This is Kate Baker's page
In most cases, spring break is a week (or sometimes shorter) of relaxation and family time. It can however, still contain reading practical and real life reading opportunities for students and adults alike. How many times have you see adults with a book or magazine while lounging on the beach? Or, perhaps witnessed someone reading while on an airplane? Yet, reading opportunities even exist if a family is not traveling away from their home. Spring break can offer opportunities for students to see adults practicing the enjoyment of reading.
I will be encouraging my students to read during spring break by asking them to consider the reading material they might explore and the various times and opportunities that might exist during their break. In order to do this, my students will discuss and consider the following questions:
1. What type of reading material have you seen others reading while on spring break or a vacation? (books, magazines, e-readers, etc.)
2. Is there any reading material, other than books, that you would be interested in reading during your break?
3. Where (place) could you read while on spring break? Staying in a hotel? Trips to the local library/ book store?
4. When could you read during your spring break? Traveling time? Early morning? Before bed? On the beach? By the pool?
5. Who will be reading with you during spring break? How could you make this reading experience special?
6. How could you make reading enjoyable during spring break?
It is important that students make the connection to reading both during the school day, and during those breaks from school. Not only should teachers promote reading behaviors during the school year, but should also promote a life long love of learning. Spring break is the perfect opportunity to take the “stress” out of learning to read or reaching a reading level, and replace it with the idea that reading can be done for enjoyment. Encourage parents to partake in this type of reading lifestyle during spring break as well, and communicate your goals for promoting a love of reading. This is a great opportunity to provide parents with suggestions on how to support this type of learning at home.
I hope everyone finds a great piece of literature to pick up during spring break and read for enjoyment! Happy Reading!
Throughout the year, my students have been working on understanding how to set goals and track progress toward these goals. In fact, under the teaching standards for Ohio educators, this is an encouraged part of every classroom. Recently, my students began to really focus on writing in complete sentences, understanding what the question is asking, understanding how many parts should be included in the answer, and then checking their writing. In my second grade classroom, this is a skill that requires prior knowledge and abilities, therefore, it wasn’t as large of a focus at the beginning of the year. This strategy focus came from analyzing my students’ data on recent assessments where only partial credit was earned for partial answers. I began to wonder if my students understood how to answer extended response questions.
This concept has been a focus in both reading workshop and math workshop. Students will encounter questions that require them to provide two parts of an answer, thus equalling two points. Or, students will encounter questions that require them to provide four parts of an answer, thus equalling four points. The first part of this concept is to understand exactly what the question is asking, and how many parts are required in the answer. For this, instructing students to pay attention to the verbs, or doing words, in the question will help them to understand the total parts.
When going over these type of questions with the group, we always start by determining how many points the question will be worth. Then, we discuss what the answer should look like if all parts are present. From this, we determine how many points each student will receive by analyzing their individual answers. Did you receive all 4 points by having all 4 parts in your answer? Will you receive partial credit? How many parts did you include in your answer?
Graphing this type of data will let the students keep track of their progress toward earning full points for each question. I include a four point graph and a 2 point graph each week for student to keep in their reading and math folders. Since we work on this daily, students can track their progress over the week to help visually represent their understanding of the concepts.
My students have really taken to this idea of self-monitoring progress over time. They enjoy coloring in the graphs, and feel validated with the immediate feedback they receive when analyzing their answers. Encouraging students to graph their progress over time is a great way to form habits of strong effort, participation and mastery.
Recently, a few of my students began to ask for additional pictures that they couldn’t find after scanning and
searching through the images available for them to use on the writing feature of Big Universe. It wasn’t that there weren’t an ample supply of images to choose from (there are over 7,000!), but the students had issues finding pictures that fit their story exactly. Call it being picky, or call it being creative, regardless it was a problem the students had that was worth solving with them.
Solutions We Devised:
1. Have the students create a drawing of the image they were seeking and scan it into the computer. Then, the students could upload the picture onto the Big Universe site and directly into their book. This feature is located in the writing section of the site, and is an option when students are creating a book.
2. Have the students create a digital image on the computer using a program such as Pixie. Then, the students can save this project as a PDF and upload the image into their Big Universe book using the same feature that was described above.
