Teaching with Task Cards

Do you use task cards for teaching activities?  You may want to consider doing so when you observe all their benefits.

Task cards are pretty self-explanatory:  they are cards which contain tasks, or activities for students to complete.  Teachers usually create a deck of these task cards for students to practice skills.  They are good worksheet alternatives, can be adapted in to games, easy to make and readily accessible since so many teachers make and share them.

Here are some resources about task cards, if you're thinking about utilizing them:

• Task-Cards.com, which gives a thorough explanation for various ways to use task cards, including for individual, small group and whole class activities.  The site also provides details on several types of task cards and gives examples of each.  There are also four sets of free task cards as a sample of the type of material sold on the site.  Visit here for a one-stop shop for info on task cards! 
• Talbott's Teaching Trove contains a few sets of free task cards, including working with antonyms and rounding numbers.  My favorite are the "7-Up" cards, which encourage students to turn short, lifeless sentences into descriptive ones.
• The Third Wheel posted free math task cards to sharpen students' problem solving skills.
• Pro-Teacher.net forums have many awesome members who create and share task cards for all subjects and grade levels.  Sign up and join to share and contribute.

Celebrate Reading with Class Book Awards

How is the school year going for everyone?  Hopefully, you're in the full swing of things and enjoying the new semester.  I know I am.

I came across this awesome idea on Scholastic, courtesy of the always helpful Beth Newingham.  She came up with a fun way for students to get into reading and recommend books not only to their classmates, but students who will be in the class many years later.  Get students involved in reading, rating, voting and selecting their favorite books year after year in a Class Book Awards ceremony.

Inspired by awards bestowed on notable books (like Newbery, Caldecott, etc), she had her class come up with their own categories and vote on books to give awards each month.  The categories can be changed from month to month.  October?  How about Book with the Best Villain or Spookiest Story?  Let students' imaginations run wild with categories; Most Likely to Be An Awesome Movie, Best Laugh-Out Loud Funny, and Book with the Character You Most Want to Be Your Friend could be some ideas to suggest.

Check out the sample ballot she used for her class' "Newiberry Awards."  As you can see, the categories the class generated are a bit more flexible and interesting than what you see in most awards.  Students can make their choice from among books they've read for school or recreational reading.  She even set up a special podium and special "awards ceremony" envelopes to pull out the winning books for each monthly occasion, giving the whole activity an air of authenticity.  She also recommends designing a special medal (cool art contest for the class?) just for the class award.  Once the ceremony is complete, a copy of the award-winning covers are displayed on a big bulletin board, and a special "medal" is placed on the cover of the books in the classroom library.  She includes the year on the medal that allows students to see recommended books from years past, voted and awarded by students who were once in their shoes.

How cool is that?  I love the idea and Beth Newingham's post walks you through the whole process of how she does it.  The activity is divided into two posts on her Scholastic blog, found here and here.

It would be great to start off the school year with this fun activity that really promotes reading and sharing amongst your students.  Check out her blog and start your own Book Awards!

Using Anticipation Guides as a Pre-Reading Activity

Several months back, I posted some activities used with the novel Ender's Game.  One of the activities listed is an "anticipation guide," and I always wanted to follow-up with more details on this particular pre-reading strategy.

I first heard about anticipation guides when I was reading Kylene Beers' excellent Resource When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do, which gives details about what anticipation guides are and the best way to use them.  They work best as a pre-reading activity to help students activate prior knowledge before reading a text, and engage with some themes and issues they will deal with in the reading (which builds anticipation).

To make an anticipation guide, you start with a set of generalizations based on themes found in the reading (you can use fiction or nonfiction).  Before reading the text, students decide whether they agree or disagree with those generalizations.  The class can then discuss their reasonings, read the text, and then revisit the anticipation guide to see whether or not their thinking has changed.

Beers explains that the point is not to change the students' minds, but to encourage them to think deeply about their beliefs.  Good anticipation guide statements should provoke thought and discussion amongst students.  In her example, the students reading a sample guide called the statements "tough" because it was hard to know what contexts in which the statement was agreeable or not.  They responded to a lot of the statements by saying, "It depends."  That's what you want to hear!  It's not about right or wrong answers; it's about students beliefs and their explanations for them.

