~This Week is Jacked Up! Peek @ My Week~

Good Morning Everyone,

I feel like singing "It's 3AM, I must be lonely," but I woke up at 4 am and now it's after 5. And, I'm not lonely :) I am working on writing down my plans for the week because this weekend was not about planning and....this week is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO
                                                                            JACKED
                                                                                           UP!

Ever have one of those weeks where your head is spinning from all of the interruptions? Well, this is one of those weeks where I have to write all of that down first and then fill in some holes with the stuff we need to get done.

Since my week is so crazy...(disclaimer: I hope my use of 'Jacked Up' does not offend you. It is a special phrase in my classroom that I am afraid I have taught to all of my students. When they come in and tell me a messed up story, something's not fair, etc. I say, "That is jacked up." Or, when the room is a mess, "This room is jacked up. Please help us get it back together." Wow. What a window into my classroom :)

Here's my list of INSANITY (but it is going to be a fun "insane" week!)
* Monday: Science Fun for Everyone (a day long in-house field trip of 3 science sessions)-If you are in NC, this company is out of Cary. It is super in-expensive. (If you are year-round, you can lock in cheaper prices before August, which is what we did this year!) We invite these guys over twice a year so that students get hands-on science with all of our curricular units. And, since 5th grade science is tested, this is an amazing way to reinforce our concepts.

* Tuesday: Middle School Transition meetings (for students with an IEP). I will be IN and OUT of the classroom! And, HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO my kids are still 5th graders, can we please friggin' stop talking about middle school and let me enjoy the end of the year pretending the best class in the world is not going to be leaving me---oh--so--soon? We are also starting our GRADE LEVEL SCIENCE REVIEW rotations and since our week is jacked up, you will see these all over the place instead of during our regular science block. We have each taken a unit to review (or do new experiences/activities, etc) with the kids. We will aim for 3 days of review a week and then two days in our own classrooms to reinforce those concepts and look at test questions. This also means that we get to teach the 3 day rotation 4 times instead of trying to put together all of the review for all of the units ourselves.
* Wednesday: Early Release~students leave at 11:20. I basically break the day into 8-9, 9-10, 10-11 and we get a lot done, but oh, wait....we also have our Scholastic Book Fair time on Wednesday.
* Thursday: Think you are going to get some normalcy here? Nice try! I have an ELA leadership meeting. We work on things like our AH~mazing open-ended reading assessments, talk about tweaks that need to be made for next year. This means SLEEPING IN~a little :) and being FINISHED EARLY as we should be done at 3ish, and I never-eVer-evaH leave school at 3. What-what!  If only I didn't have to make subplans...
* Friday: A REALLY NORMAL DAY, freaking finally. I say we just have a party. Well, we do have our last DARE session on Friday. Which means, I get to hang out in the room and clean, check work, go to the bathroom, etc. like a little bit of extra planning time. On a Friday? Really? :)

I'm sure I have forgot something...I don't even suggest clicking on my plans this week! Unless you want to laugh with me. Nothing is in the right place, everything is moved around, and I'm going to have to take it one day at a time this week.I pretty much feel like I am on vacation from planning. :) I'm sure that will change this afternoon when the science fun is over and I have to make sure I'm ready for Tuesday.

It's going to be a picture-taking kind of day! I'll post some of our science fun for your viewing pleasure later this week! Have a great week everyone!

~~**Photo Blast!**~Human Body and More!

What have we been up to? Take a visual look!

Edible Muscle Models

 Human Body Research Encyclopedias

Coordinate Plane art in math (my students had some amazing artwork, but this is the only one I snapped a picture of). The kids made a design, had to record the coordinates with "START"/"STOP" directions to help know when to connect the dots and when to start new lines. Then, on the second day, students received a copy of the coordinate directions and had to recreate the design. I will try to get more pics, but I am definitely doing this again next year! Great break from hard math concepts.

Have a great rest of the week! Enjoy your kiddos, this year won't last forever! :( 

Peek at My Week: Math Review, Human Body, Force and Motion

I'm linking up again for a Peek at My Week with  Deedee.

If you already checked out my plans for last week, I have updated them and moved things around to represent what we actually did. (You will notice I made changes with the Human Body Systems lessons and included links for the videos I used during reader's workshop to help students understand the body systems before they researched through reading. I also included what we discussed for morning meeting--this cannot always be planned the week before. Often, our topic comes from what we did the day before).This will probably be an obsession of mine--updating my posts to show my actual plans versus my projected plans. :) There's just never enough time for me to get ahead!

