The Last Week of School

MCA and NWEA testing is finally over. Thank goodness! Testing season is so taxing on the children and teachers. While it's tempting to stop teaching and show a movie every day (it's true, I walked by a few classrooms last week where they showed a movie every single day), I think it's important to keep those little ones actively engaged in learning up until the very last day of school. I'm impressed by all the teachers that use this time to fully immerse their children in fun projects, something we don't always have time for before state testing. Our wonderful ELL teacher, Ms. Christine Brinkman, had one of the third grade classrooms create a diorama showcasing their favorite story from our National Geographic REACH curriculum. Our students can only be creative if you give them the opportunity to be creative. And boy did they run with this project! Here are a few examples of the amazing student work:

Ms. Ashley Eichhorn and I had our students make pinatas after reading The Pinata Maker by George Ancona. It was such a mess, but sometimes it's just necessary to let the kiddos be a little messy. The pinatas turned out nicely!

To prevent the dreaded summer slide, we sent home an 8-week summer packet with each of the students. Each day the students will have five math and five literacy problems to complete. Depending on the student, each page will only take about 10-15 minutes to complete so it's just enough daily spiral review to help them retain what they have learned, but won't take up too much of their summer fun time. If the student brings back the packet completed during the first week of school, they will get a reward from their teacher.

Are you looking for a free summer packet to send home with your students? Or are you looking for a free summer packet to use with your own child? You can have a 5-day summer packet sample for students going into first grade, second grade, third grade, or fourth grade for FREE!

Or you can purchase the full 40-day summer packet for students going into first grade, second grade, third grade, or fourth grade. Either one you choose, parents and students will be delighted!

Four more days until summer break! I cannot wait to lay by my pool with a good book and summer cocktail!

Happy summer everyone!

Mai

The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl

I cannot believe I'll be wrapping up my ninth year of teaching in 17 days. Now that we have completed our state testing, we can spend the last four weeks with our kiddos, stress-free. While we are without the stress of tests, I still put a lot of pressure on myself to ensure the students are still actively engaged with fun and thorough lessons.

I struggled all year to motivate the boys in my third grade reading intervention group. They're all very sweet boys and would always do what was asked of them, but I could always tell they were never genuinely interested in the lessons. I tried so many different approaches to actively engage them, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, we started a book unit with The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl and that seemed to do the trick. I had to use binder clips to remind the students where to stop reading, otherwise, a couple of the kiddos may have read the entire book in one night.

All of my students in this reading intervention group are ELL so we had to spend a lot of time with vocabulary words from the book. We defined and explored the first six vocabulary words before reading the book using various activities. The students used dictionaries to write the definition of each word. They also played charades and completed worksheets and puzzles for further practice. After reading the first two parts, I repeated the same process for the last six vocabulary words. 

I read the first part of the book out loud to the students and then guided them through the first comprehension worksheet. I always teach and model how to complete the first comprehension worksheet so the students know some strategies for how they will complete the rest of the comprehension worksheets independently. Since the students are responsible for reading each part of the book independently, these worksheets are perfect to check to see if they read carefully. If they did, then they should get majority of the questions correct.

After giving the students the task of reading the second part and completing the corresponding comprehension worksheet, I was thrilled to see the students leaving my classroom with their noses deep in the books.

After reading part four (pages 30-39) my kiddos had a spontaneous discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of having wings instead of arms, just like the Greggs. This gave me the idea to lead the students in an activity to explore how difficult it would be to eat an apple without arms. So I brought in apples and had the students attempt to eat the apples without their hands. They had a blast trying. The kiddos and I couldn't stop laughing. It was a riot! It got a little gross when they laughed with a mouthful of apples and bits of it were flying everywhere, but I'm glad they enjoyed it. After a few minutes of trying, I let them finish their apples with their hands as they discussed and wrote in their journals what it was like to eat an apple without any hands.

We finished the book unit in about a week and a half. The last activity involved choosing one of the writing prompts as shown below. I'll post their writing piece as soon as they are finished. I told the boys we would be starting the new book unit in a few days and they actually cheered! I was elated!

Four more weeks until summer vacation! When does the school year end for you?

Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith

Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith was a hit with my students last year, so I decided to use the book again this year. I have been using the Fountas and Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention (2nd grade blue system) and have now reached the end of the kit with my 3rd grade reading intervention group. They have made incredible strides, but unfortunately, my school doesn't have the next kit (3rd grade red system) so I had to find something else to use to ensure they continue to get closer to reading on-level.

There is a high percentage of ELL students at my school so I have to spend a lot of time launching any new unit to allow students adequate time to build background knowledge, connect to previous learning and focus on learning new vocabulary. Chocolate Fever was the perfect selection because the students were immediately interested in the story and were immediately engaged.

