An Excellent Find: E is for Explore!

You are going to LOVE the site I have to share with you tonight! I came across it via a science activity posted to Pinterest, and was I ever amazed and delighted when I followed the link to Erin Bittman's blog, E is for Explore!

Erin blends graphic design, her original career, with her current path toward becoming a teacher, to "develop unique learning activities, search the internet and compile additional great ideas from other sources." Her site is chock-full of manipulatives and activities useful across the curriculum, from literacy to math and engineering, and she provides easy links to sites that she shares.

Since Easter is coming soon, I'll show you images from one of Erin's posts, wherein she shares activities from inferencing to fractions using Plastic Eggs: 

Great, huh? Click on over to Erin's blog, where "all 'E is for Explore' activities conform to state common core curriculum standards."

And you're welcome! :-)

Reading Strategies and Bookmarks - Great Idea!

Today we revisit a site from a previous post, Great Resources From Ireland's NBSS, to look at some very cool bookmarks - but not just any bookmarks. These have purpose...wait, make that six purposes!

I visualize teaching a strategy, making a great anchor chart using the bookmark as a starter for organizing it, and giving each student a bookmark to keep in the books you are using to practice the strategy. Click on the image below to go to the pdf document and print it. There are three bookmarks per page, which you can print on card stock or mount on colored paper and laminate. (See if your kiddos notice the different spelling, using "s" rather than "z".) 

Addressing "key comprehension strategies - making connections, self-questioning, visualising, inferring, determining importance, summarising/synthesising and self-monitoring comprehension - can help students become more purposeful, active readers and learners."  

We all need to be more purposeful, active readers and learners. Enjoy this great tool!

Metacognition? Priceless!

To be honest, I had never heard the word metacognition until I was in graduate school (again!) adding an endorsement in PreK-12 English as a Second Language. In that program with the fabulous Dorothy Craig and Barbara Young as my professors, I was required to complete a metacognitive unit for English Learners.

In my ESL classroom, I talked to my English Learners about how they learned best. I would ask them: do you understand and remember better if you

• hear the information? hear it with pictures?
• read it yourself? read it with pictures?
• read it yourself while hearing it with pictures?
• write or draw it? 
• hold something in your hands (use manipulatives)?
• talk about it with a partner, along with some or all of the above?
• move while you learn? (for younger kiddos especially, the unspoken answer was "ya think?" :-)

They were not really accustomed to thinking this way for themselves, because they were elementary students with good teachers who differentiated their learning experiences by addressing every modality as much as possible. But as we discussed the different ways they might learn, they soon began to tell me what worked best for them. They had begun to think metacognitively.

There is more to metacognition than simply thinking about thinking; it also involves monitoring your learning and controlling it. But simply recognizing their own learning style was a great start.

If you want to start (or continue) working with your students on their metacognitive skills, you may find some of these sites I found useful: 

I love how Amanda, over at The Teaching Thief blog describes how she teaches active reading strategies to her 4th graders using metacognitive modeling. Amanda recommends the video below as an introduction to metacognition, and displays this anchor chart to guide her kiddos.

The positive effects of deliberately teaching metacognitive reading comprehension strategies are described in this research report over at Reading Rockets - Instruction of Metacognitive Strategies Enhances Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Achievement of Third-Grade Students. PLEASE read this article - it will impact your teaching and your students' learning!

Another important resource is Melissa Taylor's Imagination Soup: Teach Kids to Think About Their Thinking - Metacognition. Melissa offers ideas on HOW to scaffold and direct this skill development for your students.

Finally, if you are an ESL teacher or teach English Learners in your content classroom, you might want to read this more scholarly article from The Reading Matrix: The Effects of Metacognitive Reading Strategies: Pedagogical Implications for EFL/ESL Teachers.

Once you read all of this great information, I'm sure you'll want to work on developing metacognitive skills with your students. It will make a difference in their comprehension now, and in their success in the future!

Columbus Day?

So. Columbus Day, hmm? Such a romantic story of the discovery of a "New World." 

"In 14 hundred 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," was the sing-song verse I learned in elementary school. The First People weren't mentioned, of course.

My missionary son (a member of a minority in Tanzania, a former colony itself) posted this link on Facebook today: Rethinking Columbus: Towards a True People's History. The embedded question is, "Is it OK for big nations to bully small nations, for white people to dominate people of color, to celebrate the colonialists with no attention paid to the perspectives of the colonized, to view history solely from the standpoint of the "winners?"

Also for your consideration:

10 Things You May Not Know About Christopher Columbus

Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491

Hatuey: 1512 - 2012

Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years

Should Columbus Day be changed to 'Exploration Day'?

