What is a Webquest?

A few classes back... I had to learn all about webquests. It was for my Social Studies course but we explored how this can be used in other subject areas as well. So... since the grades are in... I can now share!

What is a webquest? 

Well... its like an online unit. When you create a lesson plans for a unit in your class.... you find resources, create activities, provide direct instruction, ..... The same thing with a webquest EXCEPT the entire unit is online and will be read by your students. It is also designed in such a way that another teacher can use it as well. 

Pros

This is a great way to provide additional resources on a top to your student. Especially primary resources. It is an excellent way to tie in technology to your lesson plans and to share this with both colleagues, your PLN, and your students. 

It is also a great way to add content and information as homework freeing up your time in class and the pressure to get it all in. You can always change things at any time to take away something that didn't work or add something new. 

Cons

It takes a lot of time to build a webquest. You do all the research for your students in advance. They just go where you tell them too. While this does protect them from veering off into uncharted territory and perhaps stumbling across something you would rather they didn't... it also takes away from learning a valuable skill. 

In addition, I found some of the required pages redundant. You create a welcome page AND an introduction page. You build a task page AND a page for each of those tasks. 

Fundamental Components

To be a webquest... you have to have certain pages in certain order on your site. Here is the list in case you are unfamiliar with this concept.  (1) Welcome (2) Introduction (3) Task (4) Process (5) Evaluation (6) Conclusion and (7) Credits/Teachers Page. Between the Process and Evaluation Pages is where you build the individual task pages. 

Where to go? 

Zunal is the site recommended by my university. You can build a free quest to try it out but it limits you on the options or you can purchase a membership for 2 years for $20 and get unlimited options and the ability to create as many webquests as you want. You can also create a classroom full of web quests and add in members so only certain people can access it. 

With Zunal your options for customization are limited. I finally figured out how to change the background color and the color of the buttons. You do not really have a say in how it goes on the page as everything is done by template and the size that appears is the size ya get. 

The other recommendation was Quest Garden. Now this site looks like it has many more options for customization. However, I couldn't get it to work when I needed it. I sent a message to tech-support and they manually set up an account for me but by then the assignment was due so I passed. 

Examples

The first quest I made was for the first week of Social Studies in 8th Grade. It is a fun introduction that also introduces students to three different types of technology we would be using throughout the school year. 

Welcome to Social Studies!

The second one I created was on the Holocaust. Now I will warn you... this is a weird twist on the traditional method of teaching and I do actually know both guest speakers personally. So for me, this is actually a possibility.... if I taught eight grade social studies. I am going to  add another disclaimer. The purpose of this question is for the student to develop his or her perspective NOT to share my own perspective on this situation.

Holocaust: Nightmare or Necessity

I got my first "beyond exceptional" grade on the Holocaust webquest. Never seen that grade before but I know for some this quest is a hard one to teach. 

How do you use webquests in your classroom? What is your favorite quest?

Sixth Grade Funnies

I have been splitting my time lately between an ELD Fourth Grade class and a Sixth Grade Science Class. Now while I am enjoying teaching both... I LOVE SIXTH GRADE!

My mentor is "high energy" or as her students say "insane." BUT you have to love her. She is just so cute and fun! Plus I have never had so much fun in Science. Shhhh! Don't tell but science is on my short list of boring subjects. Until now...

Anyways... tomorrow is Monday and I am so excited! How can anyone be excited about a Monday? Well.. its easy in Sixth Grade. Starting the first week of March, the countdown for AIMS (our standardized testing) begins. In addition, Spring Break is thrown in there just to mess with the teacher's mind and to keep things interesting.

So how does one deal with the insanity? By starting the Monday Funny Video tradition! Every Monday from now until the end of AIMS, she plays a funny video just because. Here is last week's:

Its only 25 seconds so she played it twice. We were all laughing so hard. My favorite part of the day is when the social studies teacher came down the hall and said "what does a screaming goat have to do with science?" And my mentor answered "nothing! Its just funny."

