Oct
8
Unit 2 – Everyday Mathematics
October 8, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
Greetings-
Well, the beginning of the school year certainly has taken away the daily aspects of keeping up with the likes of a blog, so I have had to put the blogging on the back burner until I can better handle these multiple tasks.
I am posting today about the latest addition to the Box.net shared folder I have created. It is a Notebook file that correlates with the 1st Grade Everyday Math Unit 2: Everyday Uses of Numbers.
Below is the Table of Contents page that links you to each individualized lesson with the unit.
Make sure to check out the Weather, Change, and Thermometer links within each days lesson plans. They are linked to specific daily calendar items that can be covered throughout the lesson now.
Above is the Story of Money page where you can chart various topics about each coin. Look for specific links back to the lesson you were at in the top right (or sometimes top left) corners. If you notice a Light Blue Open Book Symbol on a Notebook page, this will link you back to the table of contents.
One of the fun things that I have enjoyed doing through the construction process of these lessons, is trying to incorporate the interactive parts of the Notebook software with the Everyday Math games that the children play in the classroom. Above is an example of this. By adding the Flash-Based Die and creating a game board, we now have a Notebook version of the Penny-Nickel Exchange Game for the children to play on the SmartBoard.
If you have any questions as to how to work with this particular file, please feel free to contact me.
When I post lessons like this one and in the future I will be then posting the lessons onto my Box.net Share folder that is located at this Box.Net Link and is conveniently placed at the top right hand side of this blog.
Thanks for stopping by,
Bill
Aug
31
Speakaboos Speak to Our Class
August 31, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
Greetings,
With the start of the school year beginning for some already and some of us in the coming weeks, I am going back to the original plan for this site, which is to share some insight and depth into websites that could be considered useful in day-to-day classroom activities.
I will still be posting Notebook Lessons here when I complete them, but those may be few and far in between once the school year begins.
Tonight’s addition to the blog is a site ,called Speakaboos,that was listed in a teacher’s magazine (Scholastic Instructor) about a year ago and has been building it’s content since its inception in 2007. One of the big factors for me right off of the bat when I visit a site is the general aesthetics of the home page. I try not to fall into the whole “book by the cover” deal when it comes to websites, but more often than not, a home page that has a pleasing look, is one that is worth visiting. Speakaboos passed the initial “eye test” for me and is an overall great site to visit time and again.
I think the About Us from the developers sums up the site really well, “Speakaboos brings classic children’s entertainment into a digital world. Beloved characters and treasured stories are given new life through amazing celebrity performances, beautiful illustrations, and original music. At Speakaboos, children develop literacy skills while learning about technology in a safe and fun environment.”
The site is divided up into six different sections of stories in Speakaboos, “Favorites, Fables, Nursery Rhymes, Fairy Tales, Folk Tales and Songs.” The site has the help of celebrity readers with most of the audio stories and they all do a phenomenal job with being a good role model for fluency and expression.
The story above is from the Fairy Tales section and is read by Jim “Tuna” Halpert (aka John Krasinski) from The Office. Most of the stories are at a good length as well, so that the audience does not get bored at all during the listening. I have been overly impressed with all of the stories that my students and I listened to last school year. Below you will see some of the imagery that coincides with the telling of the story, the whole impact of the artist’s drawing and the telling make for a pleasant experience.
An additional bonus to the site that has been growing since the inception is the addition of comprehension worksheets that will connect the learners to the story.
Also a good addition is the activities page where the students and visitors can play games, print activities to do at home, sing some karaoke, send e-cards, participate in contests, & write in a diary. The Record Your Own section is still being worked on and I am very interested in how this turns out, because that would be a very cool addition to this already stellar site for children.
As with all of the posts that will be listed on this Blog, the site above is listed and categorized within the Moodle Companion Site. At the end of each post I will be listing exactly where to find this resource within the Moodle Companion Site.
{Box 15 – Teacher Resources} ~ {Kindergarten – 5th Grade Resources}
Speakaboos – Beginning Readers
Please share your experiences with this resource in your own classroom with all of us in the comments section!
Thanks for stopping by,
Bill
Jul
27
Everyday Mathematics — Smart Board Style!!!
July 27, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
Greetings,
After two weeks of pruning and tweaking I believe I am satisfied with my first attempt at “Smart Boarding” an Everyday Mathematics Unit. I have had grand illusions of one day having all of my Scott Foresman Reading Street and my Everyday Math Units all rolled into snug and interactive Notebook Files for me to catalog away and add and delete as needed from year to year. So far I am 1/30 in Reading Street and now 1/10 in Everyday Math. I believe the toughest job is done now, since I have foundations set in both formats, I can just add and delete to the existing files. Well enough jabbering, onto the Notebook File.
