How Did You Teach......Civil Rights

Civil rights is such a powerful topic to talk about with students.  However it can be abstract for them to understand how the world once functioned and even that there is not 100% equality today.   Since I teach elementary kids I focus on getting the kids to understand the WHAT piece of the movement so they can better understand the heroes and how they were key in forcing the world to change how it treat minorities.

One way that I create a visual image of the time is through BOOKS.  The teachers at my new school introduced me to the book ROSA by Nikki Giovanni which is a beautifully illustrated book that tells the tale of Rosa Parks and the bus boycott.  It has great vocabulary as well.  After reading and discussing the theme of the book, my students then did a written response in their writing journals about the topic.

Click the picture below if you are interested in getting your own copy.

Another useful tool I use to get the kids to see what the time period we are discussing was like is by using video clips.  I use videos from YouTube, the Biography Channel, the history channel, etc.  I also use Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr.  Here is a peek at what a Brain Pop Jr. video.  Click the link to see the video in action.

I like to show my students clips of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech as well.  It is a great way to show how many people were involved in the movement and that it was people of all races supporting the end of segregation.  Besides the fact that it is just downright powerful and gives me goosebumps every time I watch it.

In my new position, I am not solely working with primary kiddos like K, 1, 2 like I have in the past.  This year I am working with a group of 5th graders which allows me to get a little more indepth than I would normally be able to.  I have found some great history close reading passages created by the Sweetest Thing.  The thing I love is not only are they covering core standard but they are also leveled as well so I can use the easiest version with my kiddos in the resource room.  This allows us to dig a little deeper into the topic while working on comprehension skills.  Let me tell you.  A highlighter is my students best friend.  

Click on the picture to check out this Black History Bundle.

To wrap up our study of civil rights I had the students reflect on quotes from major civil rights activists.  I wanted to see if they could put the meaning of the quote in their own words and also illustrate its meaning.

Overall, my kiddos did great understanding the importance of civil rights and the role that key activist such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. played in the movement.

If you are interested in completing this activity with your kiddos 

click on the picture below to snag it! 

Enjoy!  I would love to hear how you teach and assess student understanding of civil rights.

Wordless Wednesday: Inferences

So it appears that the only blog posts that I can finish are the Wordless Wednesday ones:)  I do have my civil rights post in the works.  I am just polishing up my freebie.  Now on to the important stuff.  

I like to teach my kids to infer using pictures.  I have them make observations and then use the observations to create inferences.

How do you teach your students to look beyond what is stated in the text or picture and infer what is happening or going to happen?

Be sure to join the party and link up with Miss DeCarbo for Wordless Wednesday!

Comprehension Strategy: MAKING CONNECTIONS with a FREEBIE

Last week, I began reviewing the comprehension strategy: making connections (mainly text to self).  This strategy is essential to enhance student understanding while reading.  Since all of my students are "at risk" anything that I can do to engage the students is key.  Linking the text to events from my students lives is one way to increase their understanding.


To introduce the topic, I read the book The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant to the students.  Since I working in small groups that amount to around 20 minutes each it took several days to read the entire story and discuss student connections.

 

This is a great book to use when doing TEXT to SELF connections.  Most students have had interactions with family, or traveling (even if it is just a short trip).  With some students it is really hard to get them to vocalize their connections for many different reasons.  One of the major obstacles that I face is limited language.  There are times were I really have to stretch the text to link it to a student's life. 

I love to use music to reinforce concepts that I am teaching so I was so excited when I stumbled upon songs that teach reading comprehension strategies by One Extra Degree.  I really like that she used tunes that the kids already know so it is easy to sing not only for the kids but for me as well. (my picture was not cooperating tonight)

I decided to create a little book to assess my students understanding of the "connections" strategy.  I created two different versions for students.  One book requires students to write a response and the other book allows the student to draw a picture of the connection.  Click the picture below to grab your freebie!

My students have begun reader's notebooks so I made a little cheat sheet to insert in their notebooks to accompany the other work we do with connections.

I am linking up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies to share my new creation.

I hope you enjoy this freebie!!  Please leave a comment and share your thought and ideas on teaching text connections.  I love new tips and tricks:)  I hope everyone has a great week!

Until next time,

TEN PIN LINKY-----READING IDEAS & A FREEBIE

In celebration of my new blog design, I promised a little FREEBIE!  

 Here is a story map that can be used with any book.  Just click the picture to download.

 

I had so much fun last week sharing math pins.

I decided to link up with JUST REED again to share 10 reading pin ideas.  

If you click on the pictures to go to the post where the PIN was originally discovered/pinned.

 

1.  I just discovered this pin as I was looking for pins to share.  It is a very handy FREEBIE to utilize when do reading conferences with students or even small group.  I find that I am always doing and thinking so many different things that it helps to have a reminder to keep me on track.  Hmmm.....maybe I have ADD like many of my students:)

 

2.  I love this idea for my kiddos that are movers and shakers.  The idea is to have the kids hop on each dot for each letter sound and then blend the sounds together to form a word.  My kinders and beginning first graders will love this!

3.  What an awesome IDEA to teach kids to recognize the setting of a story!  Kids can find pictures that represent a time and place. Then you can laminate and hang the poster in your classroom as a visual reminder.  I know there I go again with visual reminders/prompts!  It is kinda an obsession for me:)

4.  A word wall that allows kids to take the ring of words that begin with the letter back to their seats when working on writing.  It is very handy and mobile.  Anybody have any great ideas on how to make one similar to this that is portable from class to class?