Have you ever seen a bunch of sixth graders walking down the hall and randomly screaming like a goat? Oh my! It still makes me laugh! And the laughs didn't end on Monday either! It kept going all week long. The students found more goat videos and shared them with each other on Schoology.

It was amazing how much more relaxed and how much we got accomplished in 45 minutes when everyone was relaxed. Wanna know what we are watching this week??

We are classifying animals and this one was suggested by our students for this week's video. Plus, they are working on cause and effect in Language Arts. This is a great tie in and funny too!

How do you mange the insanity leading up to Spring Break and Standardized Testing?

End of Year Read Alouds

If you missed my last post then you missed out on all of my excitement over finding my perfect classroom decor. And YES! I am still drooling!

Today, however, we have a serious topic to cover and I need your help! My current mentor asked me for suggestions for End of the Year read-alouds for her class. Each year, she wraps up the school year with the same book. The problem is... she is getting bored. And if the teacher is bored then the students lose engagement.

Sooooo.... I know you all have amazing ideas! Below is a form for you to share your favorite read-alouds. I can't wait to see what your recommendations are!



I am hoping to have such a huge list of options that I can create a free ebook to share with all of you. Please feel free to pass the link to the form around. The more responses the better!

Textbook & Teacher Resource Secrets!

Yesterday... I shared with you my Gains for 2013. One of the gains I am planning on is recovering financially from my bankruptcy. I want to never be in this situation again!

For me, I can't control if my cancer returns. I am in remission but as any survivor will tell you... each day we are given is a gift. No one can guarantee it will not return nor can they say when it will return. It is a wait and see kinda thing. The best thing I can do is plan for the what-ifs and pray that it will never come to pass.

One of the things I am doing is learning to manage my money better. So today.. I have a great secret for you!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this place! I started using it as a cheap alternative to buying my book. I can choose my due date which means that I can rent them for the time I need them rather than some arbitrary choice of 30 or 60 days like other sites.

BUT I really fell in love with this site when I discovered you can rent teacher resources. Check this out.

I can rent books like this for 30 days. Make copies of the 1 activity I like in the book and use it with my class and mail it back. This will save me soooo much money. So this is one of my money saving secrets... as an added bonus it decreases the amount of clutter I have in my home and classroom.

What tops to do you have for saving money on teacher resources?

Book Walks & Text Features

A few weeks ago... I met with my latest mentor teacher and she asked me to do a book walk. After a few minutes of internal shaking, I looked at her and said "What's a book walk?"

< insert me turning pink here >

This is the image that popped into my head

Totally not what she meant!

So she explained it to me, told me I would be find, and sent me on my way to plan. I was BEYOND nervous but I returned 2 days later ready to do my first every book walk. (I taught a different lesson in between). 

Guess what!!?? 

It was a huge success! I loved it and so did the kids. 

I learned so much! 

I will do better next time even though my mentor said I was brilliant. 

I am now in a new class and guess what we are learning how to do... BOOK WALKS! Could have used that last class! But anyways... my professor sent this great link on how to do a book walk that I wanted to share with all of you. Just in case you ever find yourself turning three shades of pink when asked to do one. 

Book walks are great for building schemata and informal assessments. 

Check out Guiding Students Through Expository Text with Text Feature Walks. This is a skill/strategy that is recommended and used a lot with the Common Core. So if you aren't using it yet, you soon will have to be. 

If you need help with anything to do with reading... check out the Reading Rockets website. Four out of Five professors will ask if you have searched this site for your answer before knocking on their office door or sending them an email. At least that has been my experience. 

Do you use book walks? What are your tips for success??

Hands Down (OR no more hands raised)

A few days ago I receive a notice of a new required practice from my university. The mandate:

No more raising hands in class. 

