Newspaper Generator

Tuning in to EdmodoCon today (it's a virtual conference put on by Edmodo...check it out here).


One teacher shared a quick and easy resource that looks really cool with lots of uses!


The Newspaper Generator creates a jpeg with your typed text that looks just like a front page! 

How cool!  I could see using it as a student project or even on an assessment!  Other ideas??

Online Portfolios

Thursday wrapped up the first week of my OWP Content Literacy class and meant hearing from a fabulous guest speaker, Betsy Woods.  Betsy was my coteacher last summer for our online Historical Perspectives class.  She teaches at Milford HS and is a wealth of knowledge...particularly when it comes to technology!  And she is OWP's new "Professional Coordinator."

She shared tons of great tech resources with us that are housed here in her online portfolio.  I am particularly excited for some possibilities with audio recording, both students and myself for student feedback.  I'll keep you posted as I try it out!

Does anyone else give audio feedback to their students?  How has it worked for you?

Chutes & Ladders

I am always looking for new ways to review for a test.  Today we used a smartboard file of "Chutes and Ladders."  It was a HIT and SO easy! 

We ended up using this version, called "Snakes and Ladders."

Also check out other interactive smartfile templates here.

Getting back to Blogging

Do you ever walk away from something for so long that it starts to get hard to go back?  Like running or an organization project or blogging?  I hear ya.  I promise I will return, and have so much fun classroom stuff to share SOON, it's just been so far down the priority list.

For now, let me just share some cool resources that have been piling up, both of which are from ATP!

For timelines, check out Thinkport Tool, a really cool way to construct timelines electronically with equal intervals.

Also, we're moving into our careers unit soon and think this interest survey would be a neat way to start helping the students think of potential future careers.  Although teaching was not my #1 recommendation... hmmm...

Hope you're doing well.  I hope to be back blogging (and running for that matter) soon!

Parents as Study Partners

I just LOVE when parents get involved in student learning, don't you?! 

How cute is this video a parent sent me!?  They were working on studying for our Civil Rights unit test and it became a whole family affair!  I guarantee this made the learning more memorable (and fun!)

Exploding the Moment

I am excited to introduce Chelsea, my (semi-forced) guest blogger today.  Chelsea is one of my sweet colleagues with awesome style, precise organization, and great ideas.  And when she shares those ideas with me, sometimes I tell her, "You need to let me share this on my blog."  And she says yes!

But before I share that great idea with you, let me tell you just a little bit more about how awesome she is... Chelsea is not only a sorority sister, but a soul sister and fellow goof ball.  She is tons of fun to be around and would truly doing anything she could to help a friend out.  In short, she rocks my socks.  (Which, by the way, you should ask her about her husband's thing for colorful socks... He wore coral and blue ones to their super-fun wedding last summer! I digress...).

I made a screen-casted revision mini lesson on how to "explode" the important moments in a writing piece.  (I took an OWP class this past weekend that talked about revision and some different strategies... this was one of those ideas.)  I used Kizzy Ann Stamps (by Jerri Watts) as the mentor text.  This lesson could be posted for early finishers, too as a nice way to extend them.  

Also, it's a super easy site to use!

Enjoy!

Hashtag That

Last week I was teaching on the Civil Rights era when this picture of the 1963 March on Washington prompted a bit of a silly moment...

We were looking at pictures as a way of brainstorming for our upcoming historical fiction pieces and got hung up on the guy taking pictures on the right, about three rows back.  We started imagining him taking "Washington Selfies" and then joking about what he would probably hashtag....which turned into this:

 

I love instructional moments like this...when something organic and memorable makes a connection to students.  Don't you think I can count it as formative assessment?!  :)

Apps for Teachers

There are tons of blog posts about apps for teachers to use in their classrooms to help with student learning.  This isn't that post.  Instead, I want to tell you about two apps that make MY life easier as a teacher.

