Teeny Tiny Bloggers

This week I debuted blogging in my classroom with private accounts set up through KidBlog.org. The students LOVED it! I mean seriously, half of them blogged that I was the greatest teacher in the world. The more we use it, the more I am started to love it as well. The best part is that kidblog is set up for classes so I have complete control of everything! I can edit/delete their posts and I have to approve their comments on each other's blog before it's public. Also, all the blogs are private so the only people who can access or read their blogs are the other students in the class.

At first I thought it would be a good thing to do during computer center in Daily 5 (some of my students have already finished all the books in raz-kids) but I soon realized I wanted to use it for more. I quickly introduced it to my students in the computer lab and then gave them 20 minutes to write 3 sentences about themself and post it (since we don't get too much practice with typing I thought 3 sentences would keep them plenty busy). I was planning on having to run from computer to computer to trouble shoot, but the room was actually dead silent. About five minutes into the assignment I decided to walk around and see what the students were writing. To my suprise half of them had already posted and taught themselves how to change color, font, text, and add smiley faces. By the time I circled back around to my computer I noticed I had over 20 comments to approve. I was shocked the kids were able to grasp blogging so quickly. At the end of our time in the lab I had over 60 comments to approve and some students had written 2 or 3 posts. I went home after this 20 minute lesson and logged on to write a post for my students. It was then that I noticed some of my students had found out how to access our log-in page from the school's website (you have to click through 4 different websites/links) and were blogging and commenting from home! :)

Since they caught on so fast I realized I had to utilize their blog for something more substantial. I decided that every week I would post an assignment that they could complete during their computer time (they each get at least 20 minutes twice a week during Daily 5). The students know that they are not allowed to write any other posts or read their friend's blogs until they have completed their assignment. This week their assignment was to write two paragraphs about their favorite book; giving a summary and telling why they like it. The students who have already finished did a phenomenal job! In my opinion, it's better than what I would have gotten if they would have written it on paper.

I introduced some rules before we started blogging, but quickly after I realized that I needed to add some more. Here is what we came up with:
1. NO last names, phone numbers, or addresses
2. You cannot write mean things about other students or name mean characters after other students
3. You cannot leave mean comments (I had to clarify that writing a mean comment and then putting "lol" after it does not make it okay)
4. Our blog is NOT facebook or texting (some of my students were writing posts that just said "what's up")
5. You cannot publish a post that is not AT LEAST 5 healthy sentences (we talked about how we blog to become better writers)

And since I love lists, here are the reasons why I will continue to give my students ample oppurtunity to blog:
1. They LOVE it!
2. Encouragement: They leave each other such motivating comments about things that I wouldn't think to say. You can see how much it makes their day to read their friend's comments on something they wrote.
3. Modeling: I complete every assignment with them so they not only get to read my model of the activity but they get to read peer work that is more advanced or shows a different style of writing.
4. Community: All of my students get along for the most part, but I typically have groups of students who hang out all the time. Since the students have been reading everyone's blog and finding out more about them, I have had less arguments and seen more opposites choosing to work with each other. I have also noticed that one of my less popular students has become almost famous in our classroom due to her hilarious stories. It is good to see students starting to value her for her personality and want to get to know her.
5. Parents: Parents are able to read their child's writing and see how other students their age write. This is extremely helpful since sometimes parents of oldest or only children don't really know how their child fares against other students their age. (I've seen parents not believe teachers when they are told their child is behind or low).
6. I enjoy reading it as much as they enjoy writing it! The students also like to read my posts. They think it's funny that I am doing the assignments with them....maybe I will let them grade me?

Does anyone else use blogging in their classroom? I would love to hear how you make it work and what you use it for. All ideas, comments, and questions are welcome.

(Comments from another post)



Guided Reading Suggestions?

Hello All! A lot of teachers at my school, with the exception of 5th grade, use short stories or text excerpts to teach their guided reading groups. Their beleif is that the focus should be on the reading strategy/skill learned versus just listening to/helping a student decode. I agree that it is important to focus on teaching reading strategies/skills but I see so many 2nd and 3rd graders moving up into their new grades,  not reading chapter books. Even a lot of the students who are well able to read and comprehend a more complex chapter book will still grab picture books or easy readers for their book bins because they have gotten used to reading short texts (which by the way does not help with stamina during the end of the year standardized tests).