It is one of the the things that will be on our observations from this point forward. I was a little upset with my last observation. I did not get marked off but I am a perfectionist. The comments irritated me. 

I was watched on who I called upon. male vs. female, race, and academic ability. I was a little upset that I was seen as biased. I called on more females than males and mostly Hispanic students. I need to diversify who I call on more I was told. 

So why does this upset me? Well lets look at the demographics of the class. 24 students. 22 are Hispanic, 1 Asian, and 1 Caucasian. There are 19 females and 5 males. Hmmmm.... I wonder why I called on mostly female Hispanic students who had a basic grasp of the English language? Could it be cuz that is pretty much the only person in the classroom? 

I will digress on this issue. So I wasn't perfect... I think I can live with it. .... or maybe not. It has been a few weeks and its still getting on my nerves. I prefer constructive criticism that is actually helpful. For example, if you had divide the class into groups before working on the timeline it wouldn't have taken an hour but the 20 minutes you planned. See... that one I like!

So what do we do about this hands down movement??

I was given a few different options to use but I would love to hear your thoughts as well. Do you have a favorite technique? Do your students still raise their hands? Here are some of the options I have received:

Shoulder Buddies

Did you know there is a toy called Shoulder Buddies??? Check this out! They are kinda cute but totally not the picture I was trying to google for. =) They come in all kinds of different colors and designs. Even holiday ones. My mind is wondering how I can use these guys!

Anyways... shoulder or elbow or knee buddies (whatever you choose to call it)... its the pair and share technique. Whenever you ask a question, you give think time and then they share with a partner. Afterwards, call on random people to share what their partner stated. This ensures they are listening and forming an answer together!

The Silent Thumb

Give think time after asking a question. If a student has an answer, they silently hold a thumb up under their chin. Then you can call on someone once at least 95% of the students have a thumb up. 

Choral Answers

Ask the question, give think time (15 seconds to one minute depending upon the question) and then say a code word (students should be given this first. Use of the same code word all year long makes this easiest) and all students respond together. If not everyone responds, ask the class to do it again!

Draw Straws

Well sticks actually. Place a students name on each stick. This works really well in conjunction with the silent thumb and then simply draw a name. NOTE: this helps intern and student teachers who may not know the names of your students and is left with the old raising the hand trick or asking for the little guy in blue... no not you the other one to answer the question. 

Wallet Answers

Okay... not actually in the letter from my university but I love this and it would be a perfect alternative!! My university actually suggests writing answers on a personal whiteboard or tablet (ha! like all of our students have their own personal tablets!) and then on the count of 3 or using the code word... show your answers. 

Sign Language

Once again.... that code word is important. Once you say it have the student show you 1, 2, or 3 fingers for choosing a multiple choice answer or using another sign to demonstrate their answer. For example, many teachers who use whole brain teaching use signs to help students memorize vocabulary. You can give a definition of the word and they can give the corresponding sign. 

The Vocabulary Scoot Boogie!

My current course (in case none of ya can tell) is all about literacy in the classroom. I have been focusing on this a lot and only have 2 weeks until the class is done! I have learned some amazing new things and wanted to share another one of my favorites with all of you.

I call it... 

The Vocabulary Scoot Boogie!

I added the "Boogie" part for Halloween.

According to my 5th graders... 

the Boogie Monster attacks those who

fail vocabulary tests. 

You have been warned!

Bwahahahahaha!

My mentor calls it... 

Vocabulary Rotations

YAWN!!

Shhh... 

don't tell her I changed her title!

I like mine better! =P

Anyways....  It is another type of fun game-ish activity. 

You will need: Half-size anchor chart paper, a sharpie, and each group of kids will need a package of colored pencils or markers. 

I learned how to make fancy-schmancy picture collages!!

You need 1 piece of paper per vocabulary word. Then with a sharpie right the word in the middle of the page. Break up your students into groups - you will need 1 group for every vocabulary word and 1 activity for each group. 

