Level Up Village: Guest Blogger Part 2

http://www.levelupvillage.com/kids-collaborate-on-websites-across-continents/

Guest Writer: Level Up Village

http://www.levelupvillage.com/web-design-global-lens/

Click the link above to see my blog post about my Level Up Village class.

Reading With Bigger Kids

For most parents, reading with children is a natural part of parenting.  From the time our babies were born we spent our days with children crawling into our laps to read board books, sing lullabies, and recite nursery rhymes.  We read The Wheels On The Bus, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Goodnight Moon possibly thousands of times to our toddlers and preschoolers.  Our kids had our undivided, complete attention during these moments and formed a love of reading early on.

As they entered kindergarten, first, and second grades, we focused on sight words, fluency phrasing, and sounding out unfamiliar words.  Many families still included nightly reading as an enjoyable part of the bedtime routine.  Our first and second graders gradually began leaving the Cat in the Hat and Skippyjon Jones behind and started reaching for early (or advanced) chapter books.  We devoured the stories of Amber Brown, Junie B. Jones, Horrible Harry, and Fly Guy.  Some parents would read a chapter every night at bedtime to their child, and others would listen as their primary-aged child would read aloud from his/her favorite novel.

By the time our kids made it to third or fourth grade, most were successfully reading independently.  The parent-child read aloud slowly tapered off in a majority of households, leaving parents feeling pretty confident that all the components of their child's reading was automatic.

As a fourth and fifth grade teacher, I observe a dramatic range in independent reading ability.  There are boys and girls who are voracious readers who can read and comprehend books at any level.  For those kids, it's important to focus on vocabulary development.  Once they start reading fluently, they often don't realize or pay attention to unfamiliar words;  they simply read past them to continue enjoying the story.  I often challenge those students to post a sticky note on the front of their book and jot down unfamiliar words.  Reading with a Kindle is nice because you can click the word to be linked to its meaning.  Keeping a dictionary nearby is a good idea, or you can encourage your child to ask you about those unfamiliar words.  Have them read the paragraph to you so you can hear the context, which allows you to better connect with your child and what he/she is reading.

For those sweeties who shy away from reading whenever possible, I strongly encourage parents to practice shared reading with them, as often as they can fit it into their schedules.  What I mean by shared reading is obvious to me as a reading teacher, but it's not something all parents think to do, because reading is easier for their kids at this stage.  Below are my tips for shared reading:

*Choose a high interest novel for your child.  Go to the bookstore to browse or ask your child's teacher and/or school media specialist to recommend titles.  You can also read reviews and find suggested reading lists on Amazon or Goodreads.
*Reserve 20-30 minutes at a regular time each day.  I know this can be challenging with sports, homework, and the crazy schedules we keep, but I promise you this is time well-spent.  Fit it in when you can.
*Sit in a comfortable spot.  Cozy couches, patio furniture, and backyard hammocks are great places to associate reading with relaxing.
*Take turns reading out loud.  Your child should read a page and then you read the next page.
*Point out words you think might be unfamiliar to your child, and correct mispronunciations when they happen.
*If you notice literary techniques, such as foreshadowing, stop and say, "I wonder what will happen next?"  Kids need to practice "thinking" about what they are reading, and it is powerful when teachers and parents can demonstrate this practice.  Ask questions like, "Why do you think she did that," or "What could he have done differently in this situation?"

The tips above were helpful to me when reading with my own children as well as when tutoring students from elementary to high school grade levels.  When kids get to middle and high school, they are often assigned specific books to read that may or may not appeal to them.  When required to read a novel they don't enjoy, I have found it to be highly beneficial to use the shared reading approach.  I often read the first few chapters aloud to my boys to help them get through the introduction of characters and settings, and they can then take over on their own, or with me helping them through it.  At the high school level, I would get my own copy of the required readings and ask my son questions about the book as he finished each chapter.  A Separate Peace by John Knowles and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner are challenging reads for many.  If you get to a book you read long ago, such as The Great Gatsby, you will certainly find that your perspective of the novel is much different when rereading it as an adult than when you had to read it as a high school student.

