This year my class will be using Learn Zillion, a website that presents students with mini math lessons similar to the Khan Academy videos, and lets the teacher assign practice work and quizzes for students to do online. The teacher can also view student progress.
Last year I used Khan Academy with advanced students during our RtI time (RtI stands for Response to Intervention, it's a mandated tutoring time, in my grade level, we primarily use it for targeted math tutoring). The issue I had with Khan Academy was the students never fully got the hang of it, and my lower level students didn't get a lot from the instruction. I'm not knocking Khan Academy, it's definitely revolutionary and my advanced students will still be utilizing it from time to time.
What I like about Learn Zillion is that its lessons work well across the board for all students. I'm going to try assigning harder work for students who need it, and if I find that it's not meeting there needs, I'll start moving those students over to Khan Academy.
Learn Zillion is very simple to use. First, the teacher signs up for a free account, then starts building a class. The first time each student logs in, they'll need the classroom code (you can print this out for them with a list of instructions). From there, the teacher can assign lessons across a broad area of math topics.
It's something I hope to find success with this upcoming year. Here's hoping!
The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is truly one of my all time favorite books. I have read this book aloud to my class every year that I have taught, and will continue to do so. I wrote a review of The Giver in 2008 on my old literacy blog The Literabuss, so I won't get into my thoughts on the book, but I'll keep this post about how to teach with this book, and some ideas to utilize in the classroom with it.
I want to quickly point teachers into the right direction in terms of freely available materials online, so here's some links to those first:
The Giver Unit Plan - A nice unit plan put together on Eileen Midure's Homepage. There are vocabulary words, activities, worksheets, quizzes, objectives, and more. A good starting place.
The Giver Navigator - Available on Mr. R a (probably not anymore since this was posted in 2003) pre-service teacher from Northern Illinois University.This reads like it was part of a project for a college course, but there are some decent resources here for both teachers and students.
Scholastic Reading Guide to The Giver - A very nice printable pdf document that includes an author interview with Lois Lowry, questions to guide the reading, laid out by chapter (pages 18-22, if you use one part of this guide, it'll be this part), and guides to theme, settings, characters, etc.
Next up is a great Youtube video made by a teacher and class. This is an idea I have taken and used as my own. It's a movie preview trailer made by the class, and it's a great long term project. The way I do this is I introduce the idea at the beginning of the book, start up an ideas board, and have students post possible ideas for inclusion in the preview video, which we make as a whole class project at the end of the book. Check out this video (it's not mine by the way):
Finally there's a project that I do each year, called "The Giver in black and white." It's a good project for 5th graders, because it gets them thinking about what it would be like to live in that world. I have each student go somewhere on the school grounds, and take a picture of something they think is colorful. I then print out their photo in black and white. I wait a few days, then present students with their black and white photo, and ask them to first describe the colors they originally saw. Next, I ask them to describe how it feels to view the photo in black and white, and finally, I ask them to create an abstract drawing (they may need a crash course as to what that is) using the colors that are now absent from their photo.
The Giver is a fantastic book, one that is loved by my students each year. I hope you've either read it, or will give it a shot, you won't be disappointed.
Every classroom I've ever seen asks students to collect data in raw form, and then analyze that data in one form or another. The raw collection seems easy enough. But the reality is, while most students can collect their data, many don't know how to analyze it or interpret data already placed in a pie chart, pictograph, frequency diagram, or bar graph (just to name a few).
So, it's off to BBC we go to play a game called Frequency Diagrams with Dick and Dom. This is an interesting game that will ask the player to figure out some totals based on given data.
For teachers, I came across this great site called Math Worksheets 4 Kids. Specifically I have attached a link to a page that has worksheets for Statistics. Check out the tally worksheets they have there, it's simple but will give you a quick view as to whether or not your students understand.
The website Voki offers students the chance to make a talking card of sorts. I have students use this website numerous times during the school year to analyze literary characters, major historical figures, etc. Making a Voki is simple, just head on over to the website, and click the "create" button, and you're on your way.
Once the creation page comes up, click the buttons to change your character, customize the background, voice, even the dimensions of their features. Watch your spelling when typing in the text they'll read aloud.
Just remember, you need to embed the code into your blog, website, or even a document to ensure it's saved before you close the web browser when you're finished, or you'll lose your work! If you have a user account, your Vokis will save there. Check out my Voki. It took me about two minutes to make this.
Here's a simple post with a simple premise, the seven continents. You'd be surprised how many fifth graders (pretty much most of them) don't know the seven continents, or think that Texas and California are both continents.
I'm going to keep this nice and easy. I don't really have a lot of extra time to teach the continents, but I like for that content to get taught. So, I'll have my students practice by playing the Continent Names game over at PlayKidsGames.com. Next up, I will have them listen to this rap called "The Continents Song." It's a little infectious, easy to pick up, and within a week, the kids know the names of the seven continents. That was easy!