When I first conceptualized this plan in my head I wanted to be able to utilize my Teacher’s Manual without holding the manual all the time, so I thought what if I took the main points I wanted to hit out of each day’s lesson and put it up onto a Notebook Page…Below is what I came up with.
A Table of Contents page with a link to each day’s lesson if you click on the text. Within each lesson at the bottom left hand side you will see an image of a Book. This is your link back to the Table of Contents at any point you would need to navigate back there. There are also links to the T.O.C on the Notebook Pages that will get used daily as part of the daily routine (Weather, Temperature, Days in School, etc.). This allows for easy navigation back to the lesson for the day (whatever it may be).
Here is a look at a common Notebook Page from the Everyday Math Lessons. The lesson number and description will be located at the top of the page and the points of emphasis for that lesson will be located within the box. You can see the T.O.C Link at the bottom left. The coins on the bottom right will take you to…
the “How Many Days in School” Notebook page. With my students I have them daily tell me with coins how many days we have been in school to help reinforce the coin recognition/counting/exchanging skills. You can see I have the T.O.C Link on this page in the top left hand corner
One thing to watch for within the lesson pages is items that I have boxed around in white lines. These items have links to either pages within the Notebook file or to Web sites to reinforce the skills being taught. Also, Math Journal & Home Link pages are linked to their pdf links by just clicking on the text.
Below is some more screen shots from the Notebook File…
Here is a look at the Daily Attendance Chart that I have done for years in the classroom every morning for the first half of the school year.
Tally Mark Charting
Monthly Weather Chart
If you have any questions as to how to work with this particular file, please feel free to contact me.
When I post lessons like this one and in the future I will be then posting the lessons onto my Box.net Share folder that is located at this Box.Net Link and is conveniently placed at the top right hand side of this blog.
Thanks for stopping by,
Bill
Jul
19
Tribute to Frank Schaffer Publications…
July 19, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
Greetings,
Sometimes it is a tell-tale sign that if you have stuck around long enough in the field of education, you will certainly feel the effects of what is called the “swing of the pendulum.” This means something that is a new fad catches on and takes over for a while in a school district and then is pushed aside for the next “new” idea or fad, until the pendulum swings back and we start over with the previous fad from before. I get confused just thinking about this type action in the classroom.
Well, one thing that I am sure has not lost its effectiveness over the years (mainly because I can remember working on them in the classroom) is the sheets of fun that Frank Schaffer worksheets and workbooks provide for students on certain topics. I am not for a “drill & kill” worksheet society in the classrooms, but for as long as I have been in the classroom as a student and now as a teacher, I have been impressed with the quality of Frank Schaffer publications books and sheets.
Which gets to the point of this post (sorry it took so long), I am in the process of looking through old manipulative workbooks and tools that I have used in the classroom with students and am trying to integrate them with the great interactive technology of the Smart Board. If you remember the Workbook pages that gave you the little window to write your answer into and then you flip the page over to check your window answers, then you should recognize this Notebook File as something similar to that.
This file is dealing mainly with just Blends and Digraphs.
The screen shot above is just an example of a page that can be built in the same essence of a Self-Check worksheet and uses some of the best interactive agents of the Smart Board with the students. For example, the blends at the bottom of the screen are “infinite clones“, which means that clones can be dragged from the originals and taken into the boxes as needed above without ever running out. I added the pictures to help my lower level readers figure out the word they need to be solving.
To make things a little more differentiated in the classroom, this is how all of my pages in this Notebook file start out looking like. Then I will print off this page to use as a handout to my students for the day. We will go over what they will be inserting into the boxes or “windows” for the day and then I will allow them to try to figure out what goes where by reading the “rimes“. I will give them time to complete in pairs or on their own, before the class goes over the sheet on the Smart Board.
Students will come to the front and drag their answers to the appropriate spots. At the end I have hidden the answers below the windows for the “self-check” portion of the Notebook file. I am sure a cool animation such as click and reveal could be used to do the “self-check” as well.
If you have any questions as to how to work with this particular file, please feel free to contact me.
When I post lessons like this one and in the future I will be then posting the lessons onto my Box.net Share folder that is located at this Box.Net Link and is conveniently placed at the top right hand side of this blog.