If you ever feel like your kids are growing up too fast, using technology too often, or just seem distant, consider the shared reading approach.  They may be resistant at first, but you'll soon find that it becomes more comfortable as you go.  Several of my students' parents have tried this approach.  They are finding that it is quite an enjoyable, quality time experience, and it helps improve reading comprehension and build their vocabulary skills as well.

Creative Writing Summer Camp

For years my students' parents have been asking for referrals to summer camps to help the students become better writers or to simply work on creative writing.  I finally had the opportunity to design my own camp.  

Camp description:  Students will discover fun new ways to unleash their creativity through collaborative group storytelling and personal writing.  Campers will use familiar characters in new settings, work on poetry, and use fun prompts to inspire creative writing projects.

Camp was offered to students entering 4th-8th grade.  I ended up with three girls and one boy who attended two of the four mornings.

I discovered an online adventure writing contest, and it turned out that my campers were highly motivated to enter the contest, win $50, and see their writing published online.  They spent the first two full mornings working on their stories for this contest, and one of my campers used the entire week to complete her 1500 word adventure story.

The campers were all entering 5th and 6th graders.  They had their own Gmail accounts through the school, so they wrote their stories on their laptops in Google Docs and shared them with me.  I was able to open their files and talk through editing and revision suggestions with them throughout the writing process.  I am hopeful that the repeated, regular exposure to the proper format of dialogue will carry over into their future writing.  

We spent one morning creating Duck on a Bike stories based on the lesson found on Corbett Harrison's site.  

We took a break and went outside to play on the playground each day mid-way through the three hour writing block.  It was often difficult to pry the writers away from the computers!  They would have written the whole time if allowed.  I offered them food and snacks each day, and they ate a lot more than I would have anticipated!  They talked non-stop.  

A fun aspect to writing with computers is when the writers realized they needed research about their settings.  One writer decided her story would take place near Hollywood, California.  She wondered how close it was to the beach, to the Hollywood sign, and which shopping centers her character would visit.  She also wanted to feature an animal with a disability, so she was able to quickly open a new tab and Google her topics.  We all learned more about animal shelters that exist solely for the purpose of caring for and finding homes for animals with disabilities.

Graphic Novels in Social Studies

I have a couple of fifth graders who dislike reading, but will tolerate graphic novels.   A few, in fact, have read every fiction and nonfiction graphic novel in our school library.  As I was preparing my Westward Expansion unit, I wondered if there were actually any graphic novels written based on the people we needed to learn about.  I immediately checked Amazon and found The Lewis and Clark Expedition, a graphic novel, pictured below.  Finding this book inspired me to create a project-based learning unit focusing on the Westward Expansion.  My students would create their own graphic novels based on the major events of the 1800s.

My students learned about the major historical events of the 1800s, including the Louisiana Purchase, The War of 1812, and many aspects of the Westward Expansion.  We used a variety of resources for our day to day learning;  Safari Montage videos, our social studies textbook (sparingly), literature excerpts, and many wonderful websites.  After each lesson, we made anchor charts for students to refer to as they worked the details of history into the story with their characters.

The students began their novels by creating a character.  Some chose animals, others chose current-day people who went back in time to observe the events.  Others told the story from the perspective of a Native American.  The character was supposed to act as a tour guide of the historic events.