To introduce the new vocabulary words, I had the students cut out the first page of six vocabulary flashcards. Next, with a partner the students "turned and talked" to discuss what they think each word means from what they already know or from the picture clue on each card. Then, the students used a dictionary to write the definition on the back of each card. It was great listening in on the students and hearing them say, "I was right!" or "I've never heard of that word." Last, to wrap up the lesson, we played vocabulary charades. The next set of vocabulary words don't appear until after chapter 4 so the students began reading the first few chapters before I repeated the same process for the next set of words.

After launching the book, I did a read aloud for the just the first chapter. Afterwards, I explained to the students that they would be responsible for reading the rest of the chapters independently. I use a short comprehension worksheet to check if they read each of the assigned chapters. If they read the chapter carefully, they should be able to get majority of the questions correct. I then took a few minutes to model how to complete the first comprehension worksheet. When students come back the next day after reading the assigned chapter, they work on their comprehension worksheet. Here is an example of a comprehension worksheet:

Since students work at different paces, the "fast and right" students use the extra time to work on the vocabulary word find and the vocabulary crossword puzzle.

I also gave them a fun activity to work on after I read the first chapter. They had to draw pictures of items they might find in Henry's pantry. Most of the students didn't finish with the time I gave them in class, so this was another great "fast and right" activity in addition to the word find and the crossword puzzle.

In addition to reading the chapter as an assignment, I gave the students one other task to complete as they are reading at home. It's very important for students to read the vocabulary words in the context of the story so I gave each student Post-it Flags and instructed them to "highlight" each vocabulary word as they read.

The students were assigned to read chapter 5 and 6 over the weekend. I'm anticipating a very lively discussion on Monday!

Thanks to the Literacy Maven for hosting the linky!

Gone are the days by the pool, And here we are back to school!

I swear, I didn't mean to rhyme :) I'm linking up a little late with Doodle Bugs Teaching with my Five for Friday (on Saturday).

1. I work with some of the most talented and creative people. I was gone for three days at the Minnesota Reading Corps Summer Institute (more on that below) and when I came back on Friday, this is what I saw:

We were thrilled to meet the kiddos and their families at our school's open house earlier this week. The children were excited and and seemed eager to return to school. I have a feeling this school year will be one of the best!

2. While we have been putting 12+ hours each day decorating and organizing our classrooms, we have also been spending a lot of time digging into our new reading curriculum, National Geographic Reach, which so far seems to be the best curriculum out there for targeting the high percentage of our ELL students. There is also the standard version too for schools with a lower percentage of ELL students, National Geographic Reach for Reading. 

I really like what I see so far. The curriculum is completely aligned with the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. The carefully aligned standards are taught through content with a huge emphasis in science and social studies. The textbook is filled with all of those exciting and beautiful pictures we have seen all of our lives in the National Geographic magazines. Also, we have access to several exclusive National Geographic videos that are tied to the content we are teaching in the classroom.

And here's my favorite part: this curriculum encourages teachers to, well, shut up! Admit it! We teachers talk way too much! The teaching guides give the teachers specific academic language frames during each activity to increase peer-to-peer interaction. Language proficiency will only happen if we give our students ample opportunities to interact with each other. Less teacher talk = more student interaction = increased language proficiency!

What experience have you had with the National Geographic Reach curriculum? Please share with me!

3. At the end of the last school year, I gave the first grade and second grade classroom teachers a summer packet that I created to give to their students on the last day of school. The classroom teachers gave the students an incentive to complete and return the packets during the first week of school. Several of the students came to our open house rushing to their previous teachers to return the completed packets. We were stunned and might I add, proud! The parents and families of our students were very appreciative of the modest amount of work we gave them. I hope the summer review has helped them retain what they learned last year. I guess we'll see!

Anyway, after seeing the summer packets I created, a few of the teachers asked if I had plans to make morning work following the same format. My original answer was no because it's so much work, but over the last couple of weeks, I was able to put together 1st grade morning work for September. I'm committed to the project now, so stay tuned for the rest of the months...

 

4. I am now the internal coach for our school's Reading Corps Tutor. We are so lucky to have recruited a full-time tutor that will be working with Tier 2 children, 1:1, on a daily basis.

While I'm thrilled we are receiving the extra support at our school, I was a little bummed that I had to miss three days of professional development to attend the training for internal coaches. I was happy to be back at school on Friday. Being gone for three days felt like being gone for three months!

I don't know too much about Reading Corps and its potential impact on students and the school as a whole, so I will share what I learn along the way!

What experience have you had with Reading Corps?

5. I love my new home! Each morning I step onto my deck and this is the view I have of downtown Minneapolis.

Click the image below to join the Five for Friday linky! Thanks Doodle Bugs Teaching

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and happy new school year!

Mai