That's what I like about the activity.  You get students' minds involved and engaged before they even approach the text.  When I looked online for examples of guides to go with stories, I think a lot of people make the mistake of having their generalizations and statements be too cut and dry, not challenging enough to provoke deep thought.  For instance, if you're about to read The Outsiders and one of your statements reads, "Having good friends can help you endure tough situations," how can that be challenged?  Who would disagree with that?  Though it tells you something about a theme in the story, it doesn't really work well in an anticipation guide.  How can your generalizations challenge students' thoughts, preconceptions and expectations in the story?  The answers shouldn't be clear-cut, black-and-white responses.  If yours are, go back and see how you can reword the statement to better build anticipation.  

Beers recommends using words like "always," "never" and other nonnegotiable words in your statements.  Play on students' usual line of thinking.  Examples I wrote:

• "Murder is never right."  (How would reading To Kill A Mockingbird or Julius Caesar challenge this idea?)
• "It is never justifiable to break the law."  (Would The Diary of Anne Frank or The Hunger Games add a twist to this idea?)
• "There is always a better way to solve problems than using violence."  (What about in Ender's Game?)

Again, the concept is not for students to eventually change their mind; each statement should at least make students think, "It depends."  After reading the story, their minds could change or be even more convinced of their original belief, but they've now been able to consider different contexts and viewpoints.

Beers also recommends students analyzing characters post-reading by having them respond to the guide statements from the point of view of different characters.  

You can read more about anticipation guides here and here (which also includes templates and a video).

Here are some good anticipation guides I found online:

• for Maniac Magee
• for Things Fall Apart
• for the first chapter of The Hunger Games
• for The Great Gatsby
• for Lord of the Flies
• for The Crucible

The activity also works for different grade levels and subjects.  Check out this video from ReadingRockets.

Using Discovery Bottles

Have you made use of discovery bottles in your classroom?  Consider doing so if you want to add some simple manipulatives for centers or a science station.  Earlier, I posted about how teachers use empty water bottles for activities, and discovery bottles accomplish the same thing by adding different types of materials for students to shake around and observe.  They can do work with these at their desks or in small groups.  Just add a printable to the center where they can record what they see, and you can turn plastic bottles into a world of discovery for your students.


Some examples found on TurnstallTimes' post:

• "Word bottles" are filled with pasta, sand or other materials, with words hidden inside.  Students shake the bottle around and read/record the sight words that are revealed.  She even included a sheet for students to record the words they find!
• The "magnetic" bottle is full of tiny metal objects along with tons of confetti.  Students move a magnet along the outside of the bottle and watch the metal objects react.
• The "ocean bottle" makes waves when the oil, water, and blue food coloring inside are shaken.

Familylicious also has several nice discovery bottle examples posted, like:

• Vegetable oil mixed with powdered color and water mixed with food coloring can be shaken up to  create secondary colors, and then separate into two different colors when left still.
• "Density bottles" are filled with different types of liquid, such as water in one and clear shampoo in another.  A marble is placed inside each and students shake the bottles to see how the marbles move differently.  This would be a great way to introduce the concept of density to the whole class.
• A 'hidden objects" bottle is one of my favorites.  This would be great as a free-time activity!  Fill a bottle with material, such as sand or tissue paper.  Add 5-10 small objects and shake it so that they are hidden.  Include a sheet with pictures of the small objects so students can know what each item looks like, then challenge them to find them all.  

What other concepts can you showcase inside a discovery bottle?

Synonym Cinnamon Roll Activity

I love this idea I found on Pinterest, posted by FirstGradeParade, MessyJofU and SweetTeachings.  Have students explore synonyms in this hands-on lesson that culminates in a sweet treat for the class!


Students work collaboratively to come up with synonyms for a given word, and then consult a thesaurus.  Once all their synonyms are chosen, they write all their words on a paper craft that spirals in the shape of a cinnamon roll.


Once their "buns" are complete, you can create a cool classroom display with the "buns" posted in front of foil, resembling a chef's tray.  SweetTeachings shares an example  of her version of this nice display.  The classes concluded the word activity by snacking on cinnamon bun-flavored cereal treats, which I'm sure they enjoyed.


FirstGradeParade also posted little handouts to help students in their thinking about the words, as well as instructions for cute chefs hats for students to wear during the activity!


Mmm, cinnamon rolls....

Elementary Activity: Examining Fables

The next free resource comes from TheJoyOfFirstGrade.  Her class did a lesson on fables, and she is sharing some of the activities they did.  Visit the link to find:

• a reader's theater script
• a worksheet for students to compare a similar character in two different tales
• a sheet to create their own fable ( + a rubric)
• youtube clips of animated fables for the class to watch.

Check it out!