When I helped with this activity... we had 9 vocabulary words so 9 groups and 9 activities. Each activity or rotation is 2 minutes long. Set the timer... it helps. 

~~ TIP ~~

This teacher has a timer that is magnetic so it sticks to the whiteboard!

Genius and so easy to use. 

No more losing the timer!

~~~~~~~

Each group was given 1 piece of paper and students were required to stand during this activity and only talk to those in their group regarding the topic. Since it was a short time limit, they had to work quickly to complete the task. 

Why stand? So students were not sitting at other students desk and disturbing others personal space. I would have never thought of that!

Rotations: Each activity goes along with the word in the center of the page. You can switch them out to what you are focusing on but here are the 9 rotations we used. 

Rotation 1: Write the definition

Rotation 2: Use the word in a 7-up Sentence

Rotation 3: Draw a picture

Rotation 4: Spelling Pyramid

Rotation 5: Synonyms

Rotation 6: Antonyms

Rotation 7: Part of Speech

Rotation 8: Syllabication

Rotation 9: Presentation

There are 3 things that are ALWAYS done. Students always write a definition, draw a picture, and present the word. 

Presentation: After each group has traveled around the room to the various words, the last group has to present it to the class. This is how the vocabulary words are introduced each week. The last group has to determine if what the other groups did was correct. 

If you look at the pictures above... you can see a big red x over a word. This is where the students were trying to come up with synonyms for revolutionary. They struggled. The answers were hilarious and the presenting group said that their answers were wrong but they couldn't come up with anything better. 

Soooooo.... the computer was turned on and together the students used an online thesaurus to try and correct it.  During the assignment, they had access to a physical dictionary and thesaurus but they were not very helpful. 

There is a winner. The group who traveled and answered all the questions correct AND were the quietest AND stayed on task... won a piece of candy. This was hard for me... I would change it up. 

I would assign each group a color to work in so I could see who's work was whose at a glance and not have to continually ask. I would also make sure groups were more evenly matched in academic abilities. 

What are your favorite activities for teaching vocabulary? 

Halloween Stories - FREEBIE

Welcome to my eerily fantastic day 2 of Halloween Freebies! I am so excited about this week and so happy so many of you agreed to share your own freebies with me.

I love books as most of you know. So what could be better than Halloween Book Freebies!

Check out this free vocabulary worksheet on bats!

Jen over at The Teacher's Cauldron created this to go with the book Stellaluna. Love that story!

Diving into learning has this cute pumpkin counting book available for free!It would be great for PK and K! It would have been an awesome resource for my adventures in Kindergarten time!

We have been busy here reading some of our favorite Halloween books. So I created a few different story maps to go along with any Halloween book. To see what we are reading simply visit my Amazon store and check out the books for October list!

Stop by tomorrow for more Halloween Freebies!

In other news....

An error with my financial aid has resulted in a change in my schedule. So instead of graduating in May... it has been delayed to December. Instead of doing my student teaching in January... I will do it in August. In stead of being a finalist for Student Teacher of the Year... I had to drop out of the running. I made it to the final selection!!! Bummed does not begin to cover my thoughts on this but it is what it is. 

Word Families

We have all heard and read about word families and many of us even use them in our classrooms quite often. I love some of these cute word family displays:

You can find links to all 3 of these blog sites through my pinterest language arts board. Aren't they so fun and creative?

One of the issues we had with our ELL students was finding workbook pages that were simplistic for use with our students. When we did find some... they were missing some of the things we really needed.

There are 32 main word families but there are actually hundreds more. If students are able to recognize these families they can spell better, accurately read better, and develop language acquisition skills quicker.

Soooooooooooooo.... I made it! The first version I created has handwriting lines and was designed for my first grade ELD students. They need the lines so that way they can form their letters correctly. I also added a spot so that you can draw a picture to go along with the word.

The next package I made was for my second grade ELD students. They do not need the special handwriting lines BUT they do need more word families. This set has 300+ word families!