3. Encourage students to take actual digital pictures to upload into their Big Universe book. With this option, it is important for students to understand internet safety. I always advise my students not to place their own faces, or the faces of their peers into these photos since they can be viewed by others once their book is published. Big Universe is a highly secure site, and students are not able to be identified or “found” by other users. Therefore, this safety feature isn’t as necessary as it is on other sites. However, I always try to be consistent in my safety messages in hopes that students think before posting personal information to the internet.
I hope these ideas will help others who are faced with the challenge of illustrating their Big Universe student books. This site is excellent in getting students to use creativity and writing skills! Enjoy!
Recently, I began working with my students on persuasive writing. I began this unit by reading them the book “Hey, Little Ant” by Phillip M. Hoose, Hannah Hoose, and Debbie Tilley. This book was a perfect resource for setting the climate for persuasive writing since it was easily understood how to defend one’s opinion in order to persuade someone.
The premiss of the book is about a boy who comes across an ant on the sidewalk, and the boy wants to squish the ant. Upon hearing this news, the ant pleads with the boy and provides reasons to support his persuasive argument that the boy should not continue with his plan. The boy and the ant engage in a conversation which provides a few reasons to support either characters’ persuasive argument.
While I was reading the book, I added an emotional connection to the story by creating drama in my voice. At times you could hear my students gasp at hearing some of the various reasons why the boy wanted to squish the ant. There were even times when a few students agreed with the boy’s reasons. A debate was already happening in my classroom.
After reading the story, I asked the students to keep their opinions to themselves and complete the graphic organizer that I provided which helped them to outline their opinion on the issue and reasons to support their decision. I then gave the example of trying to persuade their parents to take them out to a restaurant for dinner, rather than eating at home. We discussed reasons they could give their parents to help persuade them to change their minds in order for my students to make a personal connection to this assignment. Many agreed that they had attempted to persuade their parents in one way or another, thus making them experts at this activity!
From this point, students were given time to come up with their reasons to squish the ant, or save the ant. Two groups were then formed, and students shared their reasons with their group members. At the end of this group time, each group came up with some of the most powerful persuasive arguments. Now it was debate time!
Students entered two different sides of the classroom, and the debate began by the “squish ant” team giving their first persuasive argument. A rebuttal was then provided by the opposing side. It was great to see various students step up and gain courage to speak in front of their peers. It was also great to see my students come together to defend their opinion with reasons that were logical, heartfelt, and creative.
From this activity, we are going to be writing various other types of persuasive writing on other topics. However, one aspect that will continue throughout all persuasive writing lessons will be the emotional connection. This made the lesson better than I anticipated!
Ever wonder why students seem to remember rules, operations, or facts when put to a catchy tune? Have you ever wanted to create or find a song for that concept that just seemed to be too difficult for some to remember or learn? After becoming quite frustrated that some of my students in my word study group were not catching onto the “vowel consonant-e” pattern, I began to think of a way in which I could get it to “stick.”
A colleague of mine recently found many songs on YouTube that related to various concepts, including word study. In previous blog posts, I have commented on using YouTube for science or social studies, but also wanted to make readers aware of the songs teachers can use during Language Arts.
As always, it is best practice to view the complete video before showing them to students. It is also best practice to monitor the advertisements and commercials that tend to come with some of the videos on the site.
Word Study Videos:
The Electric Company: Veronica Jackson’s “Bossy R”
Super “e”!!!! (hip children’s song by Mark D. Pencil)
Vowels Save the Day
Short Vowel Song
Song About Contractions: A Contraction has an Apostrophe by Miss Jenny
Contraction Rap 1st Grade
Teaching By Magic- Homophones
Song About Compound Words: Compound Word Whiz With Miss Jenny
Prefixes and Suffixes
Eight Parts of Speech!
Parts of Speech Music Video
It was amazing how many different videos were on YouTube related to these various concepts! The visual and audio aspect of learning is captured during these types of learning experiences, and can really impact a particular child’s understanding. When all else has failed and you are about to pull your hair out (haha!) just remember to think outside of the box, or use modern technology to help you out! It is amazing what our kids remember and connect to in this generation…good luck and rock on!
This week, my students began learning about the past and present with regards to analyzing how technologies related to communication, transportation, occupations and daily life have changed. The evolution and progress made over time in these areas fascinated my students during our discussions.
I created graphic organizers to help them display their understanding of how communication, transportation, occupations and daily life has changed from past to present. The graphic organizers were set up similar to a time line in that the students could display progress in a sequential order.