Use Book Orders to Assess Author's Purpose

Speaking of reusing items, MrBsBeachBrains posted a neat way to get rid of those old book order forms you may have lying around.


His class used the book orders in a cooperative learning activity to determine author's purpose.  Each group had butcher paper divided up into three categories:  persuade, inform and entertain.  Students cut pictures from the book orders and paste them based on what they could tell about the author's purpose.  


This is a good activity because it simultaneously accomplishes several things:

• assesses students' understanding of author's purpose
• allows students to work cooperatively, and debate their opinions about where the books belong (Mr. B said he heard good discussion amongst students)
• incorporates some Bloom's Taxonomy as students categorize the books.

Ender's Game Activities

The internet is buzzing with news of an upcoming adaptation of the beloved sci-fi/young adult classic, Ender's Game.  Since the 1980's, readers have relished the story of how a gifted, young strategist faced many challenges while trying to save the world from the threat of an alien invasion, and save himself from many dangers at the brutal, military space academy that's training him to become a leader.  While the movie is in the beginning stages of the filmmaking process, your students can read and enjoy the novel now.  Here are a few activities you can give your students for an independent study, or a classroom unit on Ender's Game:

• Here is a pretty thorough lesson plan revolving around the novel.  It includes objectives, comprehension questions by chapter, assessment projects, and a complete schedule and grading rubric for all activities. 
• This is a guide put together by starscapebooks.  It contains rich, thoughtful discussion questions, and good writing and research activities for themes presented in the book.
• Tiffany Stoddard created an anticipation guide for the book.  I enjoy this activity, and it's pretty simple if you want to make your own.  Basically, you take themes from the novel, create broad "agree/disagree" statements related to those themes (the more controversial or extreme, the better), and have students line up or arrange themselves around the room based on how they feel about the statement.  It's always good to have students revisit their initial thoughts about the statements after they've read the book.  After reading, how might their thoughts change about the statement that "destroying a species is never right"?
• Here is a list of activities organized by Bloom's taxonomy.
• Create biographical poems (biopoems) for the characters.
• Have students create a book trailer on video, a Glogster poster for themes in the book, or a MyFakeWall page for the characters.

Analyze Characters with MyFakeWall.com

http://www.myfakewall.com/

If you want a creative assessment tool and way to integrate technology, visit MyFakeWall.com.  If your students are avid Facebook users, they may enjoy creating imaginary Facebook pages for historical figures, book characters, and anyone else you want them to study.


If he had Facebook, who would Ben Franklin have listed as his friends?  What would Elizabeth I's timeline look like?  


These are the types of questions that can really spark your students' creativity.  Show them some examples and let them create profiles, updates, and friends lists of whomever they are studying.


For a printable alternative, try some of the TeachersPayTeachers accounts that offer free Facebook page activities.

Create Pop-Up Books for the Classroom

My latest obsession?  Pop-up books!  This week, I'll be sharing some ways I've found of using these dynamic books in your classroom.  Can anyone deny the sense of wonder pop-up books generate within children?  Some of the designs and artwork are also perfect for advanced readers, but I'll get to that later.

First, Scholastic has a printable instructions on how to make a pop-up book report. 

Students create a card and write a summary, describe setting, etc.  You can adapt this lesson for virtually any story, and add more pages and pop-ups to create an entire book.  Use it as an option for a literature unit's assessment.

Also, if you'd like some simple pop-up book designs, here is a list of resources.  This is to help you create pop-up books to share with your class, or to guide the students in making pop-up books themselves:

• Robert Sabuda (who I will discuss further in another post) has some how-to guides for pop-ups, helpfully arranged by level of difficulty.
• Homeschoolshare has a simple pop-up template for cards or small artwork.
• Check out this video:

Keep in mind that you can use these basic templates for virtually any type of unit or craft project. If you're studying space, students can make pop-ups for planets and other objects. If they're studying animal habitats, they can make pop-up illustrations of places animals live. If they've read a story, they can create a pop-up to spotlight a particular scene. Have them add words to their pop-up cards and books to enhance the learning experience. The possibilities are endless!

Stay tuned for my lists of great pop-up books, including pop-ups for advanced readers!

Reading & Language Activities Galore!

Access dozens of student center activities through one website, created by the Florida Center for Reading Research.  This is an invaluable resource for elementary teachers looking for center or workstation activities.  Everything is free, printable and contains instructions.


Students can practice phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension strategies with the things you'll find here.  All activities are labeled under grade level and skill.  These are great for independent activities or small group instruction.  They even have a helpful search feature so that you can find exactly what you need.


