Birthday Research

Who shares your birthday?

This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite things we do throughout the year! The students get so excited to find connections with themselves and history. It turns out to be an amazing project where they are learning without even knowing it. 
I LOVE SECRET LEARNING!!  💓

The project consists of students researching the month and date of their birth (not the year). They learn about interesting news events, entertainment events, and people who share their birthday.
CONNECTIONS!! Seriously, the excitement is real, people!

Students sharing their connections to history.

They are working so diligently - Student Engagement = 100%!!

News and Entertainment Events

Students record their information on a template. When they begin creating their posters, they have the option to either cut out the bubbles and glue them onto the poster or re-write the information. 

Students can either send me pictures to print (saved in a Google Doc and limited to one page), can print them out at home, or draw them. Pictures are required for each section of the project. 

We use a rubric to grade the projects. Students receive the rubric with the template so they are aware of where the grading comes from.

Students are graded both on their actual project and their presentations. Students start out with a 100 for their presentation grade. Anytime they are talking or acting up during another student's presentation, they lose 5 points. This ensures that students are being active listeners. However, because of the excitement this project usually brings, I hardly ever have to take off points!! Win win!!

A finished project looks something like this:

"Frindle" Site Example Complete

My example of the Frindle site is COMPLETE!! 😁

Here is the link to check it out: "Frindle" Site

My plan for introducing our novel unit is to have students create the Google Site on Day 1.

I'll introduce the book with this Book Trailer: "Frindle" Book Trailer.

Next, students will access the following files using Google Classroom:

- Before You Read

- Frindle - Reading Logs

- Frindle - Vocabulary

- Vocabulary List

From there, we will start creating the Google Site and uploading the necessary documents. Students will use the following Screencast to help in creating their Google Site:

I am going to walk through the creating of the Google Site with the students. I'm unsure if I'm going to use a Screencast to do this or just walking through, step-by-step with each class. Clearly the Screencast sounds like a voice and sanity-saver, but I'm thinking that more students will be successful if I go through it slowly.

After creating the Google Site, students will complete the "Before You Read" section.

We also use short quizzes to monitor their progress daily. These combine for a weekly grade as well. Last year, we did paper quizzes as an "Entrance Ticket" and used a Google Sheet to average their grade for the week. This year, I made Google Forms for each of the paired chapters so that it can be completed fully online (and graded for us)!

Here's what the quiz for Chapters 1-2 looks like:
Frindle - Ch. 1-2 Quiz

Here's what the Google Sheet looks like:

The column to the left will have student names. Each of my 4 ELA sections has a tab at the bottom. Once I input their grades for the individual daily quizzes, it will average them for me and give me a weekly grade!! Easy peasy!! 😃

Branching - An Aid to Reteaching

Thanks to an awesome teacher at Clute Intermediate that told one of my team teachers and I about Branching, we have been going Branching CrAzY!!

Branching is a way for students to self-check their answers on passages and/or Unit Tests. 

Branching is a way to reteach ALL students when they get answers incorrect and to reassure them on correct answers. 

Branching is a way for students to correct their assignments without the teacher having to repeat herself 4 or more times a day. 

Branching is a way for students to go back for better understanding when they may be too embarrassed to ask out loud in front of their classmates.

Branching is AMAZING!!

It can be a little time-consuming to get started, but once you get into the rhythm of it, it's a breeze. My team teacher and I have worked it out to where I set up the Google Form for Branching, add the questions, and the "go to" for each answer choice. During this time, my team teacher starts adding in the explanations. The process works without a hitch and we can usually knock one out fairly quickly!

Before students can complete Branching, they need to have completed the assignment. We use this mostly with reading passages. Students will complete the reading passage and submit their answers using a Google Form. We then write their grade at the top of the paper, but we do not mark their incorrect answers. While completing Branching, students can see what they missed and mark it on their papers.

In Branching, you start out with the question. If students answer correctly, it sends them to the next question. If students answer incorrectly, it sends them to the explanation.

Teacher View of a Question in Branching

 The next section will be an Explanation section. We duplicate this question and add it to the Explanation. Above the duplicated question, we will add an explanation for the question. If students answer the question incorrectly a second time, it will take them back to the same Explanation before letting them continue to the next question. Some examples of Explanations are shown below:

Explanation with highlighted text evidence

The highlighted text evidence is created by taking a screenshot of parts of the passage and highlighting them. I love using my teacher laptop for this part because the Snipping Tool that is preloaded is amazing. If using a Chromebook, there are various extensions that work just as well.

Explanation with Video

Another great thing that can be added for an explanation to the questions is videos. We use this summary one to remind students of what a summary is and help them in choosing the best summary of the story.

Explanation with Anchor Charts

Images can also be used for Explanations. In the example above, we used an Anchor Chart to remind students of the differences between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person Point of View.