Big Universe Learning has a great series of resources for helping students understand how occupations have changed from the past to the present. The series is published by Teacher Created Materials, and the books outlines different occupations and compare how they have changed between “then and now.” Since there are many books in this series, I chose a few and assigned them to groups of students. The groups were required to read the book, determine the main ideas and supporting details, and then share their findings with the rest of the class. This way, the students were experiencing opportunities to learn in a cooperative group setting, as well as, present their findings to their peers.
In addition to these books found on Big Universe, I also used the book titled Pony Express to illustrate how
communication has changed, specifically using chapter four as my focus. This helped the students begin to realize that the technologies that they have grown used to having did not always exist and that trying to communicate with others long ago was much more difficult.
At the end of the unit, I read the book 2030: A Day in the Life of Tomorrow’s Kids by Amy Zuckerman, James Daly and John Manders. This book helped my students begin to wonder what life might be like in the future, and what technologies haven’t even been invented yet that could help them communicate, travel, create new jobs or make daily life easier. After I read this book, the students were asked to pick a category (communication, transportation, occupation or daily life) and invent something that would impact this category that doesn’t already exist. The students had to then answer reflection questions related to the progression of their chosen category over time. The kids really enjoyed this project and were eager to work on their inventions! It was a great way to culminate this unit, and come full circle in their learning about the past, present and future!
I absolutely love watching students engage with books, and really enjoy the experience. I find it so amazing to watch the natural curiosity come out of my students when they are encouraged to wonder about the book. This week, my students began working on the reading comprehension strategy of asking questions before, during and after reading.
As I read books to my students this week, they were encouraged to share their questions with the class. We discussed the idea that powerful questions rely on students’ asking questions that relate to the main ideas and supporting details in the story. Many students noted that the words and illustrations in the story helped them form their questions. For some, their initial thought was to make a prediction rather than create a question. It became great practice in analyzing parts of questions, and determining how to ask appropriate questions which relate to the topic. (Student questions were recorded on chart paper under three different sections labeled before, during and after.)
After I recorded the questions the students posed before, during and after reading, we went back into the story to determine if we could answer any of the questions. It was at this point that some of my students realized that the author continued to provide hints toward the answers, but the reader was required to turn the pages to read more in order to accurately answer the question. A few of my students compared this experience to popular TV shows which delay telling the winner until after the commercial break. I thought this was a great perspective to take on how books can be engaging to students, and a great example for students to help with their own writing.
Many of the questions posed by the students were easily answered by finding the details written directly in the story. However, there were other questions which required the students to connect the details, use their schema and infer the answers. This served to be even more interesting to my students who enjoy problem solving and critical thinking. It was great to see and hear the students piece together the details and then build upon their peers’ answers to come up with a detailed and well defined answer. (On the chart, we would code the questions with an “A” if the answer was directly stated in the story, or an “I” if we had to infer the answer.)
After we were done modeling this strategy for the whole class, the students were encouraged to try asking questions during their independent or partner reading. It was great to see the enjoyment the students had while asking their own questions and critically thinking about what was happening in the story.
Below is sampling of books I typically use during my mini lessons on asking questions before, during and after reading:
The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg
Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Berger
The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland and Tatsuro Kiuchi
Weslandia by Paul Fleischman
Big Universe Learning came to my rescue this week when I found myself feeling ill and unable to make it to school. I have great colleagues who supported my effort in preparing for a substitute teacher, however I didn’t want to place extra burden on their daily tasks by asking them to gather materials for the day. When preparing my sub plans, I once again found that Big Universe Learning came to my rescue!
Currently, my students are working on concepts ranging from fairy tales to government. Rather than having to drive to school and collect books for these concepts, I was able to assign these books to my students and place them on my own personal bookshelf on www.biguniverse.com. Then, I created my lesson plans using these online resources, and provided my substitute teacher information to access the site. I could then e-mail my plans to a colleague who only had to gather a limited amount of resources for other subjects. Driving to school to create and prepare sub plans was the last thing I wanted to do considering how ill I was feeling, and Big Universe saved my day!
Not only do teachers tend to get sick during this time of year, but without fail, many students miss days of school as well. Some students may also miss extended days of school for an illness or vacation, which makes it difficult to send home every activity so that they can keep up with the rest of the class. Many times, activities need to be completed in class because of materials, teacher support with directions or lack of ease in sending the activity home for completion. For these types of situations, I also rely on www.biguniverse.com for support.
