Thanksgiving Dinner 4th grade PBL

The other day I had the opportunity to go by Mockingbird to see some of the awesome educators there. Something that really stood out to me were all the PBLs they did this year posted in the 4th grade hallway. This was the math PBL that they focused on around Thanksgiving this year. What was really cool about this PBL was the scaffolding menu set up as a dodecahedron with 12 tasks to complete. I actually had the opportunity to see this PBL in action and it was so cool to see the learners making their dodecahedron. 

  

Other teams have done similar PBLs in the district. Here is an example of another 5th grade PBL https://sites.google.com/a/g.coppellisd.com/mrs_sims/thanksgiving-feast. If you would like a copy of the dodecahedron, here is one that I made: https://sites.google.com/a/g.coppellisd.com/educator-academies/5th-grade-le.   If you have any questions, feel free to email Crystal Wheatley at Mockingbird! 

On another note, I love the encouraging signs for STAAR written by other grade levels. Each learner had a star note written to them by another learner. 

Fraction Hopscotch

How awesome is this?? 3rd grade at TCE put a hopscotch board in the middle of their hallway so their learners could practice their equivalent fractions. What a great idea to engage our learners in a kinesthetic way! 

Daily 5 for Math

Using Daily 5 for Language Arts has been a common practice here in Coppell ISD for quite some time. Last year, Kasey Kemp, a TCE 2nd/3rd grade math/science educator, and her partner- Meredith Garnier decided it would be pretty awesome to do Daily 5 for math after seeing the success that their ELA counterparts were having with it. So they sat down with Diana Saylak, CISD math coach, and came up with the components of Daily 5 for math. I had the opportunity to go see Kasey's class recently and was highly impressed to see how independent her learners were working and how much time Kasey has to pull small groups. In fact, she was reteaching a concept to two learners while I was there. 

She initially got it started the same way most educators start Daily 5 for ELA- with a TON of modeling and practicing. Usually the rotations are the same for a week or two depending on the work required within each of the stations. 

This is how she determines who is in each rotation. Her learners move their picture to the correct station. 

She keeps most of the organizational material in these buckets. 

One of the rotations allows her learners to design a quilt square that has a certain number of predetermined shapes. 

These gentlemen were building a 3D structure where they were going to have to find the area, perimeter, and even volume. 

Then fill out this sheet with their structure. 

 

This learner was working on responding to some questions on Edmodo after watching a blended learning video. 

You know, I love a good anchor chart! 

If you have any questions about 2nd grade's Daily 5 rotations, feel free to email Kasey and ask! 

Technology with 1st Graders

When I think about using technology with 1st graders, the feeling that comes over me is not one of excitement but rather apprehension and maybe even a sense of dread. Will they really be able to use the technology effectively or will I be answering five million questions about how to upload pictures, use the app, or even how to turn the device on? Little did I know how effective and how smoothly technology with 1st graders can be! 

Kelly Jackson at Town Center has spent countless hours modeling proper technology usage with her learners this year and the results have been so fruitful. The class that I saw earlier today was independent, hard working, and engaged. The class was split up in to two groups of learners. One group was working on the app 30 hands making a presentation of shapes in the real world that they found and the other group was working on a google presentation of all the shapes and their attributes. The learners were so engaged and not once did Kelly have to redirect a learner. If you have any questions about using technology in 1st grade, feel free to email Kelly Jackson! 

This is an example of what the Google presentation should look like. 

LES Vocabulary Review

At the January Educator Academy, we had the opportunity to spend the afternoon on Vocabulary and the importance of focusing on Tier 2 and Tier 3 words. (See Bringing Words to Life for more information) It was truly an awesome afternoon and such powerful information was shared amongst the educators. Two educators decided to use what we talked about in the academy and really implement these vocabulary activities in their classrooms. Melissa Warren and Kelly Fischetti from Lakeside invited me to come to their 5th grade classes to see their own take on vocabulary review. Needless to say, it was quite impressive! 

First, the learners and educator brainstormed words that the learners had a hard time remembering the meaning. 

Then each learner was either assigned a word or they chose one that they were going to be the expert. They had to create a name tag with that word on the front and on the back they had to put the definition and other important information. 

They had to go find 10 people who had words that they were unsure of and learn from those experts. 

Here is the data sheet that they used to record their words. (Go here for sheet)

 The math conversations amongst the learners were very rich and impressive!

Kindergarten heard about 5th grade's vocabulary activity and they completed their own set of words. They came and shared their words and definitions with the 5th graders and the 5th graders had to share their words with the kindergarteners trying to make a relationship to one of their words. 

It was so cool to see the 5th graders and kindergarteners working together to learn their vocabulary words! Melissa and Kelly did an awesome job!! 

If you would like more information on vocabulary instruction, please visit the Educator Academy website! https://sites.google.com/a/g.coppellisd.com/educator-academies/vocabulary 

CCE 5th Grade EdCamp

Earlier this year, Nancy Benton and Malachi Ewbank at CCE had the brilliant idea to take the concept of EdCamp for educators and reinvent it for their learners. Each learner chose a topic that interested them and presented it to their friends in a fun and engaging way. I had the opportunity to see the first EdCamp and the topics ranged from sports to cooking. These two educators took it a step further for this past week-long EdCamp. Each of their learners chose a reading topic to do a review lesson on and prepared an experience for their fellow 5th graders. Every morning from 8:15-9:45 this week, learners presented their topics and went to presentations about other reading strategies that they needed to review. 

The QR code for the learners to get the schedule for the day. 

Here is the schedule for their EdCamp. 

This group worked on fiction vs. non-fiction literature. 

Inferencing is always a hot topic to review! 

Learners thinking about the inferencing task posed to them. 

This group was playing song clips for similes and metaphors. This room was definitely not the most quiet but all the learners were very engaged!! 

EdCamp was a success and every learner had a chance to review reading skills that they needed. This model gave ownership to the learners and could work in any subject area!