 

5.  Open MIC Fridays for fluency practice!  The kids won't even know that they are improving their reading skills because they will be having so much fun!  I would also love to have the microphone from the post but it is kinda pricey.  With all the AIMS assessment that I have to do FLUENCY practice is a MUST!!  It would be awesome to make it fun.

 

6.  Take a picture of your students holding up class sight words.  Then make a powerpoint presentation so that you can review them daily with your class. I am thinking that this could even be done so that it can be reviewed on an IPAD.  Another idea would be to have the students work together to build the word and then take a picture instead of just having them hold up a sign with the word already written.

 

7.  I love discovering things I have pinned.  This is a fabulous FREEBIE!!!!  What a handy cheat sheet for character traits.  I already have it downloaded for next year.  I can't wait to utilize it!!

8.  This pin goes along with #7 above.  The students decorate the outside of the bag to LOOK like the character showing PHYSICAL TRAITS and then on the inside they put words that DESCRIBE the CHARACTER TRAITS or the inside/personality of the character.

 

9.  I am always looking for portable ideas to use in small group since I move from class to class.  I love this idea of creating a portable anchor chart.  I definitely plan on doing something similar next year.

 

10.  I could not end my post without sharing a song pin:)  I love to use songs to teach even though I have absolutely no musical ability.  It is great that the kiddos get into the song and the concept gets stuck in their heads.  Students are also frequently able to retrieve concept knowledge with greater ease when taught through music.  This is a great FREEBIE from  A Teeny Tiny Teacher.

  

I hope you got some great ideas!!  

I can wait to check out everyone's pins 

& see what other creative ideas are out there that I haven't found!!

Story Elements

So this week I have been trying out my story element visuals with my kiddos.  I have been pretty happy with them and I love having visuals to reinforce the concepts I am teaching.  I made a few changes from my original set.  Mainly I just changed the clip art for the important event.  I wasn't happy with the detective with the footprints because I had several colleagues who were not able to tell that they were footprints!  I am not going to share with you what they thought the cute little foot prints were!  I finally got my whole story element with visuals pack for sale on TPT this morning.  Here is a peek at what it includes: 

I have added large posters of concepts per the request of one of my teaching buddies.  As an intervention specialist, I do so much small group work that I didn't even think about hanging up large visual supports:)

 

What I use all the time is my small visual cards.  I use them with my groups K-2.  It is a great way to review what they remember about the story from the previous day or after they have done a picture walk before reading.

 

 I actually laminated my questions so students could write answers with a dry erase marker or I could model for students how I want them to respond to the question.  I don't know about you guys but I constantly struggle with getting kids to restate the question in their answer.  I also thought about cutting the questions apart and just having my kids focus on one concept at a time like just the MAIN CHARACTER or just the SETTING.

Since I encounter kids of all levels, I wanted them to be able to sequence story events and show me that they understand the concept of beginning, middle, and end without having to worry about writing out an answer, therefore I decided to have them illustrate to show their story knowledge.  In many cases, the kids struggle so much with thinking of what they are going to write and then how to spell it that the skill they are actually demonstrating that they know gets lost along the way. 

Games are a great way to reinforce a skill or concept so I created a concentration game that allows students to increase their understanding of story elements and strengthen their memory as well.

Finally ASSESSMENT!  I have not used this piece yet but I know that it is important piece to ensure whether students actually understand a concept or skill.  I made it a cut and paste to make the activity a little more FUN!

I would love to hear your ideas or thoughts about teaching story elements!  Please leave a comment below:)  The first five people to comment can have my entire pack for FREE!  If you happen to miss out on the freebie click here to get this pack from my TPT store.

Visuals, Visuals, & more Visuals

I was lucky enough to have a three day weekend!  Thanks an ice day on Friday.  I really needed it too!!  I have been fighting a sinus infection and my little guy was not himself Thursday or Friday but luckily he is doing better now:)  I am rested and ready to start back to the daily grind tomorrow (hopefully).

So other than trying to recover, I have also been working on a little something for this week.  I was really happy with how my students performed on comprehension tasks when using the visual supports relating to story grammar like characters, setting, problem, solution, beginning, middle, end, and important events.  I decided that I need to create generic supports that I could use with any story we were working on.  I wanted to give everyone a little peek of what I came up with;)  Obviously I am in spring mode because I chose to use a rainbow background!! 

I would love any feedback, comments,  or suggestions you have about my visual support cards.  I have a bigger pack in the works but I need to tweak it a bit before I post it in my TPT store.  But until then snag this little freebie so you can try the cards out first hand!      CLICK HERE!    ENJOY!!

Valentine Recap and Two Little Cuties!!

Boy, do kids love Valentine's Day!  My two valentines are 12 and 2.  They are my pride and joy:)  Of course, I also have a ton of love for my hubby as well.  But look how adorable they are!  I could just eat them up.

Today my daughter totally blew me away by writing a short story that was amazing.  She totally just wrote it for fun because she was inspired by a song.  Where does she get this gift?  I have NO idea!  Definitely not from me.  I am so proud to be her mom.  On the other hand, my son is sleeping in his own bed for the second night in a row with no tears.  I may be on a roll!

So here is a little recap on my valentine comprehension activities.  In all honesty, I was totally blown away by my students.  I could not have asked them to perform any better.  There are a few tweaks that I would still like to make........I always feel like I could make things better.  I am not sure if that is a blessing or a curse.  

I am so tickled!  These are examples of two students who worked accurately and fairly independent!  Always a bonus:

Here are examples of my kindergarten comprehension assessments.  I did them "one on one" only because I wanted to know what they knew without any influence of their peers.  I was super happy with the results.  The little guy that I am concerned about did great with the visual supports and is beginning to understand the meaning of story grammar independently.  Yay!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by:)  I would love to hear your your thoughts and comments!