Thanks to the posters of ProTeacher for this resource!

Use Joke Books to Build Fluency

Want to give your students practice reading with fluency?  Have you considered an effective, easily accessible resource that students may be eager to try?  I'm referring to using joke books as a means of building fluency, a teaching tip I've encountered from several sources.  


A few benefits of using joke books to build fluency:

• Fluency is essential in telling jokes.  Effective delivery requires attention to pauses, stressed syllables, phrasing, intonation, etc.
• In using joke books, students can get practice with word play, homophones, puns, and other linguistic elements.  Multiple meaning words are also heavily utilized in jokes.
• Jokes are concise, which will appeal to reluctant readers.
• Jokes are funny!  Kids will be motivated to use them, and will enjoy repeated readings to master their delivery.

Choral read with students and ask them to use the same expression you use when reading the jokes.  They can also take the joke books and read with a partner.  They can get even more practice by checking out joke books from the school's library.  Let them get creative and write their own jokes, being mindful of all the things they're practicing with fluency.

In fact, there's probably a good lesson about multiple meaning words in having students compose their own lever, pun-filled jokes for a "comedy show"-style skit for the class!

Who knows.  You may find joke books to be a great resource and a way to bring smiles to your students' faces.

image: Microsoft

Using Babymouse in the Classroom

Next on our list of Popular Series in the Classroom, I turn your attention to another graphic novel title. If Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series has a female counterpart, I can think of no better candidate than Babymouse. As often as I see Captain Underpants in the hands of boys, I see the ubiquitous pink and black Babymouse covers in the hands of girls (of course, many girls read Pilkey's books and many boys read Babymouse).


Both series have done wonders for the popularity of graphic novels for children. Graphic novels work well to motivate readers, including struggling readers, because of their clever dialogue and interesting illustrations. Babymouse is a small heroine who has some big adventures, becoming everything from a cupcake tycoon to a rock star.


Again, like most books in this blog series, most of your students are likely already familiar with Babymouse. You won't have to do much to sell them on the idea of reading the series (although, if your students happen to NOT know Babymouse, feel free to introduce them!). But you may be looking for a way to use their love of the books in classroom activities. Luckily, we have a few resources for that very purpose:

• Have your Babymouse fans try their hand at writing dialogue in these printable graphic novel pictures. Challenge them to come up with their very own stories and illustrations based on the series.
• Here is the official educator's guide to the series, which has useful discussion questions, vocabulary words and other ideas.
• Check out this video interview with the authors, brother and sister team Jennifer and Matthew Holm. Also, visit the official site to let students design their own posters and cartoons.

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Cam Jansen in the Classroom

 

Cam Jansen, the girl detective who possesses a photographic memory, has long stood as one of the best introductions to the mystery genre.  Young sleuths have embraced the series for decades.  The short chapter book format and illustrations make it a good series for readers who will soon be devouring Nancy Drew and Boxer Children mysteries.

Chances are you often see students reading these books (you may even recall reading them yourself!).  The stated goal of this popular books in the classroom series is to you use what kids already love as a springboard for deeper learning.  Cam Jansen provides just that:

• Use this printable worksheet that helps students formulate and adjust predictions as they read.
• This thematic calendar is a great tool to find Cam Jansen recommendations throughout the year.  For instance, since May is National Fitness and Sports month, it helpfully lists several sports-themed Cam Jansen books that you may want students to read.  It also suggests discussion questions and activities.
• This teacher’s guide has great printables for any Cam Jansen title.  You can explore the elements of story, have students create a book jacket, look for details within the mysteries, etc.  There are also crossword and word search activities.

Enjoy!

Ivy + Bean in the Classroom

I was going to describe all the ways that Ivy + Bean, the series by Annie Barrows, is useful in the classroom, but the video posted below explains it all for me.  Real teachers describe the series and attest to the books' ability to captivate young readers:

This is a popular series I often see in girls' hands during independent reading time, and the teacher in the video shows that it is also good for read-alouds to the whole class.

Having perused the books myself, I would say they are good transitional chapter books for students who have graduated from Junie B. Jones, but who aren't quite ready yet for the tween/teen female protagonists in children's literature. I think Ivy & Bean is ideal for 2nd-4th graders. There are many illustrations in the book , which may encourage struggling readers. Some of the major themes of the series involve friendship, as the two main characters build a strong bond despite their many differences.

