A New, and More Difficult, Book Report Format

I have previously posted a few times about book report formats and cool book report themes. The one I used last semester was called Book Report Sandwiches, and I have also used the Book Report Brochures as both an individual book report and an end of book activity.

The sandwiches are well and good, and my class enjoyed doing the brochures very much. I kept a few of the exemplary works posted on a bulletin board in the classroom, and as you can see I constantly had many of these up there. It was a badge of honor to get a book report posted on the board, and a few students had multiples up there.

I'm going to be asking my students to do something a little more demanding... a little more "grown up" this semester. I have chosen to use what we're going to called the "detailed long format." This Detailed Long Format asks students to do quite a bit of analysis. It clocks in at 5 pages, and is very in depth for this age group. If you're looking for something a little more challenging for your students, I recommend using this format of book report. 

Some 5th Grade Greek Mythology Resources

My class will be studying a lot of Greek Mythology in the coming weeks.

Let me be a little more precise. We're reading The Lightning Thief right now, and I love to teach some Greek mythology while we're reading what has quickly become a classic in my classroom. But more on The Lightning Thief later.

My school district is mandating the use of "work stations" in reading class. This is basically just another way of saying "centers," "groups," or "guided reading." But that's another post for another day.

This post is simply just some resources about Greek Mythology that are usable in the 5th grade classroom. In my case, it will be in the reading class. Let's get started.

A lot of the things I'll be either printing out about Greek Mythology or having students read and synthesize on the internet will come from The Greek Mythology Webquest that is found on fairfieldschools.org. I pick and choose from the great selection of stories and Gods. I don't necessarily follow the webquest itself, although it is excellent if you choose to do so.

Greek Mythology for Kids - This is a listing of many resources at the timeless Mr. Donn . org (a great resource site).

BBC Primary History: Ancient Greeks - A great listing that students can use in individual research.

Winged Sandals - I can't pass on this FANTASTIC website. I'm going to have my students do some individual research this week using this great interactive, flash (or HTML) based site. The stories are interactive, are read to the students, and they can play games, download pictures, etc. It really is about as high quality as it gets.

SOME PDF DOCUMENTS:

Greek Mythology Cheat Sheet - It is what it says, a great cheat sheet for the teacher who may need to brush up a little bit (I've been there, trust me).

Yesterday's Classics - A great little reader that you can pull from for students to study a few specific Greek topics (and by a few, I mean a lot).

Listing of Greek Gods and Roman equivalents - Page 2 is a nice table that I'm going to utilize in class.

Lightning Thief Activities - I'm using this as I go through the Rick Riordan book, but there are some great activities and print outs in here that could be of service to anyone teaching Greek Myth.

Back To It and Some Great Teacher Oriented Android Apps

Today was the first day back to school for the kids. It was a nice, much needed break. Obviously I took a break from both work and my blogging, I just needed that time away from it all, and it was well worth it. I'm feeling refreshed and ready for another full semester.

I currently have a lot of little projects I'm working on. I will begin posting them as I complete them. I have so many different things going on now, from work stations to videos to units to webquests, that I won't even begin to list them here.

I've been pleasantly surprised with the steadily increasing readership of this blog, and will continue to keep it going.

Today, I wanted to share the educational apps I have on my phones. I get all of my apps from the Google Play Store (Android OS App Store), and the ones that are listed here are free apps.

My phone runs Android ics (Ice Cream Sandwich), which has so far been my favorite of the Android Operating Systems. I love that you can group apps on your home screen, similar to what Apple does with its apps. I have a group of apps I call Education apps, and they include a few calculators, and some other great tools. Let's take a quick run down of these tools that I use.

First, there are three calculators. The first one is the stock calculator. Secondly, the white icon is a great calculator that has a history function, and is called Seven+WP7 Calculator. Finally, there's a sales tax calculator that I use both when running errands and in class when teaching about the concept of tax (which isn't often, but I put it here anyways).

Next up, there is a great app called simply Common Core (if you search common core, it's the first result). I love this tool, it allows you to search through the CCSS. This has saved me a lot of time when I'm planning on the go, and I recommend it to any teacher who is under CCSS.

On to the second column, with Handcent SMS. I use the stock text messaging app for most of my texting, but what makes Handcent great is the ability to send bulk SMS messages. You see, Android only allows 10 messages to be sent at a time. This is inconvenient if you send daily text messages to your parents as I do. I want to send the same message (a daily run down of homework, things due, important dates, etc.) to 32 people. Well Handcent lets you do just that. This app has saved me a lot of time!

Next up is Goodreads. I love to read, and have a Goodreads profile. It's social networking for your books. This app is great, I can update my status, do reviews, and find new books all from the app.

Next is Embiggen. It's a simple concept: type something in, and embiggen makes it as large as your entire screen. It's a lot of fun to be able to send a quick message to students with the phone. They get a kick out of it for some reason.

The Boosed Grader app is something I've posted about before HERE, it is an EZ Grader app for your phone.

In the last column is BeyondPod, which is a podcast service (I have the paid one, but there is a free one available), and finally TED. TED lists hundreds of the TED talk videos, which are AWESOME.

So there you have it, a quick listing of some great apps for your Droid.

Boosed Grader: An Android App EZ Grader

As a child, I was lucky enough to attend elementary school where my mom taught (for grades 3-5). At the time, I understood little about what teachers actually did, and often thought that she stayed an hour or two after school each day just to torture me.

My mom had a magical tool in her classroom, a mystical green rectangular wonder that somehow told her how to grade things. I did not understand this piece of cardboard, but thought it held some mystical power. 

As it turns out, I was almost right. I'm talking about the EZ Grader of course. 

I have an EZ Grader, and am led to believe that every teacher on the face of the planet does as well. This little sliding piece of cardboard really makes the job of grading easier. I bought mine at the local school store right after accepting my first job, and have used it timeless times since. I like to have students help grade papers (only the ones who want to), and even teach them to use this simple little device.

As great and timeless as the EZ Grader has become, sometimes you don't have it with you. A simple calculator always works well in a pinch, but for those teachers who like to have all the percentages right in front of them, you do have some options.

I've used a few different Android apps that are EZ Grader clones,

and the best one I've come across is called Boosed Grader. Boosed Grader is great because it's free, and has a very simple, minimal interface. If you use a Droid smartphone, I highly recommend this great app!

Boosed asks you simply to input the total amount of points in the assignment you are grading, and in turn gives you a list of the percentages given the number incorrect, just like EZ Grader. I like this tool because I always have my cell phone on me, while my EZ Grader is in my desk at work. Plus, I always love the price of free apps.

Our Finished Social Studies Fair Projects

Last month I posted about a project based learning research project that we do called the Social Studies Fair. Obviously this isn't a unique idea, as there are national social studies fair societies, and teachers all over the world have been doing these in different forms for many years.

In any case, I've spent a few years refining the requirements for the fair that we put on at my school, and you can access all of the documents and requirements by clicking the link that begins this post.

This post showcases some of the projects that were presented. I wanted to do something a little different and share some of the photos from our fair in an Animoto video (to learn more about Animoto, click HERE). It was a great social studies fair, the kids were proud to share their work, and I was genuinely impressed with the overall quality of the work presented.