YEP! You read that right. It includes a worksheet for each one, answers (as I forget when standing at the front of the class and hate going through letter by letter all the time), and a chart of all the families for each vowel.

I added enough spaced for both real and non-sense words. However, I did not include the non-sense words in the answer guide.

This has made my life SOOOO much easier! I use these sheets for all kinds of things. Reinforcing spelling rules, helping struggling students with specific ending sounds, poetry, rhyming, and literacy centers. The ideas are really endless.

Personally... I like to use these in my interactive notebooks. My mentor teacher prefers to use them in a workbook format. I created 2 covers for this... one to use with my Wordville Series and one to use with my Phonics series. This way it will match either one.

PLUS it is generic enough that you can use with any other activities from your favorite sellers.

Differentiated Instruction Funny & a Winner!

My professor is driving me crazy!!!! This is my day...



Is your day like this?

Okay... in other news. The PaperMonster Contest is over!

Congrats to Kelly! I sent you an email requesting your information. =)

Sink or Swim

I feel like this is the story of my life at the moment but alas it is actually a game I played with my son's class the other day. His teacher let me sneak in for a few hours to observe his teaching style for an assignment. Shhh! It was not an authorized observation hence the sneak part!

I have never been in a classroom with a male teacher before so was very excited! The first thing I noticed was that his room was plain rather than cute. I am used to the "girly" classrooms and this was "manland" as my son told me.

When I spoke to my son's teacher he rearranged his entire days worth of lesson plans for me. He said women over complicate things so I wanted you to see what you can teach with little to no resources and planning. He spent 5 minutes planning his day!!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that he did this for me and I learned so much. Anyways... onto the my day of "not over complicating things" aka... Sink or Swim!

So do you see that pile of index cards on the floor... you will need one of those to play. Split the class into half. There is no talking during this game. The teacher divides the students into 2 teams and every player on the team has their name written on the board. Each team also has the 2 answers available written on their side of the board.

No talking is allowed or you are sunk (sit down). A student picks a card from the pile. They choose an answer. If they are correct... they pick to either swim (save) a teammate who was sunk before or sink (sit down) an opponent. Each player standing at the end gets 100 points. If the entire table is standing they get 500 points. If all 4 tables on a team is standing at the end they get a 10,000 point bonus! Points are used to win awards and are awarded by table.

Game lasts for as long as you have time. Kids get to wiggle and move but no pushing. Teacher can sink you for inappropriate behavior or talking and you can't be swum back in except by the teacher. The kids loved it and begged to play!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE: I received several emails asking for more specifics on this game. So here ya go! =)

 After teaching a grammar lesson on pronouns where students learned to recognize pronoun usage as the subject or object of the sentence, this game was played. The 2 answers are: subject or object. The pile of index cards has a pronoun written on it. The student has to state by pointing whether the pronoun applies to a subject, an object, or both.

There can be more than 2 answers but you need to keep the answers to a minimum. Imagine using this to identify different types of triangles, classifying animals, determining types of sentences, etc... Basically, anything that you would classify into categories can be used for this game!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Per this teacher all you need for an entire school year is a few thousand index cards and a bunch of sharpie markers and you can be set to go! One of my favorite parts is that he taught everything in chunks. First it was taking notes, then a memory game... then sink or swim.

Lots of fun and easy to plan! What are your favorite classroom game?

First Grade Common Core

OH MY!! Have you seen this? I have goose bumps and am beyond excited!

This is a workbook for the First Grade Common Core. They also have one for Kindergarten and it looks like there might be one coming for Second through Fifth Grades in the future as those grade levels have pages set up.

This book is A~MAZ~ING! I was looking at their free download and feel in love. As a brand new teacher this is just what I need! If you are switching to CCSS you need this too.

What's included?