This is how I plan to do my guided reading next year (Next year my grade level will be switching students (grouped by reading levels) for 90 min. a day for reading and writing. Within the class I get I will split them again into 4 or 5 groups and differentiate for each level):

• Reading Read-Aoud or Mini-Lesson (10 min.) -It is in these whole group lessons that I plan on introducing and teaching the reading skill/strategy that guided reading groups will be working on that week. I will have all of my groups working on the same skill/strategy at the same time with different texts.
• Writing Mini-Lesson (10 min.)
• 4 Centers/Rotations (15 min. each) While I see 4 reading groups a day the other students will be rotating through centers doing:
• word work
• write to self
• read to self
• read to somone
• listen to reading
• reading extension activities
• library visit
• lit. circles/book clubs (My students will meet 3 times a week with their groups, without me, to read, discuss, and do some activities for a chapter book of their choice.)
• Author Share (10 min.) 3 or more students will share something from their writing journal with the class

I am a new teacher so any feedback or suggestions are welcome. How do you do reading groups and does it work for you? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Character Cash FREEBIE

Hello Friends! Today I am giving away my Character Cash for FREE!!! I made character cash & a character credit card to use as a fun reading extension activity for my students. Click on the link below to download it for free from my Scribd site. I am always curious to see if my resources are beneficial to other teachers so please leave me a comment if you download this or could use it in your class. Enjoy!

Character Cash

Book Spotlight & Creative Writing

So if you haven't been able to tell by now I love children's books (more specifically picture books)! However, what I enjoy most of all are picture books that make good read-aloud books and lend themselves well to reading extension or reading response activities. Today I am excited about two books that I recently came across that fit all of the categories metioned above.

This first is Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by Julia Donaldson.

The book is about a boy named Charlie who sits down to read his favorite book. In his book the main character just so happens to be reading their favorite book. And that main character just so happens to be reading their favorite book and so on. The story takes the reader through many different settings with many different chracters including ghosts, pirates, kings, etc. Oh, did I mention that the text rhymes? I find rhyming books so much fun to read aloud!

Reading Extension Ideas:

• Give each student 2 pieces of computer paper and have them fold them to make a book. Have the students write about their favorite book on page 1. On page 2 have them draw a picture of it. On page 3 have them write about what the main character of that book might read. On pg. 4 have them draw a picture of that book. On page 5 have them write about whether or not they liked Charlie Cook's Favorite Book. On page 6 have them write about how the book relates/connects to them. And of course allow them to do an elaborate illustration on the front titled: (student's name)'s favorite book.
• Have each student write and illustrate and poem about their favorite book. (Reread some of the rhymes from the book.)
• If you have enough copies of the book you could allow students to partner up and try to figure out the genre of each story mentioned.

The other book I found is That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell.

This book is about a little girl named Emily Brown and her favorite stuffed rabbit. The queen wants Emily's rabbit badly and she sends every branch of the military, and others, to try and convince Emily to give up her rabbit. When Emily still refused the queen sent a special ops team to steal it while she slept. However, the queen ruined the rabbit by re-stuffing and washing it. Emily Brown marches into the palace and takes her rabbit back but does not leave the queen empty handed.

Reading Extension Ideas

• Have the students write a short story about one item they would refuse to part with. Tell them that in their story they must think of a creative way for President Obama to try and take that item and what they would do to stop it.
• The illustrations in the book (by Neal Layton) are amazing! Emily and her rabbit have all sorts of fun, imaginary adventures and for a lot of them Layton drew Emily and her rabbit on top of real life pictures. To have students recreate this you could give them a real photograph and have them cut and paste a drawing of them with their favorite item onto the picture. You could print these real-life pictures from online, get them from a magazine, or use the pictures from old (or dollar store) calendars.

I hope this inspired or encouraged someone! Enjoy!

5 Squares

Hello World! When I was doing my graduate internship I used 5 squares to teach my students how to write a complete paragraph. I taught them to remember the five sentences needed in a paragraph by Topic, Tell, Tell, Tell, Think. The tell sentences are the detail sentences and the think sentence is the concluding sentence. We held up a finger for each sentence when we would chant the saying or use it to do a shared writing. You can also use five squares to teach students how to write a 5 paragraph essay the Topic, Tell, Tell, Tell, Think sentences become the paragraphs. I have just completed (and posted to my TpT store) a unit to help students and teachers learn this procedure. The packet includes worksheets for sentences to practice copying sentences from a paragraph into the right squares, writing a paragraph based on a prompt, writing an essay based on a prompt, and a blank 5 square template. Below is a preview, let me know what you think!

5squarespreview

Click HERE to visit my TpT store! Enjoy!

Free Printable Writing Prompts

Fun Writing Prompts

writingprompts

Work Work Binder Cover

work work cover