1. Do It Tomorrow-Free

This is the mother of all "to do lists."  It has two pages of lists; one for today, and one for tomorrow.  If you do not cross an item off "today" it automatically gets moved to "tomorrow." (You can also manually move items between days).

It's a great way to prioritize what needs to be done today and what can wait.  Plus when you "check an item off" it makes a really satisfying sound.

2. Take a Break-Free

"Take a Break" was recommended to me by a masseuse, so you know it has to be good!  When I can't sleep and am tossing and turning about assessments and meetings and all the business of teaching, I put on the "stress relief" meditation program.  It may sound cheesy, but it really helps for those days/nights when you just can't turn off the running list in your mind.

There are nice options (as you can see above) to customize the program, too.

I hope these help in some way!  I'd love to hear about apps that make your teacher life better!

Thoughts on the OCSS Conference 2013

Yesterday and today I had the privilege of attending the Ohio Council for Social Studies State Conference for the fourth time. 

As I realized this, I did a little reflecting on my previous experiences...

In the spring of 2006, I attended and presented as an undergrad.  My amazing and inspiring professor, Dr. Jim Sheehan encouraged me to attend with a group of peers.  I'm not sure we shared anything ground-breaking in our panel discussion presentation, but talk about a good way to get your feet wet with being involved in a professional organization!

In the spring of 2010, I attended with a few Mason colleagues, including my one-and-only mentor, lovingly referred to as "Mamasita"  (read more about my mentor and her words of wisdom here).  We didn't have the *best* attendance to the breakout sessions that year, but it did remind me that half of the fun is networking and bonding with colleagues.

Last year, I joined two Mason teachers from the upper grades and loved getting to learn alongside them.  Read more about that experience here.

This year was my favorite trip so far. 

I got TONS of new ideas that I'll be sharing soon, mostly from David Harms, who teaches at Penta Career Center in Northwest Ohio.  His presentation on flipped instruction is available here.  I can't WAIT to use some of his cool apps and tech ideas. 

In addition, I enjoyed presentations from some of my favorite colleagues, including one on the new C3Framework and one on a new module for OCSS resource sharing.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the experience of presenting.  This time, I definitely knew my stuff a bit more than as an undergrad, and had the benefit of representing the Ohio Writing Project. 

 

I shared some of the work I have done with OWP on integrating reading and writing into social studies, including lots of strategies like VIP notes, ranked reading, one-word notecards, It says/ I say notes, and text sets.  We jam packed that 100 minutes! 

 

 

Best of all, I had several attendees tell me later that they learned a strategy to use right away from my presentation.  Wooot!

 

This year, there was also a very moving tribute to Dr. Jim Sheehan, the professor I mentioned earlier who first got me involved in attending the OCSS conference.  Dr. Sheehan passed away in 2008 after a battle with cancer.  This year an award has been named in his memory to help get new social studies teachers involved in OCSS and encourage them as future leaders. 

 

 

It really made me realize how much I owe to those educators who have shaped my path to becoming a teacher.  I miss you, Dr. Sheehan!  Thanks for all you taught me and so many others.

 

 

 



History Class Take-Aways

This week ATP and I, along with some other colleagues, took an American History class.  The class was very lecture-heavy with content much deeper than we would share with 5th graders.  But there were some take-aways I want to remember to incorporate into future teaching.

The focus of the course was on ecological and geographical connections to history.  (Fancy, eh?)

Day one focused on the demise of the buffalo (yup...5 hours).  The presenter's argument was that much more of it was already in motion before the white hunter/settler.

I particularly liked this infographic that was shared.  I think it's a great way to show students the deep impact that the decline of the buffalo had on the culture of the Plains indians.

 

On day two, we started with a presentation on ArcGIS software.  GIS stands for Geographic Information System. 

 

The software has been purchased by the state of Ohio for K-12 classrooms, but is still in the roll-out phase.  There are lots of potential uses for our newly geographic-focused curriculum, especially in allowing students to make inferences about different thematic maps and what they reveal about the city/region.  Check out some of the data available here and some examples of maps below.