Students Make Film: Columbus – The Hidden History

Why do we celebrate Columbus Day?

Food for thought, and for your reflection and planning for teaching your kiddos.

Cures For The Common Core Blues: BOOKS, Vol. 1

I know, I know. If you went to CCSS training this summer, you got a ton of helpful materials to take home.

And if you didn't, because you're a brand-new teacher? Or because your district didn't pay for it? Or require it? Or you went to school all summer, or taught summer school?

Or...you were overwhelmed and still haven't worked your way through all of it, because you teach ELA in Tennessee, and you're trying to figure out how to phase in the CCSS, and at the same time prepare your students for the TCAP because after all, that's what they will take next spring? I understand.

That's why I'm writing Common Core posts in chunks, with one topic, so you can actually look at resources one or a few at a time, when you have a minute. (I also know that even those minutes are few and far between, with PLC meetings, IEP meetings, RTI meetings, and meetings for every other acronym in education. :)

So. This post is the first in a series about a book that causes my juices to start flowing, just thinking about the possibilities for Common Core lessons using it. I'll write about one book each Thursday for the next several weeks.

Irena's Jars of Secrets, by Marcia Vaughan, was named a 2012 Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Older Readers. The Sydney Taylor Book Awards are presented annually to “outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience" by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

Here's a description from the publisher's website: "Irena Sendler, born to a Polish Catholic family, was raised to respect people of all backgrounds and to help those in need. She became a social worker; and after the German army occupied Poland during World War II, Irena knew she had to help the sick and starving Jews who were imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. She began by smuggling food, clothing, and medicine into the ghetto, then turned to smuggling children out of the ghetto. Using false papers and creative means of escape, and at great personal risk, Irena helped rescue Jewish children and hide them in safe surroundings. Hoping to reunite the children with their families after the war, Irena kept secret lists of the children’s identities.

Motivated by conscience and armed with compassion and a belief in human dignity, Irena Sendler confronted an enormous moral challenge and proved to the world that an ordinary person can accomplish deeds of extraordinary courage." 

The book is available from: Lee and Low Books and Amazon. Download a PDF document with discussion questions for the book at Lee and Low's website.  Use them as inspiration for your own activities for close reading, inferring, vocabulary, cross-curricular connections, schema, and multicultural awareness. Lee and Low also provides a book talk with Vaughan and Ron Mazellan, who illustrated the book.

At the links below, you can read interviews with the book's author and illustrator that were part of the official Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour:

• An interview with Marcia Vaughan - Irena's Jars of Secrets
• The Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour: Interview with Ron Mazellan, Illustrator 

In December 2008, The New York Times published The Smuggler, a story about Irena Sendler, by Maggie Jones.
You can learn more about Irena Sendler and the group of students from Kansas whose research brought her story to worldwide attention at Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project. A book of the same name by Jack Mayer is available both on the site and at Amazon.com.

Irena Sendler: Mother of the Children of the Holocaust, Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto, and Irena Sendler: Bringing Life to Children of the Holocaust are other books about this remarkable woman. The Other Schindler...Irena Sendler: Savior of the Holocaust Children is available for Kindle.

In the Name of their Mothers: The Story of Irena Sendler is a film that was shown on PBS stations in May 2011. It includes some of Sendler's last interviews, and is available from PBS.org.

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a 2009 Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation, is also available on DVD.

What a wonderful stand-alone book this is, but wouldn't it be amazing to embed these resources into a unit on the Holocaust or World War II, or a book study of The Diary of Anne Frank? If you create a fabulous unit around these ideas, be sure to let me know. 

And please, let great books help cure your Common Core blues!

Weekly Common Core Practice Prompts at The New York Times

Four days ago, The Learning Network at The New York Times announced what they are calling an experiment: "Beginning Sept. 21, each Friday you’ll find three quick, classroom-tested tasks that ask students to do Common Core-focused work with that week’s Times."

The picture below shows teachers Jonathan Olsen and Sarah Gross, with their freshman humanities classes at High Technology High School in Lincroft, N.J. According to TLN blogger Katherine Schulten, Jonathan and Sarah, who co-teach history and English, last year began creating "short daily reading and writing prompts for their students to use with that day’s Times." 

In June, Sarah wrote in her blog The Reading Zone about TLN's Summer Reading Contest, saying that she and Jonathan believed that using The Times in their classes had "revolutionized" the way they taught.

"By reading the newspaper daily and writing in response to the paper’s content, our students greatly improved both their critical thinking and writing ability. Using The Times to teach history and literacy this past year forever changed our approach to education. We are now able to meet all Common Core State Standards for writing and reading informational text, while preserving the literature curriculum already studied in English class. As a result of our daily inclusion of The Times, our redesigned classroom is now filled with topical writing, lively debate and students making connections between what they are learning in their classrooms (and) what is happening throughout the world around them."

