Interactive Notebooks - Social Studies

You know when you get in the habit of doing something, like going to the gym on a regular basis, and then something throws you off and it's difficult to get back into the habit. You might have good intentions and tell yourself that you will get to the gym and then it doesn't materialize, well, I was getting like that with blogging. For two weeks we were on fall break. I had a list of things to work on for school and had many blog posts that I wanted to write. But I couldn't get in the right mood to write them. Here I am forcing myself to post in hopes that it becomes more regular again.

Monday and Tuesday were workdays, which are great because you can ease back into waking up early and having a routine. The students headed back on Wednesday and we have been busy ever since. I have tons of things from first quarter that I didn't get to share. We'll see how much gets posted.

One of the new things I have been testing out this year is interactive-style notebooks. Last year I started getting into lapbooking and then found that interactive notebooks had a lot of the same elements. I even discovered that many of the foldables/mini books/etc. aren't that novel either. We set up all of our notebooks with a table of contents and most of the pages include graphic organizers, foldables, mini books, and more meaningful (and colorful) activities).

Today I wanted to highlight just a few from our social studies notebooks.

At the end of each quarter I ask my students to write me a letter telling me how their quarter went. I had several students comment on the notebooks and that they enjoyed the activities that we completed in them. I love that it forces students to read deeper (and not just skim and scan - like they might for a worksheet) and that they get to be creative. It's definitely more meaningful and, to throw out a buzz word, has built in differentiation!

And now, I am also getting back in the habit of going to the gym regularly and my yoga class starts in 25 minutes!

Fall Break!

I absolutely LOVE being on a modified year-round schedule. Having two week breaks at the end of each quarter is a much needed time to rest, relax, reflect, and recharge for teachers and students. This past quarter has been the most stressful of my career and this break is is necessary! I haven't been feeling too well and I know that the stress is a big part of the problem. Going to see the doctor next week, but I've started juicing again and I'm going to give some B-12 supplements a try. So far I've spent some time with family and did some of this...

...and starting reading this...

Tomorrow I have a district training for Common Core ELA. Of course I'm a little bummed that I'm taking this over break (it was over break or during school nights) but I'm also excited to get more guidance on the transition to the new standards. 

Also, I have quite a few things that I want to blog about from first quarter, so hopefully the next week or two I can share some of the great things that my 5th graders have been up to!

If you're making mistakes...

I saw this great poster on Pinterest and it actually came from ModCloth. I just HAD to have it because not only is the quote perfect, but it is from Neil Gaiman who I adore (and we will be studying next month). ModCloth wasn't offering a print, so I made my own to hang up. I'd really love to buy a high quality print if they ever make it available.  

We only have 3 more days of school before we are on our two week fall break! Of course I'm excited, but mostly because I am in need of some good R&R. I'm also excited because that means November is right around the corner, and November means NaNoWriMo! Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It's only the coolest thing going on in November. 

NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month and participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days. They also have a Young Writer's Program and two years ago my class and I embarked on this journey. I wrote a 50,000+ word novel and they wrote novels aiming for their own word-count goals. My class and I did it again last year. I can't imagine not doing NaNoWriMo in the classroom. It's full of amazing benefits for the kids. They become more confident and writers. They learn to make achievable goals and write steps to get there. They become more detailed writers. They learn to be persistent. They become more fluent writers. And I could go on and on! Interested? Head over to the Young Writer's Program site. You can order your free classroom kit now!

Before we start NaNoWriMo we spend two weeks preparing. I use the YWP workbooks which are amazing, and free, resources. And here is where the amazing Mr. Neil Gaiman comes in (sidenote: I adore his wife too, and had the pleasure of attending her concert last weekend). If you are unfamiliar with this fabulous writer I suggest you check him out. He writes for adults, young adults, and children. His most well-known books for the upper grades are Coraline (which was made into a movie) and The Graveyard Book which won the Newberry Medal in 2009. When we review plot I read Neil Gaiman's The Wolves in the Walls. It is a lovely, but slightly disturbing, picture book that is just right for the upper grades. It holds their attention and each element of plot is crafted perfectly. The day before we start NaNoWriMo I show the kids the episode of PBS's Arthur that features Neil (called "Falafelosophy") and it's all about becoming a writer. How fitting for the program! 

I'll start blogging more about NaNoWriMo in the coming weeks.  I'd love to hear from other teachers that use NaNoWriMo in their classrooms and from those that may be trying it out this year! 

