Paper Airplanes

I find it difficult to make reading and analyzing non-fiction interesting. I try to find topics that they are interested in, but there is always someone that doesn't care.  I try to find non-fiction articles that are about 6th grade, but there is rarely anything good out there.  So today, I decided to have my students create paper airplanes.  I found some great instructions with pictures at http://www.10paperairplanes.com/.  I printed out 4 different types of airplanes with different instructions so that the students were able to work in groups.  I then created End of Year Assessment Type Questions based upon their instructions.  Some of the questions included:
Where could you find more information about this airplane?
Who would want to find and use this resource?
What do _____ mean in paragraph 4?
What would be the best heading for paragraph 7?  Why?
What is paragraph 2 mainly about?
What is the author's purpose in writing these instructions?
What type of non-fiction text features can be found in paragraph 5?

After the students have answered the questions and built their airplanes, we went out and each group got to set off their airplanes.  Then we did a whole group flight.  The students seemed engaged and applied their reading strategies effectively to the airplane instructions.  :)

I am interested in seeing what else I can do with these instructions.

Thanksgiving Meal

 

 

It is no shock to anyone that 6th graders are often self-absorbed. They rarely understand the value of a dollar or simple actions like grocery shopping. I therefore like to do a consumer unit around thanksgiving.  It is a great way to incorporate health (balanced meal), math (decimals), and reading (skimming and scanning and drawing conclusions).  The Thanksgiving Consumer Unit Worksheet has the students scour the sales ads to create a thanksgiving meal for a family of four.  I have included the differentiated worksheet that goes from simple subtraction to different sales tax and the purchase of furniture. The consumer unit takes about 3 30 min. blocks.

Todays Meet

I don't know if you have noticed, but the students of today are extremely needy.  They would rather ask a question, than figure it out themselves.  I will often become frustrated half way through my small group lesson, because every time I speak a hand goes up and asks a question.  The question is then repeated several times throughout the class period. Admin always says that you are supposed to work with a small group of students, but how is that possible with 1 of me and 25 of them?  WELL,  I started using www.todaysmeet.com/ to have students ask questions or communicate confusion.   With Todaysmeet, the students need to write their name and join a chat room that you have created ahead of time. While they are working on their assignment and I am at the front of the room with my small group, the students can type their question and either I or another student can respond.  My favorite part of using Todaysmeet, was students were able to find already answered questions by scrolling through the conversation.  At the end of class I was calm (not frustrated), the students were happy (they felt confident about the experience), and the assignment was completed! (Both my small group lesson and the student's computer assignment.)

Glogster

Glogster is a great website, but is often blocked by my school district.  It depends on the school itself.  After creating an Glogster assignment, I found out it was blocked at my school.  I still wanted to share it, just in case it is not blocked at your school.  In this assignment, I have the students watch videos, analyze data, view different pictures, and create a graphic organizer that depicts what they learned.

Civil War Prezi

If you haven't noticed by now, I love using technology in lessons.  Moreover, I try to have the students take ownership of their learning through webquests, todaysmeet, prezi assignments, etc. One of my favorite activities is a Civil War Prezi Assignment that I created.  The Prezi is an overview of what 6th graders need to know about the Civil War.  The students will go through the presentation, watch videos, analyze pictures, and read short blurbs of information to complete the Google Docs assignment.  The best part of the Google docs document, is it can later be turned into a study guide for the students by having them draw pictures, summarize the information they learned, or highlight key words and concepts.

Snag It

Do you ever have something come along that at first you are like, "this is ridiculous, I will never use this!" and then a month later you cannot imagine your life without it?  That is Snagit for me.  I use Snagit in everything! I use it when I am giving instructions, in student assignments, in emails to parents, and emails to staff members. It allows people to see what I want them to see and the steps to get to that picture.  For visual learners and ESOL students, this is an amazing tool! Snagit Editor also allows you take pictures of anything on your screen and edit it.

Here is an example of where I took a picture and edited it by adding an arrow and text to explain the picture.  From there, I was able to create an entire pdf file of pictures.

  This is an example of using Snagit to add pictures to a student assignment.

Math Stations

Today, I once again experimented with my math class schedule. I am really trying to meet with small groups to make sure that students understand and ask questions to verify and process information.  SO.  For my low and medium students I had 2 centers:  At one center my students were completing a webquest on order of operations.  *Warning the teachertube video was working yesterday, but was not working today.  Go figure... Then, while the students were working on the webquest, I was meeting on the carpet to go over signs of multiplication. I noticed after giving my students a quick quiz, they did not understand that a dot and parentheses could represent multiplication.  This was causing issues and confusion because they would stop following the P.E.M.D.A.S. and just guess what it means.  Or they would work around and then get to that "weird sign" last.  Either way, they got the wrong answer.

For my highest level of students I had an additional center.  The new blackboard 24-7 design allows teachers to create a module page that forces the students to complete certain tasks in a order.  Exactly like a webquest, but on blackboard. The students began by filling out a graphic organizer of important vocabulary terms.  Then they worked through a PowerPoint presentation about solving for x.  The PowerPoint presentation had videos, games, and assignments to complete.  It was, however, a review for the students. After the PowerPoint they began learning about expressions through a smartboard presentation.  The smartboard presentation is meant to be worked on with a partner.   The students were then expected to go through another PowerPoint on expressions that had videos, games, and assignments to complete.  The students ended the unit by taking a 3 question quiz with questions from previous End of Year Assessments.