Ivy + Bean also has potential for several extension activities in the classroom. Here are a few highlights from the teacher's guides provided by Chronicle Books:

• What's the Big Idea? would be apropos of any units on nature, science, or the environment because the characters decide to take on global warming.
• The activity guide for this particular book has tons of suggestions for quick science lessons and projects. These will have students thinking about natural resources and ways to produce clean energy.
• Here are several discussion questions for the first three books in the series, including journal prompts. Students can practice finding meaning through context, problem and solution as well as other skills. Perfect for a small group activity!
• Teachers have made printable worksheets based on the series, including this one which asks students to design a bedroom based on one they read in the book, as well as this math worksheet that helps students learn to budget.
• There's even a reader's theater play based on the series.

There are lots of other ideas on the site, too. If you like the series, how do you use it in the classroom?

Whether you're searching for read-aloud material, a new addition to your classroom library, or something that offers extension activities, Ivy + Bean may be exactly what you need.

Using Captain Underpants in the Classroom

I came up with this idea after seeing what must now be hundreds of Dav Pilkey books in classrooms.  Boys in elementary school seem to have their eyes permanently affixed to Pilkey’s various graphic novels, and I think many would enjoy any classroom activity that uses the stories.

Pilkey has written several popular series, including the Captain Underpants and Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot books.

I’m most familiar with the Captain Underpants books.  The books contain a series of what the author calls “mini-comics” created by a few of the characters.  Pilkey says he wants to inspire kids to create stories without worrying about perfection.  It’s a noble endeavor; many kids forsake the writing process, and expressing their ideas creatively, simply because they struggle with spelling and grammar.

At the same time, there’s nothing wrong with giving students a bit of practice with spelling and grammar, especially if you’re using one of their favorite books.  One of the issues many kids have with spelling or “sentence editing” practice is that they are bored with the typical skills practice sheets and language arts texts. 

Try using those Captain Underpants novels instead!  The “mini-comics” are full of spelling and grammatical errors.  Here are a few example pages.  Kids who enjoy the novel can engage in a “scavenger hunt” activity to find a certain amount of mistakes in each of the mini-comics, rewrite the sentences correctly, and check their responses with a partner.  Chances are they will be more engaged by the activity because they are using an enjoyable text rather than a dull worksheet.  This is essentially the same method used by Caught'ya! and other story-based editing activities, but Pilkey novels (and others like them) offer the chance to use stories that are likely already familiar to and beloved by students.

 The activity could be a writing center or “word work” station.

Here are a few more ideas:

·      Follow Pilkey’s example and encourage students to create their own “mini-comics.”   You can have them make purposeful mistakes to trade with a partner and “hunt” for errors, or they can be a chance to write and create stories without worrying about corrections.

·      For a more challenging activity that explores the use of voice in writing, ask students to work backwards with the mini-comic format, translating correct sentences or scenes from another book into a comic created by George and Harold.

·      Use the official teacher’s guide to Pilkey novels.  This spelling/grammar editing is actually recommended within it, so it looks like my idea is on the right track!  There are also tons of other activities listed, such as writing a letter to a favorite character, as well as designing a robot and creating an advertisement for its design.  There are also discussion questions for several of Pilkey’s novels.

·      Visit Pilkey’s official website for a lot of other information on him and his work.  There are several games on the site based on the books.  If you have Pilkey fans in your class, keep these computer games in mind as a possible reward or incentive.

-Veronica

Popular Children’s Books in the Classroom

This week, I’m beginning a new series that explores popular children’s books and how they can be used in the classroom.  My aim is to help teachers capitalize on the books their students already love to read by using them for lessons and classroom activities.

I should point out that literacy is one of the things I focus on a lot in teaching.  I love seeing what kids like to read, asking them about their books, and thinking of ways they can used in the classroom.  This blog series came to fruition after I paid attention to what students read and talked to them about books.  Most of the books I highlight will be popular series books, since kids love them and they offer the most opportunities for activities.

Here are a few ways you can use the activities and links from this blog series:

·      Use them as a springboard for lessons

·      Use them after read-alouds for brainstorming and writing activities

·      Use them for booktalks, independent reading or discussions

·      Use them for “extra activities” when students are done with their work

·      Use them for substitute lesson plans, or extras for early finishers

·      Journaling, research, options on a menu of assignments, extra credit, etc.

           

The goal, of course, is to encourage student reading and build off of their love for their favorite books.  If you can connect skills and standards to what they already love to read, it may their learning a bit more engaging.

Looking forward to it! 

-Veronica