This book has a TON of activities for your students all aligned with the common core. Some of the pages are even in color which means I can copy them onto cardstalk and print them as my classroom objectives. This book is going into my easy pile.

Cut and paste... check

Handwriting... check

Art projects... check

Writing prompts... check

PLUS... the worksheets are so simple I can use them as emergency sub plans. I know that no matter what my kids do that day they are still learning and are on task with the standards.

Oh this one with my core mapping book will make my life so easy!! Can you tell I am excited?

Easy Sight Word Data

On Friday night as I was finishing up the October fun pack, Melonheadz sent me a brand new set of graphics and said "do something with it." LOL! I was totally taken by surprise and had no clue where to start.

So... I pulled my testing crew (aka my sons) and said "Well... what do you think?" And so a new line was created as those boys did not come up with anything simple. I sent off a request for some exclusive graphics as I am gonna need them.

As I was trying to turn their ramblings into a product... I realized the first thing that I wanted to make! My mentor teacher said "sometimes you just want a whole years worth of lesson plans and be done with it." I took that idea to heart.

One of the things I did during Daily 5 was to meet with students 1-2 times a week to go over site word lists. These are kept in the students STAR binders and are to be practiced at home. We would use different color markers to write the date on the left and then underline the words the students know. You could also highlight the words but sometimes it is hard to see after awhile.

The problem we ran into is the set my mentor teacher used only had a set of 6 lists. When we were searching for a bigger package we found most only had 10 or less. My new package has 40 lists... enough for 1 a week for every week of the year. PLUS my monthly packages have 2 more sight words lists. Oh yea... never gonna run out again!

The other problem we had was keeping track of which list students were on. Either the numbers were huge or non-existent. This is an extreme closeup of the bottom right of my word lists... in 9 point font is the number.

So here it is! The finished product. This is part of a new series I am working on called Wordville Wizards. Totally love this idea and my boys are having so much fun coming up with ideas. I can't wait to share it with you.

This is called Sight Word Magic.  40 sight word lists - 25 per list - the top 1000 most frequently used words in the English language.

I included my method of data tracking for not only these but my monthly sight word lists as well. Simply add your student's name and the date it was completed. Super easy assessment tracking.... love it!!

I also included 2 pages if you prefer to make a workbook and bind it. As my mentor says do it once and get it done. I also included directions in how I organize my student data and lists using a crate and file folders. The best part, this is so simple that a volunteer can easily do it for you.

My favorite app: Notability!

I have been hinting that I would share this for awhile but taking pictures of my iPad seemed silly. So I haven't... then I got the bright idea to make the teenager do it!! He said he felt stupid taking pictures of my iPad. See... I am not the only one!

My most used and favorite app is...

So you are probably thinking another note taking app, right? I was until I saw another teacher use it and it was love at first site.

So here is my iPad... ignore the dirty screen.  If you look... there are files on the left where each one has a different color attached to it and then each file you can add multiple notes to it. This file is my last practicum so all of the notes are dated but you can name them however you like

Here is what one of my note pages look like. It is multiple pages... see the line in the middle, that tells ya my page above ended and so if I print this that is where my page will divide. Neat, right?

Okay... I can take pictures, scan documents, type, draw, insert graphs, high light, change the background of my pages... including a page with lined notebook paper, copy and paste, edit pictures, blow up anything to a bigger size, email it to anyone as a pdf, or send it off to dropbox. If that is not enough... it has the capabilities to record audio and video. You can use a stylus too but I have yet to find one I like.

This guy is amazing. I take it to all of my meetings. I use it for my practicum and student teaching. I have section for my students where we work together. That is what the lined paper is great for! We write down goals and then we work on them and save them.

Oh and once when we were having a really bad behavior problem,  we hit record on the video and wala... instant email to parents and the principal. GENIUS!

I purchased this on sale for $0.99. I think it is normally $2.99. Whatever it is... you need this one! You will never want another note app again.