Photos of a few pages of finished projects:

                                           
After we studied the Indian Removal Act of 1830, I surprised the students with an experience activity called The Recess Relocation Act.  I pulled the class together after lunch and read a proclamation, supposedly from the school board, stating the need to move the 5th graders to another location on school grounds.  We assembled in an area called "the stockades" and then marched a trail to our new, less desirable recess spot.  Students lamented the fact that they didn't think to bring soccer balls or any other typical recess accessories with them.  Some pretended to be injured or dead along the way, figuring out rather quickly that this was yet another simulated learning experience.
https://www.facebook.com/LetsGoSaints/posts/10155346793920321

A writing task was set up via Google Forms immediately following the relocation activity.  Students wrote that they were angry and sad to be moved, and they felt sad for the Native Americans who had to endure this permanent relocation, losing loved ones along the way.

When the students completed their graphic novels, we gathered together in our school's Gathering Room and set up the books around the lunch tables.  Pens and sticky notes were available for positive comments and compliments.  We invited other classes and our administration to read our books, and the students had a great time viewing each other's completed work.

One mom stopped to tell me that her daughter was very motivated to work on her project each evening at home.  Several responded that they remembered learning about these topics in school, but they didn't recall details in the way that their children were learning.  I heard over and over that this project-based learning method was highly effective for their students since it encouraged creativity and "stick-with-it-ness!"

Links for Teachers About Graphic Novel Projects:

http://www.ncte.org/library/nctefiles/resources/books/sample/03920chap01_x.pdf

http://www.penguin.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/you_can_do_a_graphic_novel_TG.pdf

http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/activities-projects/comics-graphic-novels-30296.html?main-tab=2#glossary

http://www.scholastic.com/graphix/scholastic_bonediscussion.pdf

http://www.readwritethink.org/resources/resource-print.html?id=30581

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/30581_rubric.pdf

My student instruction page can be found here:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rol9aX_ZicqiAwlWJst7U7sq_EodwZukdWBg2p0xVB8/edit?usp=sharing

Make a copy for yourself to customize.

Vocabulary Instruction, Visual Literacy, and Google Slides

My class will soon compete in the first meet in the 2014-2015 WordMasters Challenge, a nationwide vocabulary competition in which students complete word analogies.  They are given 25 words to study in depth prior to each phase of the competition.  This is my first year using WordMasters and I am trying a variety of strategies to help my fifth graders learn the vocabulary words, many of which are new to them and have multiple meanings. In the evening after the day that we went over the meaning of the word aerie, I was browsing Facebook and a friend posted a blog link with a beautiful photograph of a castle from a blog post titled 20 Enchanting Places in Italy That Belong in Fairy Tales.  I knew immediately that I wanted to share this picture with my students.  If they saw this, as well as a picture of an eagle's nest, they would definitely remember both definitions.

In addition to being defined as the nest for a bird of prey, an aerie is also defined by Merriam-Webster as an elevated, often secluded dwelling.  Thinking about the importance of visual literacy (see Common Core in Action:  10 Visual Literacy Strategies) this castle image inspired me to think outside the "write the definition and use the word in a sentence" task box.  Students need to see something tangible to make connections between the words, their meanings, and images.  With this beautiful photograph as my inspiration, I created the Vocabulary Slideshow Team Project.  You can see a sample of one of my group creations here:
  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eOnif75IRyx1cgr_7lEHJh8nhCkpMw2YYZex0QNjnJQ/edit?usp=sharing

To make it easy for my fifth graders to get started, I created the template for them.  Using Google Slides, I created the cover slide with the title and the names of the students who would work on the project together.  I didn't think it was necessary for each student to create their own slideshow of 25 words, so I assigned each slideshow to a group of four or five already established teams. I numbered the slides and added the vocabulary word to each slide.  I then used the Google "Sharing" feature to share the document by email notification to each of the students on the team.  If you are using PowerPoint, the difference is all in the real-time sharing.  Google Slides offers collaboration in real time.  

I am in the exciting position of having students who each have access to a school email account.  We have a computer lab, a laptop cart, and an iPad cart readily available, so I used a computer lab time to launch this project.  Accessing the document was as easy as opening their email and clicking on the link to their shared document.  For anyone reading this not familiar with Google Docs, all students on the team have access to the same document at the same time.  As one student types on slide one, the others are scrolling through searching for other slides to work on.  I love that Google Docs saves every change, and we never have to stop to save our work!  The students enjoy seeing that they can edit the theme of the slideshow with one click, then look over to their teammates' computers to see the changes occur within seconds!  

