, make sure your child is explaining each event.  There are lots of funny moments! 

Organisms - Studycast

Click here to listen to the studycast for our upcoming test on Organisms.  This is a studycast I made for last year's class, but it covers all the same material.  If you have any questions, just leave me a comment or send me an email.  Thanks!

Notebook Connections by Aimee Buckner

Notebook Connections

Aimee Buckner
Stenhouse Publishers

The thing I like about Aimee is that she doesn't hold back.  She's completely honest about herself and her teaching - her struggles and successes.  When you read one of Aimee's books, you feel like you're having a thoughtful conversation with a colleague down the hallway.  But that's the great thing about Stenhouse authors  - they're teachers.  These authors/teachers are using current theory and tying them to authentic classroom practices.  

Notebook Connections shows us how Aimee has incorporated notebooks into her reading workshops.  In chapter 2, Aimee shows us how easily notebooks can be used to better know your students are readers.  Throughout the year, you can have students respond in their notebooks using guided questions or prompts.  These entries help us get inside our students' heads - to understand how they view themselves as readers and thinkers.  Chapter 3 is full of strategy lessons that help connect comprehension strategies to notebook writing.  Aimee does a great job of getting her students to think about their thinking.  The strategies she uses with her students push them towards deeper and more responsive thinking.  Chapter 5 focuses on finding the "hidden layers" of a text.  One of my favorite lessons she shares deals with character connections.  By studying the connections between characters, readers are invited to infer deeper about their relationships - and ultimately about the theme of the story.  Aimee closes her book with a chapter on assessment.  She understands that teachers must find a balance between their personal lives and school lives.  She provides realistic guidelines for assessment that give valuable feedback to students and parents, while at the same time prevents teachers from spending their entire Saturday reading notebooks. 

I'm ready to try out some of these notebook strategies in my classroom.  My students keep reading notebooks - they've become extremely valuable places to record our thinking, reflections, and book lists. But Aimee has pushed me to use notebooks in more thoughtful ways.  I'm looking forward to seeing what happens!  

Igniting A Passion for Reading

Igniting A Passion for Reading
Steven L. Layne
Stenhouse Publishers

One of the things I love about Spring Break is that it provides me an opportunity to catch up on some professional reading.  Igniting A Passion for Reading has been sitting on my shelf for a few months, and it's the first book I put into my "Spring Break Book Stack" last Friday.  Steven Layne begins the book by introducing us to the idea that teaching reading should go beyond just teaching reading skills.  A complete reader is someone who has mastery of fluency, phonetics, comprehension, semantics, syntax, AND shows evidence of interest, motivation, and engagement.  He argues that our curriculum should go beyond the skills mandated by our states curriculum.  We should be teaching the affective domain of reading as well.  He provides a startling statistic - over half of Americans ages 18 to 24 reported reading no books for pleasure in 2002.  We are producing kids who can read, but choose not to.  The rate of aliteracy (being able to read but choosing not to) is growing at a faster rate than illiteracy!  If we want to create real readers, we must begin addressing this problem.

Each of Steven's chapters provide extremely practical ways to develop engaged readers in your classroom.  One of my favorite chapters was about knowing your students.  In the beginning of the year, I always use interest inventories and meet with my students individually to get to know them better as readers.  But what do I do with this information?  Steven says the most important words we can say to readers is, "I thought of you."  When I read a children's book, do I think of the student who it would be just right for?  For my struggling readers, am I actively looking for books that will match their interests?  He challenged me to know my students better, and to use that knowledge more effectively.  He also provides some extremely practical advice in regards to goal setting.  We must make our goals public (post them in a place everyone can see), return to them often, and set new goals each quarter.  Has my goal setting become another "teacher thing" that we forget about after a few weeks, or is it something that matters to my kids?

Another chapter talks about "book chats."  I read a lot of children's books, and I keep a reading notebook with all my ratings and impressions of the books I've read.  But Steven's book made me realize how I keep all these "chats" to myself.  I need to be sharing my notebook with my students on a more consistent basis.  I need to display the books I love - talk about them in front of my students.  I have a lot of individual "chats" with students, but I need to create a classroom culture that is continually talking up books.  Steven's "golden shelf" idea is brilliant (chapter 8).

I think this is an extremely important book for our times.  In today's educational climate of testing, testing, testing - we can't forget our ultimate goals.  I teach because I want to see children grow into readers, writers, scientists, and thinkers.  Igniting A Passion for Reading reminds us of what is truly important about teaching and learning.

Picture of Hollis Woods - The Dance

After reading Pictures of Hollis Woods, the Dark Eclipse (a book club comprised of Sam, Christopher, Caitlin, Kaitlyn, and Sarah) decided to create a dance to show what they learned from the story.  They chose the song "Lean on Me" because it fit so well with the theme of the story.    After the kids shared their dance with the class, they took questions and comments from the audience.  I was amazed at how each movement and motion was carefully selected to convey a very specific meaning.  These students put a ton of effort and thought into this project.  I used an HD video camera to capture their dance, and I'm also trying out a new video server in hopes of a clearer picture.  I love School Tube (which I've been using all year), but their video quality is not great.  I'm hoping this video will turn out well.  We'd love to hear your comments.  The kids loving hearing what others think.

Flips, Turns, and Slides

We began this study by using pentominoes.  We flipped them, turned then, and slid them around.  We explored different methods of translation, and we recorded our observations on graph paper.  On the next day, we began using reflection mirrors to better understand the "flip."  We played games of billiards and darts (ask your child about it) to better understand this concept of reflection.  We noticed that points on the pre-image and image are always an equal distance away from the point of reflection.  Our final exploration was with pattern blocks (I saw Mrs. Stucky doing this with her students, and I thought it was a great idea).  Students created an image using pattern blocks, and then created the reflection.  Students used their reflection mirrors to check their work.  Here are a few pictures of the reflections they created.

Reflections (Flips)

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Building Geometric Solids

To better understand 3-D shapes, pairs of students spent time building geometric solids with straws and twist-ties.  This activity gave us a better understanding of faces, bases, edges, and vertices.  We were able to describe solids and compare them more accurately.  Here are a few pictures of our mathematicians at work...

Building 3 D Shapes

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Social Studies Chapter 10 Studycast

Click here to listen to the studycast for our upcoming test on Chapter 10.  The test will be on Wednesday, March 24th.  If you have any questions, just leave a comment below or send me an email.  Have a great day!

Building Polygons

In math workshop, our new unit of study is on geometry.  Yesterday's lesson explored polygons.  We began by exploring what a polygon actually is.  By studying examples and non-examples, we found out that polygons have straight sides, at least three vertices, one interior, and is a closed shape.  We then set out to build as many different polygons as we could.  After each team was given straws and twist-ties, they quickly began building.  After 10 minutes of creating shapes, we decided to classify our polygons by their number of sides.  We built everything from triangles to decagons!  Here are a few pictures of our students building their shapes. 

Building Polygons

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