Learning About Point of View and The Powers of Persuasion Plus A Giveaway

We have been working on a unit of persuasion, point of view, and opinion. I found this idea for Point of View using Dear Mrs. LaRue Letters From Obedience School on Teaching With Style. We worked together to complete the chart below similar to what she had on her site.

 

 



Then I divided the students into groups and gave each group a copy of the pictures from the book.  They each wrote their own charts with "the truth" and Ike's Point of View.  They did a great job!

 We have been working on persuasion for the past two days, and I will be sharing some of their work soon!  They used their persuasive abilities to convince me to try on the birthday hat last week for my birthday.  Ever since I began teaching I have forced convinced my students to wear the hat on their birthday (even my middle schoolers!) On my birthday my hubby stopped by with cupcakes for my class and they persuaded me to wear the hat.  Hubs HAD to snap a picture. (Am I the only one who hates having my picture taken???)

Speaking of persuasion, hopefully I can persuade you to check out one of my favorite blogs!

One of my favorite parts of blogging is the camaraderie that exists among teacher bloggers.  I love sharing ideas and resources!  I especially love helping other bloggers celebrate their success by donating to their follower giveaways!  I am excited to help Nikki over at Sent From My iPad celebrate her milestone 100 follower giveaway.  I am giving away an item of the winners' choice from my TPT store, but there are also some other fabulous prizes including an iTunes card and a Wal-Mart card!  Besides the great contest, Nikki always has AMAZING technology resources and ideas, so you will want to follow her anyway :)

Learning About Point of View

Have you ever had one of those impromptu lessons that really ends up working better than what you had originally planned? That happened to me this week when we started our unit on point of view and opinion.  I had originally planned to introduce the topic using Dear Mrs. LaRue, but I accidently left my copy of the book sitting on my counter at home!  Panic mode hit, and I began scouring books throughout my classroom.  Somehow I stumbled upon the book No David - and inspiration hit!





We worked together to complete this last minute thrown together chart focusing on David's point of view and his mother's point of view.

It worked amazingly as an introductory lesson, because there are very few words in the book, and we were able to complete the chart.  I loved the ideas that the kiddos came up with for both sides.  We completed the chart above together then I had the students complete their own chart for the part where David is playing baseball in the house.  Here are a few examples of their work:

A few of them had a hard time with writing in the first person, and what they were thinking, but we were able to talk about it and their revisions showed they understood.

What ways do you teach about point of view? Have you ever had to resort to a new plan?

Listening Center From Donor's Choice and Freebie!

I am on cloud nine! I got my first project funded from Donor's Choice - a listening center.  The items arrived last week and I am loving them!  I have a few students who are very low readers, and they take a lot of my time.  They have a difficult time working independently, and the listening center has changed that!  I set them up with the listening center first thing in the morning which frees me up to meet or conference with other students.  I know that many of you already have listening centers in your classrooms, but I did not have one in the room I have now, and coming from 7th grade math I had no need for one in the past.

Other students have been eyeing the CD/MP3 players and I can't wait to get a few above grade level books such as the Diary of A Wimpy Kid series for them to use and hopefully build their skills as well.

Do you use a listening center in your class?  What do you do with it?

I have this listening center sheet to help hold students accountable for what they are reading  and you can download it here:

Listen to Reading Worksheet

Using Flash Cards With Struggling Readers

I have two girls in my class this year that began the year reading just below a first grade level.  They struggled with phonics and didn't seem to know many sounds, but they both have exceptional memories.  So, I decided to try to work on developing their sight word capabilities by using flash cards. This has worked extremely well and they are both close to reading at a second grade level right now!

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love. 

Each day we practice sight words using flash cards and the method outlined below.  Recently, we have begun doing word hunts for books they are independently reading as well as for texts we are going to work on as a class.  The girls go through the text, and find words they do not know and write them on index cards.  I then rotate them through with the sight words they are working on.