The beauty of collaboration in Google Docs was very quickly evident during the launching of this lesson.  One of my students was home sick.  His mother is a teacher in the same school so she was home with him and they just  happened to be checking his email for class assignments during the time our class was in the computer lab.  He saw the email, clicked the link to the shared document, and was able to collaborate with his partners in real time, from his computer at home!  The students on his team noticed his name and picture icon in the corner of the screen, typed a quick note to him within the document to tell him which three or four words he would be responsible for completing, and they all got to work right away.  This was the first time we've seen spontaneous, unplanned school/home collaboration, and it was pretty cool.

Since my students have already looked up the definitions, common uses, synonyms, and antonyms of each of the 25 vocabulary words, they needed just a quick introduction to the Insert Image feature in Google Slide.  I found this feature to be safer for searching images than simply opening a second tab and searching for images.  Digital Citizenship lessons are embedded in all the online activities we participate in, so my students understood that some words could possibly lead them to images they were not intending to see.  Our way of handling this was to have students get my attention right away, so I could help them specify their image search using more specific terminology.  For example, one of our words in this round of WordMasters is grope, which we have already discussed as having a slightly adult, "inappropriate" connotation, so I went ahead and found a picture to insert along with the definition.  Students were told NOT to search for any other images for this word, and they all respected that instruction as good digital citizens.  Teachers using this project should think ahead and do a quick search of each of the words to be assigned, just to see what the typical search results will include.  

Project Tasks:

1.  Divide the words among team members.

2.  Each team member types in the definition, synonyms, and antonyms of each word in the text box. 

3.  Each team member then searches for images to insert which reflect the meaning(s) of the word.  

4.  Students use the word in a sentence related to each of the images.  

Students found some words more difficult to find image depictions of than others.  When they came to the words chortle, and snicker, some groups decided to use the Insert Snapshot feature, and took pictures of themselves chortling and snickering.  

Both of my fifth grade classes greatly enjoyed this project.  It took two forty-five minute class sessions to complete.  All students were fully engaged in the process and all took their tasks seriously.  They enjoyed finding and creating images, especially the ones that were a little more challenging to find or stage.  After our Thanksgiving break, I will give each group time to present their slide shows to the class so we can compare and contrast the work of each team. Students regularly make a point of showing me when they find our vocabulary words in their independent reading texts, and they try to use the words in their conversations.  I am excited to see the results of their first WordMasters Challenge in December after completing this Google Slide project.

Back to School 2014 - Pictures of my new space!

As I write this, I am one week away from the teachers' back to school week and two weeks away from the first day of school.  I spent the better part of today in my classroom removing a gazillion staples from the walls and putting up a few decorations.  Now that the room is pretty much under control, I can get my head wrapped around the unit/project/lesson planning!

I LOVE this "wordle."  I found this on Pinterest and added my own spin to it by printing the words out onto American Girl scrapbooking papers (11x11", cut down to 8 1/2x11" to fit in my printer).  I then cut them out, and mounted them on various colors of construction paper borders.  The original idea/blog post was found here.  There is a link included to a Google Docs page with the words ready to print!  

Since this is a new classroom and a new grade level for me, I need to go through the bookshelves to see what I have in my classroom library.  I set up a Goodreads account with my school email address (so it's a separate database from my personal reading list).  Tomorrow I will spend some time scanning each of the titles in my library to Goodreads and placing them on a new virtual shelf titled, "5th Grade Classroom Library."  This way, I will have a place to go to see the full database of books already belonging to my classroom!  Too bad Goodreads doesn't have a way for me to use their site to check books out to students.  Maybe someday?!