Starting next week, Sarah and Jonathan will send the prompts they create, and that they and their students believe worked best, to TLN bloggers, former teachers themselves, who will "add some scaffolding or other kinds of small changes to help make the questions more accessible for a range of learners."

The plan is that each Friday, you will find at least one of the prompts aligned to the Common Core standards for reading and writing about informational text appropriate to use with YOUR students. Please try them, and let the writers at The Times (and me) know how it goes!

Hispanic Heritage Month - Resources for Every Content Area

Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15 - October 15, and the resources available for you to integrate its celebration into your curriculum are MANY!

The official web portal for the month-long observance is a collaborative project of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. The site is chock-full of links to Exhibits and Collections in these categories:

                

                        

           Art and Architecture                         The Era of Exploration                           Culture and Ethnography

                              

                           Economics                                      Government, Politics, and Law            Poetry and Literature

  

                                                          History                                                                          Music

Are you a science teacher? Here's a great site for you: Latinos in Math & Science: Resources for kids, young adults and teachers. Check out the hotlinks for biographies of Hispanic scientists, etc.

Do you teach math? Go to the Smithsonian's Hispanic Heritage Cultural Tour and choose Resources. Select NMAH’s “Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers” website article on Roberto Clemente as a "hook" for a lesson on mean, median, mode, and range. Or graph his hits over a span of years. Or...

The Smithsonian's HHCT is amazing in so many other ways. Click over and check out all of the Objects, the Timeline, and the Quizzes and Activities there. 

Enjoy all the possibilities of the next month. November is American Indian Heritage Month, so I'll be searching out good resources for your observance of the First People's heritage!

EDSITEment! - Lessons for the Common Core

Close reading. Citing evidence. Making logical inferences. Analyzing. Summarizing. Interpreting. Evaluating and differentiating primary and secondary sources. Where does a busy teacher find appropriate lessons and activities to guide students in developing these required CCSS English Language Arts skills?

In this first post of a series about the fantastic Thinkfinity Consortium gateway, we're looking at EDSITEment, a partnership among the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Verizon Foundation, and the National Trust for the Humanities.

"All websites linked to EDSITEment have been reviewed for content, design, and educational impact in the classroom. They cover a wide range of humanities subjects, from American history to literature, world history and culture, language, art, and archaeology, and have been judged by humanities specialists to be of high intellectual quality."

EDSITEment truly is a treasure trove, with lesson plans searchable by subject, theme, and grade level. As examples, I want to point you to two of these: Anne Frank: One of Hundreds of Thousands and Anne Frank: Writer. These lessons provide a means for you to "supplement your students' reading of The Diary of a Young Girl by connecting the diary to the study of history and to honor the legacy of Anne Frank, the writer, as she inspires your students to use writing to deepen their insights into their own experiences and the experiences of others."

The skills listed for the lessons are:

• Critical analysis
• Critical thinking
• Historical analysis
• Textual analysis
• Using primary sources

Here are two of the learning objectives:

• Use specific examples from first-hand accounts to draw conclusions about one aspect of human behavior.
• Students will read the diary in search of quotes that indicate Anne's reflections on different feelings, relationships and behaviors that she noted while her family was in hiding. 

Below is the first page of The Diary of Anne Frank: A Changing Record, which you can use as a guide for close reading. Students are asked to cite entry date and quote for emotions, relationships, and behaviors they find in Anne's diary.

There are hundreds more wonderful lessons in EDSITEment's library - lessons for the Common Core, at your service from this amazing resource, for FREE. Enjoy!

Common Core: Text Exemplar Activities

I'm so excited to share a fellow Tennessee teacher's fabulous work with you this morning!

Mary P. teaches in Shelbyville, TN, and not only is she a class act, she is willing to share her act with you - activities she has created for these eight of the 2nd and 3rd grade Common Core Text Exemplars!

     

   

             

  

The activities range from analyzing to discussing to predicting to sequencing to task cards, and SO much more. They would be great to use in literacy stations as well as in small groups and whole class meetings.

Mary offers these FREE downloads at  Pitner's Potpourri, but that's not all! Quick, click over to read her entire blog for other great ideas and more freebies!

I'll let her know I linked to her blog today, and if you download from it, please leave a comment thanking HER. Also, if you know of other folks who are sharing activities for CC exemplars, please let ME know so I can spread the good word!

Teaching Students to Make Inferences

If you teach inferences, you need to look at this great lesson! And while you're there, subscribe to Byrdseed. While designated as a site for gifted learners, it's much more than that.