You can see here that we were working on reading a Scholastic news article about reindeers that live in tundra areas. (the pink is simply covering the student's name). I think it gives the student ownership to write their own words (although I have had to fix spelling from time to time).

I put the flashcards in order this way:

Known word
Known word
Unknown word
Known word
Unknown word
Known word
Unkown word
Known word

This helps the students to feel successful on the majority of the cards.  I based the amount of new words on research that found that third graders can retain 3 to 4 new pieces of information at a time.

As we go through the pile of cards, I put tally marks on each card that the student says correctly.  Once a card has 5 tally marks, they become a known word.  When the card has 10 tally marks, the student gets to take the card home because they "own" it!  They love taking cards home and they even continue to practice at home.

This has worked so well, that I have started using them to practice math facts for some of my other students who are struggling with that as well.

Do you use flash cards?  If so, how?

Teaching Non-Fiction - Freebies!

This week we begin our unit on non-fiction.

One of the resources I will be using are these 3rd Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheets from K12.com.  The site also features free reading comprehension worksheets for other grades as well.  I will be printing out worksheets from the other grade levels to help differentiate for my kiddos.  I have a few kiddos reading at a first grade level, and a few reading at a 5th grade level, so I love that I can do this.

The site features 36 free printable passages (you could use one a week or pick a few to focus on during a non-fiction unit like I am).  The passages include a a cross-curricular focus on earth science, physical science, history, social sciences, mathematics and life sciences. This allows students to build their reading comprehension skills and reinforce knowledge in other subject areas.

Hope you find them as useful as I did!

A few giveaways!

I really want one of these.  I mean really, really, really want!

I could use it to help my kiddos practice their fluency, to assess their thinking, and to use for parent teacher conferences so that the parents can hear their child in action during school.  The best part is that it is wireless, requires no batteries, and can be downloaded to your computer!

Luckily Teaching With Love and Laughter is hosting a giveaway!

There are several ways to enter, but the giveaway is over in 6 days - so head over and enter!

AND...


Ms. Lindsey from Lovin' Kindergarten is celebrating 100 followers with a great giveaway!  I am offering up a winner's choice from my own TPT store, and several other bloggers are offering prizes as well.

#1 Winner's choice of 1 item from my TPT Store!

The Daily 5 Book Study Chapter 6 -My Notes

I am participating in the book study at  We Read, We Blog, We Teach.

Chapter 6 Work on Writing and Word Work

During the Work on Writing session, students work individually or with a partner on the writing of their choice.

When introducing the Work on Writing component, the Sisters suggest teaching a mini-lesson in which you model what the students should do when they get to a word that they do not know how to spell.  This is so important so that you are able to meet with small groups or conference with students without a line of students interrupting to ask how to spell a word. I also plan on having a frequently asked word box for the students to refer to as well, and I will introduce this box during this first lesson as well.

Word Work is an area that I would like to get better at.  When I did the Daily 5 as a student teacher, my lead teacher was using Words Their Way to teach spelling.  When we tested the students they ended up being divided into four different spelling groups which was quite difficult to keep up with.  I am thinking about using the approach suggested by Beth Newingham instead.  I will post later to show you what that will look like in my classroom as I finish it up!

The Daily 5 Book Study Chapter 5 - My Notes

I am participating in the book study at  We Read, We Blog, We Teach.

Chapter 5 Read to Someone and Listen to Reading

According to the Sisters, and mountains of research, "reading with someone helps students read independently and grow as readers".

This is the part of Daily 5 that seemed to be the most difficult when I was a student teacher.  It seemed like the students who picked partner reading would often make this choice in order to goof off with a friend.

  I did find this post by Beth Newingham (one of my teaching idols) about Buddy Reading.  She suggests assigning partners and having them  read on their own, and then partner up to ask and answer each other thick questions.  I think this will help with accountability.

For time constraints, I am also hoping to implement buddy reading with a lower level class.  Since I am new to this school and district I haven't planned it yet, but I am friends with one of the first grade teachers, so I am hoping it will work for her as well.