 

 

 

 

The software is limited right now by the fact that students have to have a unique account linked by email.  Also, right now all the free accounts are public, so make sure to remind students not to mark their own homes.

 



Disclaimer: a LOT of this seems very complicated and to my untrained eye.  I would prefer to use Google Maps/Earth for most of the same type of lessons.  I'm sure if you really get into the ArcGIS software there is a lot more depth, but I'm not sure I'm totally ready to dive in.

 

One feature I am eager to try is the newly developed addition of Story Maps.  Basically, they are animated maps that cover an event, from the Moore tornado to the Battle of Gettysburg.  I want to remember to look into this more this school year.

 

Since then the take aways have been minimal, but we did take a walking tour of downtown Hamilton to learn about the Flood of 1913.  I'm not sure if there is enough history in our school district to actually do this, but as AC (awesome colleague) shared, it would be an interesting project to have students create more of a "virtual" walking tour of some sort.  AC's idea was to create a larger "walking tour" of a region.  This could also be incorporated locally with the impact of European exploration. Perhaps a walking tour of nearby English, Spanish, or French architecture? 

 

Overall, I'm thankful for the credit hours and the few nuggets of ideas, but mostly, it was a good week to catch up with colleagues before heading back into our classrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

Harlem Shake

A special Friday treat for you... My class performing our "Reading Workshop Harlem Shake."  Enjoy (sorry it's so pixelated!  You can also watch it on YouTube)

 

 

 

6 more days!

Field Day Fun

I can't believe that we're already to Field Day!  And 10 school days after today!

One of our students' favorite stations at field day this year was "Just Dance" in the gym.  ATP and I loved getting down, too.

 

It was such a hit that we did a few more dances this afternoon.  I'm definitely keeping "Just Dance" in my bag of tricks because it's a great, low-pressure, and FUN brain break!  Here are some of my students' favorites:

 

"Never Gonna Give You Up"

 

"Rock Lobster"

 

"Satisfaction"

Happy Week-Before-Testing-Week Week!

Here's a little gem for you:

How are you getting ready for testing?  Yesterday we created some awesome Show Me presentations.  Check them out!  It was way better than the way I used to review these skills and the students love watching their classmates themselves.

Question Blitz & Quick Research

We're doing a Document-Based Question (DBQ) this week on Westward Expansion. (Check out my page on Teachers Pay Teachers for your very own copy!)

The last two days we looked at the documents and I was struck by how many great questions the students asked. So today we explored these questions in a "Question Blitz." I gave the students five minutes to see how many questions they could come up with.

Then we took about ten or fifteen minutes to find as much information as we could to answer our question online. I mean, isn't that how we do research these days anyway? Have a question...ask google!

It was awesome to see the students so engaged and eager to see what they could find. And I learned a TON, too!

Mood Music

This week we've been learning about mood in writing.  I introduced the concept with a tweaked version of this anchor chart.

Then we practiced finding the mood in our own texts and used this graphic organizer, a clever play on "Mood Rings," to add in text evidence.

The next day we watched this short animated video and talked about how music is often used in movies to convey mood.

"The Piano"

To practice, students have been given one of twenty passages to find accompanying music.  Here's my sample (text from Ray Bradbury's short story The Long Rain).

Where did I get that awesome somber music you may ask??  Freeplay Music is perfect for this assignment.  It's a database of free instrumental music that's searchable my genre, tempo, instrument, and feeling.  Perfection.

I can't wait to hear what my students share!

Show Me

Have you heard of the app "Show Me?"  It's rocking our world at school.

Before SB my students and I tried it out for story mountains.  I am in L-O-V-E.  It was so fast and easy and a great way to informally assess each kiddo.  Follow us!  http://www.showme.com/Amy-Sheets

There are so many great ways to use it.  I'm excited to try integrating it into our poetry unit soon.

So jump on the bandwagon!  You won't be sorry.