Art Masterpiece - Pointillism

Art Masterpiece is the program that our school district uses for art instruction in the elementary schools. There are pre-planned lessons, one a month, that parent volunteers come in a teach. In each lesson the students learn about an artist, a style of art, and a specific piece of art by that artist. Last Friday was our first Art Masterpiece lesson of the year, and I just so happened to be out that day. I was a bit bummed because I love watching my students create, but I came back to some lovely artwork!

They learned about Pointillism and studied Georges Seurat and his Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The did their own Pointillism paintings using a cotton swab and they all came out so beautiful.

When I picked them up they were very wrinkled papers, so I had a parent volunteer mount them on some dark colored card stock. The Art Materpiece coordinators also provided us with a nice little description of the lesson which we also mounted under their work. My class came in the classroom this morning and oohed and aahed over their stunning pieces of art!

Book Order Bonus Points!

We did it! My class earned 7,000 Scholastic Bonus Points this month! I stumbled upon Laura Candler's guide to earning bonus points and thought it would be a lot of work, and it really wasn't. I generally hand out the book order once a month, and I don't push students to order from it, but it is always an option for them to order. In a typical year I usually earn about 1,000-2,000 bonus points which I promptly spend on more books for the classroom. I never thought I would ever put in a book order over $100, but today my class ordered $350.67!

Yesterday was the due date for the book orders and it came to about $254. The students were a bit bummed and really wanted to try to make the goal and several said they had lost their order forms. So, new forms were found and I had some genius students suggest that everyone bring in a few dollars to donate so I could choose some classroom books. I also told them that if they ordered over $325, I would order enough to get us to $350. I only had to put in about $2! My kids rocked it!


I don't know what I am going to order with the bonus points. I want to get the kids in on the decision making, but I know I need to get more informational text in my classroom library. Any suggestions on what to buy? 

Smarties Fractions

My math class is an intervention group. The majority of the students have an IEP, and if they don't they are at least one grade level below 5th grade and need a lot of extra assistance. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are great because I have a para and the resource teacher in there and we do a small group rotation. On Monday I typically teach whole group and introduce the concept for the week and on Fridays I take them to the computer lab to practice math facts, we review the concepts of the week, and then we complete an assessment.

This week we started fractions. I was a bit worried because I know that students often struggle with fractions and I haven't taught math in forever. We started off by discussing what fractions are and they did a great job of coming up with a definition together....Fractions are parts of a whole. Many remembered the names of the numerator and denominator and some even knew the connection between fractions and division. One of the girls walked in wearing a great shirt that was perfect for fractions. It had an image of a bubble gum machine with different colored gumballs. We used that briefly to remember what fractions were. Then I had them briefly discuss what they liked about fractions and many said that they were fun and enjoyed working with fractions. One said they like fractions because it was easily related to food! What a great segue to our Smarties lesson!

I had seen several Smarties activities on Pinterest/blogs/TpT but most were geared to the younger grades and didn't accomplish everything that I needed to. So I whipped up a little worksheet that we completed together, each student had their own unique pack of Smarties. First the students colored in what their pack looked like and then we wrote the fraction for each color. Next they ordered the fractions from greatest to least and I touched on reduced fractions and equivalencies. Then the students compared the fractions.

As we were working I thought of more that I could have added to the handout, but just had them flip it over and write it on the back. They first wrote their fractions in word form and then they wrote a simple word problem and wrote the solution. I thought it would be great to have them eat certain fractions and so had them put their Smarties into fifths (since there are 15 in a roll they had groups of 3). We talked some more about equivalent fractions and then they ate three-fifths of their Smarties followed by six-fifteens and they were all gone. The lesson went pretty well and the students enjoyed it. The part that they struggled with the most was coloring their roll in the correct order!

Get your free copy of this activity!

Comparing Integers

As I've mentioned before, I haven't taught math in several years, and this year I am teaching an intervention math class. I have 21 students in my math class and three days a week I have the resource teacher and aide come in for a full hour. It has been working quite well so far. This week we are working on integers. After getting some ideas from other bloggers I put together a really simple game. Each pair of students gets 40 integer cards, most of which are negative numbers. Each partner takes 20 cards and then they flip one over. Just like in the card game 'War', the card with the highest value wins.

 

I made some simple recording sheets for students to write their card value, their opponents card value, and then add the appropriate <, >, or =.

We played for about ten minutes yesterday and today and the kids are really enjoying it, I can tell they are also mastering comparing integers! You can easily whip up your own version of the game, or buy the one I created for a mere $2.00.