Cause and Effect in Reading Class: A Few Resources

My students are working on cause and effect in reading this week. I found a very short activity on the computer that reinforces the idea of cause & effect. Remember when teaching cause & effect that the cause is the reason something happens, and the effect is what happens as a result. There is this shockwave flash presentation all about the relationship.

Prefix and Suffix Pdf Lists

Tonight's post is very simple. My school has asked the 5th grade to come up with a list of important prefixes and suffixes that the students will track their progress on learning this year. We identified this as a learning gap in past years, as many students struggle to properly use and comprehend pre and suffixes, as well as root words and tenses. So, I went out and found a few documents that list common -pre and -suf fixes, all are in pdf format, and most are fairly comprehensive:

• Scholastic Most Common Prefix and Suffix Sheet: One page of each, very student friendly and print ready.
• Building Vocabulary: A fairly comprehensive, 5 page document that lists it all in table format. Not exactly student friendly but good if you're building a list.
• Huge List: Another massive list of many common prefixes and suffixes. 
• English Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words: I like the examples and parts of speech that are listed along with each entry.
• Table: Another nice table with all the information.
• Separated by Alphabetic Order List
• Another Big List in Table Format

These are more of a starting point for coming up with a list. When we have identified the ones that are important for 5th grade and typed them up, I will surely link to it on the blog.

Writing Journal Prompts and Resources

Writing is one of those skills that must be practiced time and again, especially in elementary school, where students are learning to master both the mechanical and creative aspects of writing.

I have my students do a daily writing journal entry based on a prompt that I write on the board. We do this in the morning during breakfast and announcements, before instruction begins. It seems easy at first to come up with good prompts, but trust me, it can be difficult to keep it going. Here are a few great places to go find some prompts or ideas:

• Daily Writing Prompts: This site at teacherscorner.net is great, it gives prompts by month, and each prompt is attached to something of historical significance that happened that day in history or around that time. 
• Creative Writing Prompts: An easy to use page with 346 writing prompts. Just hover the cursor over a number and get a prompt, very quick.
• Always Write: A fantastic page with ideas about how to make writing more interesting and fun. I love the idea of "Mr. Stick," and am actually going to introduce my own version of this tomorrow and give it a trial run in class.
• 30 Good Prompts: It is what I said it is. There's a million sites similar, but there are some good prompts of note here.

No One Is Perfect

As I sat down this morning and reviewed some of my own postings about the beginning of the school year (like The First Day of School: How it Looks in my Fifth Grade Classroom and My First Day Schedule of Activities), I realized that I missed a few things, and have a few potential behavioral issues and issues with my procedures that I'll have to get on top of this week, the first full week of the school year.

Something I've learned to accept after almost a decade of teaching in the classroom is that nobody is perfect, we all forget, we all make mistakes, and sometimes we don't catch the little things until later (if at all). That's good advice for anyone. Be willing to know that you can make these mistakes, and be prepared to go back and fix them. With my current group, I've realized already that they can't use the same procedure as my last class to use the restroom during the day, so I'm going to have to make this change tomorrow. I've also realized that they don't have as much experience with working together cooperatively, they tend to antagonize one another a little more than I'm used to, so I'll have to make this change as well.

It's important for students to understand and adapt to their new teacher, because we're not all the same. But to the same degree, teachers can't expect each class of students to mirror one another, we all must adapt. That's what I'm trying to do right now.

Of course, it is the weekend, and I do try not to let my job become a major focus on my home life (another post for another time). So after I've posted this, it's off to my family and my home time. Then work will be waiting tomorrow.

Getting Started With Labeling Your Classroom and Making A Student Generated Alphabet

As I've previously discussed, my school district recently adopted the Gómez and Gómez model of dual language instruction. Although many of the strategies they utilize make more sense in the dual language environment, they've decided to have the English only classrooms implement some of the model as well. Right now, I'm still focused on set up, which includes the student generated alphabet (a one time project in which students create a grade level appropriate list of each letter with a picture (and a sentence in the upper grades), and the labeling of the classroom environment.

The model asks for English words to be labeled in blue, and Spanish in red.

Of course, what I'm about to link to here can be used in any classroom that does labeling or student alphabets, not just within the Gómez and Gómez model (they hardly invented these things after all, they just repackaged it all).

First up, let's begin by looking at a few resources for labeling the classroom environment, and what I mean by this is actually labeling things like doors, clocks, book shelves, etc, as to immerse students in the language vocabulary.

As with most things that are out there in elementary schools, the materials are made for primary grades. As an intermediate grade teacher, I don't even flinch anymore when I see this. In almost every single adoption that has occurred in my career, the materials that are handed down are meant for primary classrooms, and the older age classes are expected to "adapt" them. This is a fancy way of saying "we didn't take the time to do this right, so you do it."

Because, after all, I don't want the same labels that are in a first grade classroom in my fifth grade classroom. Hopefully my students know what a door, clock, and board are. What we're looking for is some higher level thinking. So think of using "analog clock" in place of clock, "fluorescent lights" instead of lights, and "door hinges" instead of door, just to name a few.

• This first link, to a list of classroom labels at slatersoftware, is obviously primary grade focused. I included it to show how this works.
• This next link is just a list of some suggested words that might work in a 4th or 5th grade classroom.

Finally, I'll end with a few templates that I've come up with on my own:

• This template is printable classroom label blanks. This is a very simple pdf with black rectangles for printing. 
• Finally, here is my student generated alphabet blank template. The box on the top is for the upper and lowercase print version of a letter, and the bottom box is for the cursive upper and lower case letter. The lines next to the print box are for a sentence about the word chosen to represent this letter, and the lines at the bottom are for the same sentence in cursive. The big box in the middle is where the drawing of the chosen word goes, as well as the word written out.