I have assigned absent students titles to read, and then asked them to complete comprehension activities to accompany the book. Considering Big Universe Learning has a large variety of books to choose from, it is easy to find titles to support many different concepts we may be working on in class. Since students can access this site at home as well as school, the materials can be used in both locations without the worry of a student loosing them or not returning the materials to school.
Now that I’m feeling better, I plan to return to school and expect to continue on with my lesson plans as though I was never absent. It is a great feeling knowing that my students were able to continue learning about the concepts we discussed prior to my sickness, and that being sick didn’t derail my students educational process. I have Big Universe Learning to thank for this due to the ease in gathering and assigning materials that directly relate to our current concepts.
In the past couple of weeks, I have continuously used several books from the same publication company throughout my daily lessons. After realizing the common connection between all the books, I decided to feature Remedia Publications on this week’s blog post to hopefully inspire others to take a look at the variety this publisher offers. More information about the types of books Remedia Publications offers can be found on Big Universe Learning.
“Remedia Publications specializes in reproducible books that focus on basic skills and repetition. We are a family-owned business that takes great pride in meeting the needs of our customers. The company has been in business for over 30 years serving the needs of special education, regular education, E.S.L (English as a second language), adult education, and inclusion students.”- www.biguniverse.com
“Surpr!sing Facts”
Do you know a kid who LOVES to read about facts? Are you currently thinking of that kid in your class who can rattle off some of the most amazing facts about random topics? Well, I have a few of those kids in my class and recently I found a series of books on Big Universe Learning that would suit them well!”
The series, Surpr!sing Facts contains several books that have scientific facts about a topic that are written for elementary age students. The illustrations are visually appealing, and the book reads more like a story than a list of facts. The information is clearly explained, and topic specific vocabulary is addressed at the beginning of the text. Additionally, each book comes with discussion questions at the end to help support and monitor comprehension.
“Fibs, Fables and Lies”
A few weeks ago, my blog topic was about the current lessons I was planning for my unit on Fables. While my students were experiencing fables that week, many came across the series called “Fibs, Fables and Lies” and really enjoyed reading the stories. Again, the illustrations in this series are what caught most of my students’ attention, and immediately hooked them into reading the stories. The vocabulary is at an appropriate level for even reluctant readers, and makes understanding the parts of a fable simple and interesting. This was one series in particular that a group of boys in my class really came to enjoy and share with others!
Many of the books I viewed by this publisher could be used for students who struggle with reading since the text is not too difficult, but the illustrations and content are highly engaging. After showing my students how to search by publisher on Big Universe, many of them now use this feature to find other interesting books that were published by the same company.
Thanks Big Universe for choosing highly engaging and thoughtful publishers like, Remedia Publications when selecting books for my students to read on your site!
Recently, Big Universe Learning reached out to educators who currently use their product, to ask for useful information related to features the site currently has or should have in the future. Through this conversation, many ideas were shared and the opinions of those using the site were thoughtfully valued. I’m excited and encouraged by the relationship Big Universe Learning has developed with its customers, and appreciate their willingness to listen to educators when developing new aspects of their product. The future of Big Universe is exciting considering all of the input they are seeking from educators regarding best practices!
In the past couple weeks, I have been looking at increasing rates for extended response questions which require my students to provide a written response to the passage. This skill (and I say skill, because it does take a careful eye to examine exactly what the question is asking) should be developed along with encouraging students to answer literal comprehension questions in the form of multiple choice. In most standardized testing situations however, those questions which require a written response are worth a greater value, compared to multiple choice type questions.
When searching the internet, I was continually disappointed with the type of questions that I found in terms of rigor and the ability to differentiate. I was looking for questions that used verbs from Bloom’s Taxonomy beyond the “knowledge” or “remembering” level. I wanted my students to experience questions which required them to extend, apply, defend, support and compare (just to name a few verbs that can be used past the lowest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy).
After discussing this idea with the “Master Minds” behind Big Universe Learning, it was clear that they were willing to support this educational feature. Please stay tuned to a new feature soon to be added to the site which allows students to answer extended response questions to increase their written comprehension skills! (Consideration is even being given to grade level expectations, and differentiation will be included). Teachers will soon have a new way to examine student written comprehension by using the books on Big Universe! Thanks Big Universe for listening and supporting teachers and students in the classroom!