Student View of Beginning of Branching

 Upon clicking "Next", students will be directed to the first question for the passage. Here, they will input their answer on the previously completed passage.

Student View of a Question in Branching

After inputting their answers, students will either be directed to the next question or the explanation for this question. This is how they determine if their answer on the passage was correct or incorrect.

Correct Answer → Next Question

Incorrect Answer → Explanation

When they finish, students will come to a section that says "Way to Go". Here they will type their name, select their teacher's name, and their class period before clicking "Submit".

Going Digital with "Frindle"

Here at Rasco, we love the book Frindle.

We have been using Frindle as a novel unit at the end of the year for 3 years now. It is easily one of my favorite books for 5th graders. I love that it shows what a class clown can do with their given skill sets. It also shows the caring and sincere parts of teaching. Nick thinks Ms. Granger is "out to get him" throughout the story, but sees a different side of her at the end of the story.

Every year, students have completed paper reading logs and paper vocabulary booklets. 

This is a teacher's nightmare!! 😵

Year ONE:

Students kept their own papers and were allowed to take them home.

"Mrs. Hipp, I left my reading logs at home."

"Mrs. Hipp, my mom threw away my vocabulary booklets"

"Mrs. Hipp, I've lost all of my papers" - They're due TOMORROW!!

This led to ...

Year TWO and THREE:

Papers were kept in the classroom.

There was clutter everywhere and packets of Reading Logs / Vocabulary Booklets coming out of every bookshelf and desk.

This year, I'm digitizing and so excited about it!

Students are going to complete their Reading Logs using a Google Doc, their Vocabulary Booklets using Google Slides, and house it all in a Google Site. 

Google Apps make my little teacher heart so happy!! 😍

Here's a preview of what I'm working on:

Google Dog - Reading Logs

Google Slide - Vocabulary Booklets

Main Idea/Summary Stations

We are now in Week 3 of our STAAR Prep. 😐

We have been doing passages every 2 days to build our student's stamina and understanding of the material, but I wanted to try something different.

I incorporated 6 Stations to review our prior knowledge of Main Idea and Summary, since these are both readiness standards and heavily tested. The first day we did our station rotations, I allowed 30 minutes per station. The second day, only 20-25 minutes per station. The third day, we will only have one station to complete.

Students at Station 1

Station 1: #MainIdea

In this station, students are using a Studies Weekly from their Social Studies class as the text. Working with the Social Studies teacher on my team, we pulled Studies Weeklies that connect to what they are currently learning. These include the New Deal, World War II, Tuskegee Airmen, etc. The students seemed to love the connection. Students are reading an article, and then providing a hashtag to give the main idea of the article. Much to my surprise, many students didn't know what a hashtag was. *Teachable Moment* They used a Google Doc to document their hashtags.

Link to Station 1 Assignment: #MainIdea

Students at Station 2

Station 2: NewsELA (www.newsela.com)

I love NewsELA because students can log in using their school Google Accounts (no new saved passwords). It also lets me import my classes from Google Classroom - so easy!! So, I chose 4 articles with questions on Main Idea/Summary and Making Connections to assign to students. They read the article, completed the "Write" activity, and then took the "Quiz". If they finished early, they could choose from the other articles. 

It made it even better that Station 2 was on the couches!! 😏

Station 3: Main Idea Task Cards

Using some amazing Main Idea Task Cards I purchased from TPT, students are reading a short, interesting, paragraph and writing a Main Idea sentence. I created a Google Form for students to type and submit their sentence. I LOVE the ease of grading with a Google Form.

Link to Google Form: Main Idea Task Cards

Station 4: BrainPOP (www.brainpop.com)

Students at Station 4

Our gracious PTO bought us a BrainPOP license for the school year. This comes in handy so often. There are so many variations to the topic on there: Challenges, Games, Activities, Quizzes, etc.

Students at Station 5

Station 5: Paragraph Practice

Using an old book I found amongst my assortment of papers in the filing cabinet, I chose 4 half-page passages with connecting questions for students to answer. Each passage was 3-4 paragraphs long. The questions included finding the main idea or summary of each paragraph, the passage as a whole, and naming the passage. I loved how this broke it down by paragraph, as questions on the STAAR usually do.

Station 6: Summary Tweets

At this station, students use a different Studies Weekly, but still one that connects to their current Social Studies unit. After reading the articles, students were asked to write a summary using only 150 characters. This proved to be very difficult for them since they could only use the IMPORTANT information. Sometimes limiting to 150 characters is sooooo hard!! They found that out today too. Students used a Google Slide presentation I created to document their Tweets.

Students at Station 6

Link to Assignment: Summary Tweets

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!! 😃

This blog will document the daily happenings of my 5th grade ELA Classroom.

We are a one-to-one campus with each student having their own Chromebook. I LOVE to incorporate technology as often as possible!

Check back for upcoming posts!! I can't wait to document our days!