 

Weblinks:
Ms. Nelson is Missing Video (by Kindergartners found on Deedee's blog)--Too Stinking Cute not to use for Morning Meeting!)
Good Information for the confusing parts of Force and Motion (velocity, speed, and motion)

DPI Released Items for Math EOG

Bumper Car Physics
Roller Coasters: Build Your Own


Links to Products I am using this week:
Character Traits Definitions/Bulletin Board Posters

Force and Motion Illustrated Dictionary (Tarheelstate Teacher)

Bowling Ball Basics (FREE from Mrs. Kaiser, another NC teacher)
Math Common Core Assessments (Jennifer Findley)
Math Common Core Test Prep Helper (Jennifer Findley)

Cupcake Shoppe Multiply/Divide Fractions Problems (Tarheelstate Teacher)











Multiplying and Dividing Fractions with Area (House Plan Theme) (Tarheelstate Teacher)

Have a great week! I hope to get time to share something else this week too, even if it is just a photo dump! :)

Minilesson Magic: Helmet Law Debate (Interpreting and Comprehending Data in an Article)

Back to reality! And boy was it a great day! I was prepared (did you catch yesterday's post of my week's plans?) Monday is also my day that my team covers recess and lunch for my kiddos, so I got triple planning time with that and my after school time~no meetings, yay! Needless to say, I still have things to think about...remember my "I'm a 3-day planner" confession. I have a problem with OVER-THINKING things, especially in science and social studies. Maybe it's because we have so little time for these subjects but sooooooo many ideas that we could do. It's hard to weed it all out and make decisions (and then have time cut even shorter and have to re-adjust).

ANY-who. I decided to check in today to share my reading minilesson. Since I shared my plans with, I spent the whole day thinking, man, I should take a picture of that or blog about that to share what exactly I did and how it went. So, this week we are focusing on the human body systems during reading and writing (research, science, nonfiction reading, all rolled into one topic). Then, in our regular science time, we are studying Force and Motion, but I didn't just want to jump right in with that on our first day back, so I planned something that connects all of this, but my little babes barely knew it today. (They will see the connections throughout the rest of our week). Let's call today an ENGAGE. :)

We spent ALL--ALL--ALL last quarter working on opinion based essays and while we are not going to have TONS of time this quarter for a large writing project, I want to continue developing students' ability to write about their opinions and to structure an essay paragraph using PEEL (free download from Tracee Orman--we have used this method to the max this year!). They have grown so much, but ya know, "Ya use it or lose it."

In walks the NC Helmet Law Repeal Debate. Should motorcyclists be forced to wear helmets? Should our state (or yours) repeal their helmet requirements? (I used the word 'forced' instead of required because it's a strong sounding opinion-e word.) Some states require motorcyclists to wear helmets, others do not. Now, I am not a motorcyclists and do not plan to be. I may never be on one in my entire life (although I would have LOVED a helmet while at Carowinds last week :) But, this topic might just stir up some excitement for my kiddos and they can connect to wearing a helmet (or not) while riding a bicycle (meanwhile, I can teach them the importance of protecting their craniums and their brain--a key part of the nervous system).

Long story short, I quickly chose three articles for them to read today, made copies, etc. Then, I read them Sunday and thought WHOA buddy. I cannot send them loose on this article, "North Carolina Motorcycle Helmet Repeal Bill Passes First Mile Marker."  So, I quickly decided to turn this into a guided lesson where we interpret the information in the article. I decided not to give students the article at all (yet) and just work from the 6 excerpts I pulled out. For each snippet of the text, I wrote a question or two.

Most of the questions focus on interpreting what point the person quoted is trying to make or "talking back" to the text. Talking back to the text is something we learned to do last quarter. (When you are reading an opinion-based text, you often want to talk back to the text with your ideas. Critical readers should be talking back to opinion based texts because we know the author is trying to get us to agree with them and may be leaving out important information).

To get their little minds engaged,  I started with a bicycling questionnaire just to see where their thinking was before we talked about the issue.

After a quick sharing of our survey answers, I explained the issue at hand and then we went through the excerpts from the article one at a time. I read aloud from the smartboard and then had students try to interpret the info or talk back. Next, we shared, I helped interpret/explain when necessary, then we moved on to the next excerpt. It sounds boring or too teacher directed, but they actually seemed to get a lot out of it and wanted to talk about their opinions the WHOLE time! My~smart~little~thinkers :)

If you would like to do this lesson, I am linking the google presentation I made, the questionnaire and worksheet, and the article so that you can implement it PRESTO! Magic! :)

In my students article packet, I also included two others articles that have a heavy opinion that motorcyclists should have the freedom to choose, but we didn't get to those today.
Helmet Law Hypocrisy from ncrider.com (I only pulled a few paragraphs from this; while I don't agree, I thought it was a good example of strong opinion and something students could "talk back" to)
The Twisting of Data in Helmet Safety Studies from bikersrights.com

If you would like the packet I made (straight copy and pasted the articles above into a packet for the kids, shoot me an email and I will send it to you. I just don't feel comfy sharing that on the web). Also, these are not 'pretty,' but they are down and dirty minilesson materials that get the job done.

RI.5.1 Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
RI.5.2 Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.
RI5.3 Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more (ideas) based on information in the text.
RI5.8 Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s). 
Hope you can use this, if not now, next year!

lifeloveliteracy@gmail.com

Peek at My Week: Show me the Plans!!!

Hi Everyone!

Spring break, now over. I nearly laid in the bed all day (well, until 11:30). Then did some blog-stalking-pretending-I-was-planning-procrastinating. I watched an episode of undercover boss and cried when the boss gave a kid a full-ride to college so that he wouldn't have to work and go to school at night. Wow! If only everyone felt as grateful as this kid to be getting his education paid for. As happy as he was, I cried because I knew he was getting an opportunity for higher education that he wouldn't have otherwise. {Did you know I'm a softy?} I finally talked myself into a run-jog, walk-around-and-look-at-the-birds around 5. Now I sit here needing a shower, needing to pack my lunch, needing to pick out tomorrow's outfit, and needing to finalize my plans for the week so that I can link up with Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten blog for her AWESOME Peek at My Week linky.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited about our upcoming quarter, but I always get a little paper-bag hyperventilating when it feels like we are starting so many new things at once. I know I will be fine by Tuesday, and seriously, I am planned-and-ready for tomorrow, so calm down!

If you take a close look at my plan...you.will.find.some.holes. Seriously, I am a 3-day planner. I want to see how things go and then re-organize. I have some ideas in my mind (usually) but I wait to make final decisions on what comes next based on what my kiddies do. So, don't-judge, please :)

If you click on the images above, it will take you to a google doc where you can click on the hyperlinked plans. (Can't figure out why the google doc does not allow you to click on hyperlinks, but if you download, you can get them that way).

I made these plans in word and converted them to a PDF. Then, I watched Deedee's video about how she makes her visual lessons and she does it in powerpoint. You know I love to make stuff in powerpoint over word but I thought word would be easier for these lesson plans...I might be converting over to powerpoint next week! If you haven't hopped over to see Deedee, you definitely want to check out her blog and the other bloggers that are giving a "Peek" at their week.

Pass the Torch!

Get Ready for Bloggy Olympics!!!

Join The 3AM Teacher, the Reading Olympians, and over 80 SUPREME education bloggers as we take you through a tour of the Reading Olympians Root Study Program!!

To get started with Reading Olympians, I printed the raps for each set onto different colors of cardstock. (I made two sets of the copies so that I would have enough cards for each student with a few extras). This method goes along with my Task Card Love <3 as students or the cards can move around.

I also printed these babies on the same color cardstock as the set it matches.

Next, I made copies of the Journals for students. (We are still on the Nike Set).

During our first lesson, students received the rap cards randomly and worked on the 4 quadrant sheets in their journal until they felt that had thought of everything they could. Mainly, I wanted students to generate as many words as possible using the root. I explained that they could move on to other roots, but would likely be able to keep previous roots in mind and would probably come up with new ideas. You could have studenst work in partners to generate words, but my group is having a talking/playing issue, so I wanted this step to be independent.

After a few sessions of doing the steps above, I have students play a brainstorming "game":

* I put students in groups of four and everyone has a writing utensil. I give them a ledger-sized sheet of paper or chart paper.
* Students record one prefix on each side of the paper to prepare for the brainstorming session.
* I set the timer for 5 minutes and all students silently record words that contain one of the prefixes. (The group decides which one to start with first; it really doesn't matter as long as they only work on one at a time). Students do not analyze the appropriateness of the words at this time, it is simply a brainstorming-get-it-on-paper session.
* When the timer goes off, students get 1 minute to discuss the words recorded and mark off any that do not fit the prefixes' meaning.
* Students flip the chart over and begin the 5 minute brainstorming session again with the new prefix.
* When the timer goes off, students get 1 minute to check their words and mark any off.

In the next lessons, we go through a whole-group sharing session where students report out the words they came up with. Students get 1 point for words that no one else came up with and -1 for words that we deem do not fit the meaning of the prefix. (Keeping score has been harry-and unnecessary for motivating my students, but if you have time for it, it could be a fun element).

As groups share words, I type them into a google doc so that we can all keep up and have a record for later.

I just started using the program 3rd quarter to work out any kinks and figure out how I wanted to do it so that I am fully implementing it starting at the beginning of the year next year. I can't wait to learn how everyone else is using the program and putting their own spin on it. (I'm sure I will make some tweaks next year as we go 1-1 laptop, like having students generate their word lists in group googledoc documents, then I can simply pull each groups set of words up on the smartboard to discuss. This would be a major time saver (and might allow me to better do something where I am keeping score). If you have not started implementing the program, I say, GET TO IT. Print out the Nike Set and just set yourself a goal of using it with the time you have 4th quarter to see how you want to use it in your classroom next year. I totally recommend the purchase!


Discover the program IN ACTION in more K-6th grade classrooms as you Pass the Torch!! Get ideas, discover the progression of the program, and enter the Raffle for a chance to win ONE of the three prizes listed below!!

First Place Winner : Gold Medal

  Prizes: Complete Reading Olympians Program
            $50.00 Amazon Gift Card
            50% off Discount Code for a 1-Day shopping spree at The 3AM Teacher's Etsy store!

Second Place Winner: Silver Medal

   Prizes: $25.00 Amazon Gift Card
              40% off Discount Code for a 1-Day shopping spree at The 3AM Teacher's Etsy store!

Third Place Winner: Bronze Medal

    Prizes: 30% off Discount Code for a 1-Day shopping spree at The 3AM Teacher's Etsy store!

Pass the Torch!!!
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Currently April

I am linking up with Farley's Currently for April (for the first time :) Hopefully I can get into the currently tradition. It seems that EVERYONE LOVES it!

Listening
"Keep your head up, my LOOOOOOuUUUhhVe"...LOVE LOVE the Lumineers, 'nough said!

 

Loving

My mini-vaca to Charlotte. I took my 11 year old cousin to Carowinds. I haven't been since middle school and had a blast getting jostled around all day. I also LOVED spending time with her even though she's starting to turn into a teenager! 

(oh, first pic of me on my blog...Dat's cool! :) 

Thinking

.....it's getting late, but I need to get over to escuella to make some copies for Monday. But I reaaaaallly want to go to Tanger and pretend my break isn't almost over! If only I could wing it without my copies (or get to school early on Monday morning), but hey, that's JUST-NOT-ME. Not the winging it part, that's totally me sometimes:) but the early Monday morning part. That would just be lyin'! 

Wanting

more break...see above :) 

Needing

is a coral blazer (the newest fad) a need? Aqua/turquoise would work too, but I just bought a flowered turquoise necklace that would look awesome with a coral blazer with cuffed arm. Hence, Tanger shopping time, please! 

Advice

My advice for TPT-ers would be go ahead and switch to powerpoint. I LOVE LOVE making my creations in powerpoint now. The main reason is because of the EASE of making thumbnail pictures for preview images. (With the click of a button, you can have the thumbnails ready to upload, stack for a collage image, and right there to easily post about on your blog). Basically, you go to FILE, SAVE AS, OTHER FORMATS, then change the file type to JPEG or another image type, then say SAVE ALL SLIDES in this document. Powerpoint makes a file on your computer named after the ppt file. It's so AH-MAZING that this week I took my Theme Bulletin Board Labels product that was perfectly fine and remade it in powerpoint so that I could get better image files of it. Of course, I added some pizzazz to it since I was already doing the work.

BEFORE: 

AFTER:  

Thanks for stopping by!

Human Body Systems-Ready to Teach!

When we return from break, we will be learning about human body systems. We have to learn about the respiratory, circulatory, muscular, skeletal, nervous, and digestive systems. This is new in our curriculum this year, which means  I get to learn new stuff too and figure out how best to teach it. Unfortunately, I feel like I have struggled all year to teach science in truly meaningful ways. Mainly, I feel like our new curriculum is shallow and widespread (we went from 4 goals/units to 7 domains). I'm not trying to be a baby (maybe I am) but I didn't like science to begin with when I became a teacher and then as I became a 5th grade expert on my science content areas, I began to like it more. I even got over my hatred of sand all over my room when we were learning about erosion, deposition, and weathering (no more landforms in 5th grade :( )

Now, with no {real} training or investment from our district, we got to start from scratch on a number of these units. We get the impression that no one is interested in investing in these standards because we will be transitioning to Next Generation standards in another year. (So, why didn't we just leave our old standards the hell alone as we also transitioned to the common core? In addition, we also have a 5th grade science EOG...on new standards...love it! That's education for you.) Discovery Ed's science tech-book was the only new resource we were given, which I'm also not that big of a fan of because it's pretty basic. Maybe I will appreciate it more next year when we are 1-1 and I can more easily assign components of the units to my students.

Okay, now that I have (somewhat) vented, I wanted to share my plans for the Human Body Systems with you. I'm actually kind-of excited about this unit.

We are going to start with nonfiction-based research in reader's workshop. I am going to try to embed as many nonfiction review lessons as I can, probably spending a majority of my lessons focusing on how author's signal vocabulary words and provide us with definitions (aka-context clues). Dedicating about two weeks for this in reader's workshop, we will still have a few weeks for looking at "Test Talk" for the reading EOG.

To hold all of my students' research together and to help them learn the important parts of the Human Body Systems content, I created a Human Body Systems Student Encyclopedia.

This is meant to be a down and dirty science unit. (Did I mention I will also be teaching FORCE and MOTION at the same time during our science block? Phew! Maybe I could have taught all of these standards if  I totally ignored social studies all year. How sad! :( )

During reader's workshop, I will start with a minilesson (probably a video, a journal question for students to respond to, or some other type of engagement activity, and a nonfiction-reading based review lesson), then students will move to articles that I have placed around the room. (I am getting articles from Discover Ed, readworks.org, http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/, and kidnetic.org, and I will be pulling books from the library.) I included links from readworks in the Human Body Systems research project. If you don't know about readworks.org yet, you should really check it out for decent nonfiction--free--and lexiled. (You can check out the list here and go to readworks.org to search for them.)

Another great resource I found was kidnetic.com/innerg. You can see below that you put a body part in place, then click on BRIGHT PAPERS on the RIGHT to learn more about the body part. I will either print off the Bright Papers for more research and/or head to the lab at the end of our 6 body systems reader's workshop cycle and let them click around to learn more and add info to their encyclopedias. We will also be using http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/.

Each day, we will focus on a different body system. The research sections for each body system include: coverpage/labeling diagram, structure/description/function chart for body parts, a more detailed diagram for labeling or other extension graphic organizer, a chart for students to list "Top 5 Ways to Keep this System Healthy" and "Illnesses and Syndromes that Can Affect this System," lastly, students complete a page where they try to find connections between different systems.

Then, in our writer's workshop block (since I plan for this to turn into a mini-writing project), we will do some sort of science activity to help students better understand the parts of the systems. When we are ready for the mini-writing project, I hope to have students focus on how to take care of one body system by doing more detailed research to understand how a specific disease or ailment affects a system (or multiple systems). I am hoping to make this unit deeper by providing a healthy living spin on it.

Human Body Systems now includes an answer key to help teachers provide feedback and help your students complete their research booklets! This was the most requested change to the Human Body Systems product and I'm so thankful for all the love sent through feedback and everyone's patience! If you have already purchased this product, please re-download for the updates! In addition the answer key, I included a page of the suggested activities that are listed in this blog post.

As I was planning this unit, I also showed some "love" to a few other TpT sellers. I purchased these posters from Mrs. Bell at Tangled with Teaching. It will make a great bulletin board and I will probably copy a set to place around the room when students are rotating to read their articles (it will provide a short break from longer articles and maybe reinforce something they have read. The posters come in two versions.

The human body systems clip art I used for my encyclopedia's came from Teachers Clipart and I found a great packet to use for my language/word study block from Mark Aaron, a FREE set of lessons for Human Body Idioms....go...grab...it...now!

Here are a few activity ideas: (you can also find these by following my Science Ideas pinterest board)
Make a Spinal Cord (spelloutloud.com)

Make a Skeleton (post includes possible read alouds--I would use toothpicks instead of chalk)
Make a Model of  Lung
Digestive System Activities
Importance of Cerebrospinal Fluid w/ an Egg (cool!)
Edible Bone Model (yum!)
Ideas for Cardiovascular System Activities

Phew! Long post, but I hope you found some ideas you can use :) Oh yeah, do you have any favorite activities you do with HBS? Other ideas? Feel free to let us know in the comments section!