Thought I would add this Jing that I made about utilizing the website Eduplace.com/graphic organizers. It was referenced in an earlier blog. I'm still working on the full lesson plan for the Daily 5 activities.
In today’s classroom
environment we are asked to teach students utilizing more than the standard
paper and pencil routines. We are asked
to allow students to use different structures and tools in order to be able to
show mastery of a topic. With technology
leading the way in business it behooves us to teach our students to utilize
technology especially if it can help them show mastery of concepts. For that reason I chose to demonstrate how to
use Eduplace.com/graphic organizers (http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/. Many of the Common Core Standards that I
teach in my grade level (2nd) deals with getting students to
comprehend the reading that they are doing.
They may show mastery of comprehension by using a graphic
organizer. If they haven’t quite
mastered a subject, they can use graphic organizers to help them. Hence, the reasoning for using graphic
organizers.
My students started out
by using a paper pencil copy of the graphic organizers. I am able to teach them how to utilize each
one. I am also able to teach them how to
search out the information that they need in order to fill it out. This front end loading pays off dividends on
the back end. As students become fluent
in their reading they are able to spend more time concentrating on the
comprehension of their reading rather than the fluency (or sounding out
words). There are many graphic organizers at
educplace.com for the students to utilize.
The structure that I use
for teaching is Daily 5/CAFÉ. The
website for this is http://www.thedailycafe.com/
I have read the books
associated with this structure. I have
also gone to their professional training.
The structures utilized in the teaching of reading. Student choice is the heart and soul of this
program. Allowing students to choose
their own structure for the week empowers the students.
The students have the
structures listed on a bulletin board.
They choose which structure by placing a sticky note on it with their
name on it. They are now responsible for
practicing and learning the structure that week.
So this week my students were working on a research report about their pet or favorite animal. They had to use three different references and cite the references in their works (we use Super 3 for projects, I'll cover that later). So we got books from the library about our animal and went through and made notes (on sticky note). We were researching where they live, what they eat, what they look like, and an interesting fact. Everyone makes it through this part of our research. Next, I introduce them to the encyclopedia. I show them how to utilize the encyclopedia and look things up. My students enthusiastically started combing through the encylcopedia's in order to make their notes. Then I hear a commotion coming from our pod so I go out to investigate. One of my students had found pictures of the male and female body--and you know they were naked. This evidently brought on quite a few comments by said student along with some pointing and giggling. Oh no. How do I explain this one to parents. I decided not to chase the problem but to let the problem come to me. And you know it did. "Hello, would you come up to my office and visit Mr. Loomis" came over the PA system in my room from the principal's office the next day. "Busted", I said to myself. The principal needed to talk to me about another issue that had come up. Since I was in the office itself I decided I might as well bring the situation to light just in the off chance that a parent called in. The advice that I received was to write up the student and let her deal with it. Which I did. Whew! I think I got off easy. Said student didn't, five days detention and a phone call home.
It's Friday and I'm ready for that weekend to get here. Guess what's waiting on me at home.
Next week we conquer Wiki with our searches for more information about our animals.
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