*All of the assignments in the following module were found through FCPS Blackboard Ecart.

 

On Top of the World

 

Today I began a new language arts unit.  I have been thinking about this unit for about a year now and I feel like I finally have the resources and the energy (lets be honest) to begin it.  My idea is to incorporate nonfiction, fiction, and video to help the students learn about Mt. Everest.  I want to incorporate different types of literature so the students can see how information can be delivered in different ways.  Moreover, I want to create interest by showing that these convoluted facts can relate to them.  I began the unit by showing the youtube interview (below) and asking their opinion.  Most of the students are automatically hooked because they are only 3 years younger than Jordan Romero.  I then began reading the fiction book Peak by Roland Smith as a read aloud.  I am about 1/3 of the way through it and in the next week or two I plan to begin reading an informational text and practicing some non-fiction reading skills with The Top of the World: Mt. Everest by Steve Jenkins. The bulletin board picture shows the activity I did today, where I read a section of the book and the students drew what they visualized.  I am extremely proud of the mountain in the bulletin board, because my art skills are greatly improving. :)

Order of Operations

For my upcoming unit I am continuing the Guided Cornell Notes theme. The students will then take the notes and complete a partner activity with a partner of my choice.  The partner activity is designed so that the students can complete it on Google Docs, but can also be printed out and given as a worksheet. 



Answers to Order of Operations Guided Notes

Blank Guided Notes for Order of Operations

Gallery Walk

One of my favorite activities to do with students is a gallery walk. The gallery walk is just another way to complete a worksheet.  What I do is take one problem and put it onto a sheet of paper   Then I take the problems (about 20 or so) and put it up around the classroom or the hallway.  It depends on how big your room is and how much wall space you have.  Then the students go around and solve the problem using a sticky note.  On the sticky note they need to answer the question and explain their thinking.  I like this activity for several reasons, but two very big reasons.  First, it is real time feedback.  I can monitor the students understanding of the problem and where their thinking is incorrect.  If I see that a student has the wrong answer or explanation on the sticky note, I can call them over and have a quick mini lesson and ask follow up questions to make sure they understand.  Then if I have similar questions to the one they were stuck on, I can monitor their understanding by asking them to complete that problem and see if they can apply their new knowledge.  This is particularly useful if I have word problems up and the students are getting caught on the question and not the mathematics.  The second reason I love this activity is because the students are moving around solving the problems and they go back to check their work.  One of the rules I set in the beginning of this activity is that you have to solve each problem.  This ensures the students go back and check the problem to see if they answered the question already.  I don't know why they are more willing to re-solve the problem to make sure they are answering it correctly, but I have seen tons of students that never check their work the entire school year, go back and check their work during this activity.  It's great. I love that students can see each other's thinking and help each other out to solve the problem.  I love that I can work one on one with a student while the other's are occupied in a meaningful activity.  This is a great activity, you should definitely try it.

Social Studies Genius!

 
  I have a teammate that is fabulous!  She is the Yin to my Yang.  When I am stressed she calms me down, and when she is stressed...I stand awkwardly by and try to make her laugh by cracking bad jokes.  Regardless of my social quirks, she allows me to be me.  A couple weeks ago I came up with an idea that was promptly shut down by the administration staff.  When she saw that I was upset and discouraged by this, she decided to humor me by putting up a social studies version of my idea.  She free hand drew the United States Map and had the students decorate/label the waterways, geographic regions, Native American tribes, and will soon be putting on explorer routes.  This got me thinking, is there a way that I could integrate mathematics into this giant social studies map?

I created two extension projects for our 30 minute intervention/extension time.  The projects are meant to last about a week each.
The Explorer's Boats has students using tangrams, calculating percentage, area of geometric shapes, and perimeter of unusual shapes.

The Native American Blankets  has students using cut up shapes from construction paper to design their own native american quilts, based upon pictures of each tribes quilt.  The project explores calculating area and perimeter of the different geometric shapes, ratios, and percentages.

Day from hell

Today was a rough day.  My principal asked us last minute to retest the students that failed our benchmark test.  We decided to pull the students during the day so that only those students would miss class.  This created a catastrophe. The room we were supposed to be in was booked, so the teacher that was pulling them sent the students back to their original classroom.  I had to stop my class to go down and talk to the teacher that was in the room we were supposed to be in and see if she wouldn't mind moving.  Thankfully she agreed, but then I had to collect all the students and tag team teach with that teacher that was originally pulling the students. Then when everything settled down, in walks our SBTS (School Based Technology...something) with a broken netbook.  One of the students dropped it.  My heart plummeted.  Those things are so expensive and I was terrified I was going to get yelled at. The day just continued to get worse.  My only bright spot in the day was the normally chaotic intervention time.  I typically leave that 30 min. block stressed out and feeling like a failure because the students still do not get it. (This intervention block is made up of my remedial students, special ed, and my low ESOL students.)  I decided that today I was going to use my new ELMO to model multiplication of fractions. I noticed from the quizzes that I gave and the benchmark test that the students were able to compute the problem, but could not show visually and describe what it actually means. Using my ELMO,  I was able to draw/color and use pattern blocks to show what I am doing when I multiply fractions and why the product is smaller.  At the end, it seemed the majority of the students were able to complete one fraction problem independently.  Tomorrow I will continue working on this and see if there is any retention.  I am hoping that by the end I can give them completed shaded in blocks that they can they identify the problem and create a word problem from it.  *Fingers crossed*.