I am planning on using this Read to Someone Coaching Sheet to help the students remember how to coach each other.

According to research, students benefit from listening to fluent readers, either in the form of teacher read alouds, volunteers, or books on tape, CD, or mp3 players. Despite the evidence, it seems that many teachers of older students (third and up) might forgo due to time constraints.

I myself have been tempted not to include this portion, but I realize how important it is especially for struggling readers who may not be able to access grade level texts.

I plan on having the students listen to chapters from the science and social studies text to help incorporate those subjects and to save time.

What are your plans for reading to someone and listening to reading?

The Daily 5 Book Study - Chapter 4 - My Notes

I am participating in the book study at  We Read, We Blog, We Teach.

Chapter 4 Read to Self 

"Having children read to themselves is the first step in Daily Five and is the foundation for creating independent readers and writers" (pg. 46).

When I was in elementary school, I always felt like there was never enough time for me to do what I really wanted to do, which was of course read to my self.  That is one thing that I really love about the Daily 5 is the opportunity that the students have to read books of their own choice - how motivating!

Then this is where I really have questions - the Sisters advocate teaching three ways to read a book - is this necessary for older kids who are reading chapter books?  Any thoughts from teachers who have been there done that?

The Sisters advocate working with your students to develop an I-chart that tells them what they should be doing as readers during read to self.

After a few minutes of modeling, the students practice for 3 minutes, debrief, and try again.  Each day students work to increase their stamina.

The Daily 5 Chapter 1 - An Intoduction Book Study (My Notes)

When I did my student teaching, my lead teacher was just starting to implement Daily 5 and the CAFE, so my experience with it was very much learning along with her as she read and discovered.  It was really nice to have someone to talk to and bounce ideas off of as I was reading myself.  That is why I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the summer book study at  We Read, We Blog, We Teach.

The book study is a bit of a necessity for me because the district I am moving to REQUIRES that all teachers use Daily 5 - CAFE is optional, but highly suggested.  Since I have been teaching 7th grade math, I have had to dig out the big anyway to refresh myself.

The first thing I noticed when I pulled this book off of my shelf (besides the dust - shhhh!) were multi-colored tabs that I had placed in specific spots.  I can't remember what the color coding meant at the time, but if I remember I will let you know. I like the tabs though, because I can remember where things are - (I believe the orange stickies were for anchor charts to make.  I have been getting lots of inspirational ideas from Pinterest that I will share as I make them.

So.... onto Chapter 1: (Quotes from the books are in green - my takeaways are in red)

The book opened with a Regie Routman quote 

 "The typical teacher has children doing a lot of "stuff".  How is what I am having children do creating readers and writers?" 

This is really important for me to focus on and keep in sight.  Because I am moving from middle school down to elementary a big part of me is caught up in the "cuteness" factor of elementary.  I really need to keep in mind that although I may cutesy things up, my main focus must be on instruction and creating readers and writers.

P. 11 Has a chart that outlines the research base behind Daily 5 which is extensive.

The reason why the district I am moving to has adopted Daily 5 is because of the strong research base behind it.  I really love the headings on top of each of the components and am thinking about a way to share with my students to provide them with a "Real World" purpose for each of the elements.

I guess I am just a figure girl today, because I was also drawn to figure 1-4 on p.14 which outlines the Daily 5 Literacy Block.

During student teaching I felt like the area that could be most improved was our focus lessons -they seemed to lack, well focus to be honest with you.  I like the idea of focusing each mini-lesson on the topics listed.  For example, the first focus lesson of the day would be a comprehension lesson, the second would be a reading strategy, the third would be word work, the fourth would be writing, and the fifth and last would be a sharing author's sharing where we review the skills and strategies we worked on that day.

I am feeling a bit more confident after just re-reading the 1st chapter, and am excited to continue this journey. 





If you would also like to participate, the information is below:

Please check out the summer book study! 

(It is not too late to start)

http://www.wereadweblogweteach.com/

There is a calendar available to keep you on track at the blog: