Winter Haikus

I love haikus.  They're one of my most favorite forms of poetry.  They're also like a shot in the arm for our waning excitement for writing during those dreary days of winter.  Thus, the winter haiku idea was born.  Write a haiku with a winter theme, attach it to a snowflake on a piece of construction paper.  What could be easier or more fun?

Another thing I love is making paper snowflakes.  Except, I don't like having to explain how to cut a rectangular piece of paper into a circle over and over again.  Enter the coffee filter snowflake.

There's even a YouTube video with a stinking cute boy named Ethan making them step-by-step:

I'm loving the way the haikus and snowflakes are turning out so far in the classroom!  I'll have to share more when I have the finished products.

Where do You Gather Your Educational Videos?

YouTube is great ...  most of the time.  It sometimes makes crazy recommendations after we're done watching the video that I don't want my students to see or comment on.  So, what alternatives are there?

One of my most favorite (and FREE) websites is WatchKnowLearn.   

Why do I love it?  Let me count the ways:

1. It gathers videos from TeacherTube, YouTube (yes, I still use it), and a host of other websites so you don't have to go looking at all of them at once.
2. You can change the age filter so it only searches for age-appropriate material for your students.
3. Teachers can even directly upload the videos they've personally created. 

In short, it's a lifesaver for me.

How about you?  What website do you rely on for quality educational videos?

Reading Comprehension Strategy: Ask Questions

Asking questions seems to come so naturally for students, doesn't it?  Natural until asked to do so about what they're reading.  Then, it seems to need a lot more prompting and modeling from the teacher.

I choose my mentor texts for this strategy based off of how many plot twists the books have or the higher level of vocabulary.  The following are some of my top picks:

Most books by Chris Van Allsburg will keep the reader guessing about what's going on.

Mr. Peabody's Apples will keep the reader guessing about the moral character of the main characters.

We use the "Before, During, and After" reading organizer and the following language to begin our questions:

I wonder...
I am not sure why...
I am curious about...
How does...
I was confused when...
Why didn't...

Do you use any particular texts or organizers for Asking Questions?  I'd love to hear them!

Division on a Hundreds Chart

I cannot express how much I love hundreds charts.  Adding, subtracting, multiplication, division...  It's the Jack of All Trades!

You can find great hundreds charts all over the place.  For this post, I'm using this chart from Elementary Organization.  After becoming comfortable with the chart, I eventually have the students draw their own.  The reason?  Students can always draw a hundreds chart, but I can't provide them with one for state tests.

Now, on to the math.

Rounding and Dividing
I have the students use compatible numbers to round 94 divided by 3 (95 divided by 5).

Use hundreds chart to skip count by fives until quotient (95) is reached.  You can skip count by 5s 19 times to get to 95.

So, the answer/quotient is about 19.

Now, to do the actual problem.

The real question is:  How many groups of 3 are there inside of 94?

There are 31 groups of 3, with 1 leftover (remainder).

Obviously, this only works up to 100 unless students add on to the chart.  So this is really more of an introductory or review activity.

Do you use a hundreds chart for division?  I'd love to know how!

Author Study/Genre of the Month: Deborah Wiles

In the past couple of years, I have started to do a "genre of the month" during reading class.  This is loosely based off of The Book Whisperer.  By the way, it is a fantastic and quick read that you won't regret buying.  I highly recommend it!

February's author is Deborah Wiles.  The genre of the month is Historical Fiction, and Wiles has written several books about the 50s/60s that are kid-friendly.  I got to meet Wiles at a children's book conference a few years ago.  She's knowledgeable and friendly, and it comes through in her books.

As with the other months, I put out a bunch of his books to be displayed for the entire month and I choose one to read aloud.  For Wiles, I like to read aloud Freedom Summer.  This is a shorter picture book, but it's great for digging deeper into the integration issues of the 50s/60s.

 

I also have websites available for students to research Deborah Wiles  and find more books that they want to add to their "To Read" lists.  Harper Collins Publishers has this website called the Author Tracker and Reading Rockets has many more authors on this site.

 

Do you have a genre of the month or an author study?  I'd love to hear what you do with yours!

Digging Into the Declaration of Independence

We have begun our unit on the Charters of Freedom (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Virginia Declaration of Rights, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom).  We discussed the Declaration of Independence in our previous chapter, but we often have to review the details and meaning of the document.

In the spirit of review, I'm combining a couple of my old posts that have inspired me to combine reading comprehension strategies in this unit.

First, Close Reading.

I find that you can copy the text and have them annotate, or you can use page protectors over the text and use dry erase markers to annotate.

Second, textmapping.  This is similar to Close Reading, but it has the students annotating together and all the pages are copied, taped together, and laid out so students can view the entire selection at once.

I made a PowerPoint that goes into detail on this and other nonfiction comprehension strategies.  You can pick up a free copy by clicking here.

Some suggested resources for reviewing the Declaration of Independence:

This is a magazine similar to Time for Kids, but it's all about certain subjects (the Declaration in this case).  It's not free, but it's worth a look.  Check it out by clicking here.

You could do this with just about any book, but it definitely works best with nonfiction.

Do you have any books or resources for teaching The Charters of Freedom?

Long Division Videos and Games

Wow.  Long division is always one of those things that takes numerous resources and practice to master.  This year, I've added some new videos for my anticipatory sets and review.  I've also found some websites and games that

Introducing long division
Anticipatory Set for introducing division with base ten/place value blocks:
This video from Education Unboxed is a fantastic way to introduce long division using place value blocks as arrays.  I had never thought to do this before!  Considering we just finished our unit on arrays as they apply to multiplication, this was a natural first step.

This video from Nextvista shows a group of students incorporating kinesthetics into their long division by doing a dance with different movements to go with the steps to long division.  Then there's a video actually doing the steps on paper.
Another video incorporating kinesthetics and a rap.
This video shows how to front end estimate long division problems.

Practicing Facts
Sum Sense Game that gives three numbers and has students drag and drop them to create division facts.
Division Machine Game

Reviewing long division
Fun4thebrain games
Division hidden number game: You can differentiate the numbers so that there are remainders.  The problem will either give the quotient, divisor, or dividend and the student has to fill in the missing number.

So, this is the first couple of weeks of our long division unit.  Obviously, there's a ton of practice and review needed.  Do you have any other resources for introducing or reviewing long division?  I could use all the help I can get!