Five for Friday....late

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     This week was full of ups and downs in my classroom.  There were times when I almost wanted to give up trying to get my students to learn anything and times when I was rejoicing because they wanted to keep reading!  Here are my five random things from this week.

1) I FINALLY started to teach pronouns this week.  We had been reviewing parts of speech up until now and I'm happy to say we are finally learning the sixth grade language component.  This week we focused on subject and object pronouns.   We made an anchor chart that they are responsible for memorizing and understanding. I'm really excited about starting pronouns, but the look on my students faces about making this chart was as if I was speaking another language.

2)  After reading some very interesting parts in Where the Red Fern Grows I had my students do discussion posters.  I put them into groups of four and taped a page of the story to it that they had to respond to.  They also could respond back to their peers which made for some really interesting discussions.

3)  I have started to utilize I Can Statements more in my room.  I bought some already made I can Statements from TeachersPayTeachers.  I laminated them and posted them in my room.  I draw a random student to read the I Can Statements for the day/week and then have another student explain how we learned that statement at the end of the day/week.  It was great to hear my students actually saying how they learned what I wanted them to learn.  I will be doing this as a closure any day that I have a minute or two of extra time.

4)  Pencils, Pencils!  I have tried almost everything I can think of to get my standard group to keep up with pencils.  I've tried buckets on their desk with pencil sharpeners which somehow always seem to get gone.  I even try to check them at the end of the class period and students can't find them anywhere!  Even when students have a pencil they always are having to have it sharpened.  The sharpener on their desk doesn't work somehow so they just have to get up and use one or else they won't have a pencil.  It has become ridiculous so I went out and bought a bunch of mechanical pencils.  If they need one they have to write their name on the board, erase it and give it back before they can leave class.  I'm hoping this will work because pencils are just taking up too much class time.

5)  One of the rules for object pronouns is that it is used after a preposition.  Of course this meant that my students needed to be able to recognize prepositions, so we broke out in song in order to remember them better.  For anyone who wants their students to learn prepositions try The Preposition Song by The Bazillions.  My students loved it so much they were telling me they posted it on Facebook! Have a listen, it's quite catchy.  By the end of the week my students could all name the most common prepositions.

I'm so thankful that it is the weekend. I finished my lesson plans yesterday for next week so I'm going to try to think about school as little as possible.  My weekend has already been off to a great start with a date to a trampoline park yesterday.  After attempting to do flips on a trampoline and still being scared, I gained much more respect for my cheerleaders who are able to tumble on the gym floor.  Only three weeks until try outs for next year get started...but why am I thinking about that?

Introducing Non-Fiction

I recently started my non-fiction unit with my sixth graders.  To begin, I had them complete a Venn Diagram where they compared and contrasted fiction vs non-fiction. Everyone knew that non-fiction meant stories that were factual and fiction were stories that are usually made up. However, it did surprise me that they did not know the name of many non-fiction text features. Most students had even forgotten what a caption was.   After working on the Venn Diagram, I had them look through various non-fiction books and magazines to try to list the features they could find.  Afterwards, we created an anchor chart on the elements of non-fiction.

To end day one, my students were all given a Time magazine and asked to locate the featured article and then write down what text features were within the article.  They enjoyed this and it was a quick assessment to see that they were able to identify the features they just learned.    

On day two I introduced Text Mapping.  I found this idea through Pinterest and the Text Mapping Project.  A summary of text mapping from their website states that:

 Textmapping is a graphic organizer technique that can be used to teach reading comprehension and writing skills, study skills, and course content. It is practiced on scrolls, which are an alternative environment to books. Textmapping and scrolls can be used strategically, but they are not strategies. They are enabling technologies - simple, basic tools which can be used for reading and classroom instruction. The same strategies that can be taught in books can be taught more clearly and explicitly by using scrolls and mapping.

    I had been searching for a way to teach non-fiction that would really engage my students.  Watching my students work together to complete one of these was really neat. I introduced how to text map in small groups while the rest of the class was working on a writing assignment. After they learned how to make a key and code they went on their own and made their scrolls. I heard some great discussion while they were asking each other clarifying questions about coding their scroll. After everyone had coded their maps I modeled thinking aloud to highlight important and unknown words.  I can never stress enough to my students that the whole text isn't important.  So many times I find them underlining every sentence! I believe the visual helped them realize that only a few things needed to be underlined in each section. 

     This was a great way to start nonfiction as my students used a hands-on method to find multiple text features.  My standard students especially get very bored when they see they are going to have a read a long article.  By adding colors and working in groups they were actually excited about learning.

    

   Thanksgiving break is here and I am so thankful for some time to relax and time to (hopefully) get ahead.   What are youe Thanksgiving plans?  Have a blessed holiday! 

Anchor's Away!

Today was a required teacher workday in which we spent most of the day in meetings. However, one workshop including a chance for us to make anchor charts for our classroom. Here are a couple that I made and have already put up in my room.

I try to teach my students to summarize in 10 words or less, as normally that is the type of summaries seen on the EOG.  It also helps for them to really find the main idea of the story.

I love the Frayer Model for understanding vocabulary words.  This strategy works particularly well with content areas.