Thanks for stopping by,
Bill
Jul
17
Interactive Word Wall Idea
July 17, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
Greetings,
On the heels of the Sam, Come Back post, I am also going to write a short post on almost a sister/brother tag-along Notebook file that will correspond with the Writing that my students will be doing daily in the Reading Street Notebook file. It is an Interactive Word wall that will grow with the children as the year progresses. At the beginning of the year each student receives one personal desk dictionary called, “Words I Use When I Write.” I have taken this idea and applied it to a Notebook file that will keep track of all the words that will not be found in the dictionary and therefore, the children can add these new words into their own dictionary’s.
To construct the pages I simply used the Table Object shortcut at the top of the Notebook tool bar and had to reconfigure the sizes a little bit to adjust to a 5 x 5 table. Once I did that I highlighted all of the cells within the table and changed the font to my font size and type of choice. I just generally like Cooper Black for my 1st graders. From there on out it was a matter or clone the page 25 times over and switching the letter at the top of each page.
Initially I was just going to add the words to the cells, but I thought for 1st grade purposes, it might be beneficial to children to have an image to correspond to (especially at the beginning of the school year), so I figured out a way to attach text and image together and then insert them both into the cell. The image and text will automatically resize to fit the cell (thank goodness)!
Here are a couple of more examples…
If you are in need of adding a word that will go in between others, you will need to click and drag the images out of the cell and into another lower cell in the table. Then you can add the new word in the vacated spot.
I am excited to try this out this year in the classroom and I think the children will enjoy having the visual aid at the front of the room during writing time.
If you have any questions as to how to work with this particular file, please feel free to contact me.
When I post lessons like this one and in the future I will be then posting the lessons onto my Box.net Share folder that is located at this Box.Net Link and is conveniently placed at the top right hand side of this blog.
Thanks for stopping by,
Bill
Jul
17
Reading Street 1.1 ~ Sam, Come Back!
July 17, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
Greetings,
Today I am posting about an idea I have collaborated with a handful of colleagues over the past year who have Smart Boards in their classrooms. Three years ago we adopted the Scott Foresman “Reading Street” Language Arts program to be our foundational teaching aid in grades K-5. When I knew I was going to receive a Smart Board in the classroom, I knew I wanted to treat the board more than just a glorified White Board. I ask teachers in the building and some friends who are teachers if they would use a Smart Notebook Lesson that was tailored to the Reading Street Program week to week. I heard many opinions on the topic and what came out of these discussions, is the following Smart Notebook Lesson.
The Notebook file loosely follows the 5 Day Planner that is placed within the teacher’s manual for Reading Street. I say “loosely” because I have taken the liberty to add some of my own worksheets and some cool Notebook specific pages that really get the children interacting with the Smart Board in the classroom. The photo above shows how each day will open, “The Morning Warm-Up.” Throughout the Notebook Pages, I have placed links within some of the clip art images to link straight to Word or Adobe Documents.
The image above is one of the liberties I have taken to show off the Smart Board and the Smart Notebook software’s abilities to engage children into the lessons. The children will be called upon to come up and click on an ear, which will trigger a sound clip to play of a word being read. They will then need to tell me the ending sound of that word.
This screen shot is one I have adapted straight from the Teacher’s Guide and into a Notebook page. I truly believe that the information that in years previous I have read to the children out of the Teacher’s Guide, would actually be beneficial for them to see with their own eyes to help them conceptualize. So I added the script from the guide into a pull and drag page that the children can interact with.
Another liberty I have taken is making up a couple of characters that will help me to teach the Grammar side of things this year. Above you will see a picture of Grandma Grammar and her expectations for the children to know a little bit more about sentence formation and construction. It is my hopes that by integrating some fun and chuckles into the (let’s be honest here) sometimes drab grammar lessons, that there will be higher levels of competency coming out of this.
Above is a way of following the Reading Street Lesson, but also a way to branch out and still use the trade books that I love to read to the children still. Here the children will read a short poem in the Reading Street Textbook, and then join me for a story about Fancy Nancy. You will notice a pencil/paper image, this is a link to a writing document for the Fancy Nancy story.
Although not going as quickly as I hoped this Summer, I am planning on continuing this trend for each of the 30 stories in the Reading Street series this year. I am hoping since I laid some groundwork in this initial Notebook lesson, that it will go a little more smoothly here on out.
An important tip:
1. At the end of the day, make sure to always click “Don’t Save” to reset the Notebook file for the next day and for the next year.
If you have any questions as to how to work with this particular file, please feel free to contact me.
When I post lessons like this one and in the future I will be then posting the lessons onto my Box.net Share folder that is located at this Box.Net Link and at the top right hand side of this blog.
Thanks for stopping by,
Bill
