Weather Channel App in Math

Hi, we've decided to venture off with our own blogs! Please go to teachitivity.blogspot.com to find a revised version of this post. See you there. 

Why not teach kids about temperature using something we use everyday - the Weather Channel app! I'm a huge fan of double dipping whenever I can. This activity brings in geography and statistics while the kids have fun calculating temperatures. The day my kids did this, I tweeted it on our class twitter account and the Weather Channel retweeted us. Of course, I flipped out and took a screenshot of it to show my kids the next day. Find this activity HERE!!
-Katharine

Teaching Food Webs with Facebook

Hi, we've decided to venture off with our own blogs! Please go to teachitivity.blogspot.com to find my new posts. See you there. 
Kids love social networking but often times, it's hard to incorporate it safely in the classroom. I put together this mock-Facebook template for science this year and it turned out to be a blast for the kids. I just used Pages (or Word) and made text boxes. The kids chose an ocean organism from the bottom of the ocean food web and made a "Facebook" profile for them. They showed their understanding of the food web by writing statuses. For instance: "Just had a nice meal of algea, plankton, and bacteria with my family!" Then they might post a status as if an organism higher up on the food chain consumed them today and tagged them on Facebook. It was so easy to differentiate too. Students who needed a challenge either imported images from the internet, staged photographs using photobooth, or created videos using Videolicious. Many of the students included each other's organism in their statuses which made it seem even more authentic. I can't wait to see how else I can use this template next year!

-Katharine

Literature Circle Discussions

I LOVE literature circles! I love to hear the discussions, and I love to hear my students get excited about literature.  I wanted my literature circles to have more rich discussion and to be more structured so that they were on task  and getting things done (every teachers dream...).  I created role cards and discussion guides to make sure that all students were engaged during literature circles.  I also made self-assessments and peer assessments to hold them accountable.  My classroom during literature discussion has truly transformed!

You can find this literature circle packet HERE!

-h

Discussion Cube

With Common Core at a forefront in education today and also just an emphasis on higher-level discussion in the classroom, it is important to create an environment where students can learn to back-up and support their thinking.  We do a lot of discussing in my class, but I have been trying to work with my students on keeping the conversation going and having meaningful discussion.  We do sentence starters, and sometimes I even record my kids discussing and let them watch it to focus on what they need to improve on.  A new technique that I have started is this discussion cube.  When the conversation wanes or gets stuck, they just roll the cube and continue with the discussion.  This has helped to show my students how to carry on a discussion, and it has also encouraged some really deep conversations.

This resource is provided HERE!

-h

New Items

It has been FOREVER since one of us has posted, but we have been busy little bees teaching teaching teaching! I just wanted to share a couple things that have been going on in my classroom recently.  We are an IB school, so I am always trying to find ways in the classroom to discuss the IB learner profile or promote IB attitudes.  These are basically just good characteristics that we encourage our students to encompass.  I created these fun IB interactive cards for each of my table groups.  After we do an activity or lesson, I have the students pull out the envelope with the cards with it and cooperatively choose an IB attribute of the learner profile that they had to use.  They have to be able to back up their answer because each group chooses one representative to stand and deliver their card.  Then we have a short classroom discussion on their characteristics that they had to demonstrate in order to be a communicator, thinker, risk-taker, etc.  Below is a picture of what some of the cards look like.

These cards with the instructions are located HERE!

Even if you do not work at an IB school, it would be fun to put character words on these cards or words that you want to promote in your classroom.

Edmodo and Discussion

Edmodo is obviously a great resource to use in the classroom in many different ways.  I just wanted to share one way that I use Edmodo and how I use it to promote discussion.

Edmodo is a great way for students to discuss their self-selected reading text.  I created small groups with in my class group.  These groups are heterogeneous so that the students can gain information from each other and learn about a variety of different books.  By grouping the student heterogeneously, the students can build off of each other, gain vocabulary, and learn about books that they might not even be capable of reading.

Basically, every week I post a question or a topic for them to discuss about what they are reading.  The students have to post about their book and then respond to two other people's posts within the week.  Not only is this pushing their reading to the extra step, but it is integrated reading and writing.  It is also a great way to promote literature discussion.  Sometimes, I even post something during the week to get them thinking at a higher level if their discussion seems to be surface level.  The students participate in literature circles online through technology!  They love getting to share what they are reading and learning about other good books from fellow classmates.

Just a quick idea!
-h

Word clouds in the content areas

Who knew word clouds could have so many uses? Earlier, I posted about using word clouds as an activating strategy. Another way that I use word clouds in my classroom is when learning content area vocabulary. After learning vocabulary words in Social Studies, the students got in groups and made a list of words that describe their designated vocabulary word. Then they created a Wordle using Wordle.net. I printed these off for an activity the next day. At the beginning of the next lesson, I posted the student-made wordles around the room and numbered them. The students then did a silent activity where they walked around the room and wrote down which wordles they thought went with each vocabulary word. We discussed their responses, and I wrote the word on each wordle. I kept these posted until their assessment. This ended up being a great way to review vocabulary in a visual fashion.

-h