to tell you that I'm moving to 6th grade! And I'm going to be teaching reading! (which is my teaching-passion.)
I'm excited but also scared to death. The only things that make this remotely acceptable are:
I've taught these same kids year before last when they were in 4th grade. (I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they discover I'm moving up - they'll freak!)
I'm getting to reunite with a teaching colleague that I get along wonderfully with - we're like long-lost sisters. We have similar teaching styles and behavior management styles. Yay!
I'm terrified because this is something SO FAR out of my comfort zone - I don't even know where to begin. I feel super excited - like this could be IT - the thing I've been waiting for my whole career. I'm ridiculously excited every time I think of something I won't have to deal with any more (math, science, social studies) but worried when I think of things I do (class library, storage, organization, class jobs) that I'll have to make fit 6th grade.
I'll end this freak out post by saying this - HELP! I need resources for 6th grade Reading/Language Arts. I know it isn't all that different from 4th grade - just longer, harder texts. But I need mentors and buddies and Twitter helpers! I've NEVER been departmentalized - I've never had to collaborate on this level with colleagues before.
I'm excited - 43 days until I have my students for the first time! Let's get started!
My local district is really wonderful about providing staff development opportunities for teachers. The classes are free for us and give us renewal credit. I attended this workshop on July 11 from 8:30 to 3:30. Here's what I learned.
Integration is a best practice. Various research studies say that a curricular unit must be seen to involve more than one discipline or subject. And the Common Core standards will require us to be using 50% or more informational text. We need to integrate to get to that level.
Here is where I was a bit disappointed - the focus turned from integrating Social Studies and Science to teaching reading strategies to use with nonfiction text. I'm ok with that because I learned a few new strategies - but it wasn't what I thought it would be.
New Learning #1 - Do more active reading with the students.
This means do more things like jigsaws, buddy reading, scavenger hunts, and graphic organizers to guide the reading. Also things like anticipation guides, a "Tea Party," List-Sort-Label, Semantic Feature Analysis, and Semantic Webbing/Mapping. These all require kids to be actively engaged in the text and discussion.
New Learning #2 - Do more with author's purpose.
The presenters had several large wall charts. One I especially liked was for author's purpose. My students have had trouble with this in the past. The chart is used to track every piece of text that crosses the students' collective desk - a basal reading story, a read aloud story, a Science or SS textbook lesson. Identify the purpose and add it to the chart. This lets the students see commonalities and lets the teacher see areas that may need a boost.
New Learning #3 - Be more deliberate in the teaching of text structures (instead of just focusing on text features.)
We did some in-depth work with 5 different structures of text - description, sequence, compare/contrast, cause/effect, and problem/solution. I now have some good examples and activities to use. I'll definitely be adding this to my bag of tricks - I think I will start by using it in my nonfiction unit and then work it into fiction as it applies.
Last, I was referred to some books and authors that sound excellent (now if I can just find them at the library!)
Nonfiction Matters by Stephanie Harvey
Laura Robb - she has written many books about vocabulary and some about teaching Science and Social Studies during Reading. I'm hoping this book will pick up where the workshop let me down.
Overall, a useful day. I wish it had been more focused on the actual nuts-and-bolts of integrating Science and Social Studies. However, I understand the limitations the presenters had - time, district expectations, testing requirements.
When I moved to 4th grade, I was extremely excited. Finally, I would be teaching a SS curriculum that made sense! If you have ever taught primary grades, you know the topics covered tend to be vague - communities, holidays, citizenship. In NC (and most states I've learned), 4th grade is when students begin learning about the history of their state. To me, this made it perfect for interactive notebooking.
My first year in 4th grade, I followed the textbook. And quickly got frustrated. Our textbook covers NC history by covering the 3 regions: Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Mountains. So we learned about the past and the present of each region. That means we discussed the American Revolution, Civil War, and other topics 3 times in varying amounts of detail. In the end, I didn't feel like my kids had a sense of the chronological story of our state. I vowed to spend my summer doing something about it.
So I did my research and found this: North Carolina History: A Digital Textbook. This is meant for 8th graders - but it worked great for my purposes. I used their time periods and reorganized my 4th grade textbook chronologically. It took going down to page level - because some lessons had a huge span on a time line - what were the textbook developers thinking?! This is what my plan looked like:
This reflects the revisions I made at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. I went ahead and included my Science curriculum too, so I can make sure it gets done. I love this SS so much that I'd spend an hour a day on it and never do Science.
My next step was to revise my expectations for our notebooks. My first year, I started with the typical notebooking idea of, "left for student reflection, right for teacher info." This quickly fell apart, as my students just didn't have the maturity or skills necessary to really use the left side for reflection and interpretation. Another part that did not work was keeping a table of contents. I abandoned this idea after students lost valuable class days trying to catch up. It just wasn't worth the effort.
We had a good title page and then started straight in on our first topic - Geography, Government, Regions, and Symbols. We flowed through the year, doing different activities (you can see some in the slideshow below.) I really tried to focus on how NC History fits into American History. We spent a lot of time on landmark events like first explorers, the American Revolution, Westward Expansion, the Civil War, and the 1900's technological marvels. The pacing didn't work quite as I wanted - I ended up rushing through the last several chunks as centers. Next year I'll be able to pace things out differently.
Social Studies Notebook - 4th Grade on PhotoPeach
So, where do I go from here? Well, I made unit plans for each unit on my main document. I've gone through my resources and the classroom library to find activities and literature to support each unit. I'm going to rely less on the textbook and more on the digital textbook, primary sources, and authentic literature. I've tried to find lapbooking resources (another post on another day!) to go with the literature and the general American History topics. I've gathered Internet sites and sources into my unit plans as well. It is amazing what is out there - if you just go look! So I feel well prepared for another year of SS notebooking - all I need are some students!
Have you used interactive notebooks? Do you teach SS (as opposed to teaching other subjects)? What strategies do you use to make sure they are engaged and learning the content?
I'm going to start featuring sites I use in my classroom. I have taught 4th grade for 2 years now. Prior to that, I taught 3rd grade. I have used this site (in one form or another) since those 3rd grade years. I don't know about you, but at some point in the year, I tend to loose my voice. Or sometimes, I get the vibe that my students just don't want to hear from me that day. That's when I pull Nutshell Math out of my bag of tricks!
When I originally began using Nutshell Math, it was as a part of a subscription to Cosmeo. A colleague had subscribed and everyone in the grade level used it. After leaving that school though, I had to find another option. I somehow stumbled on just the Nutshell Math product - and their FREE accounts for teachers! Here's some screenshots so you can see what's what.
Welcome screen. Click "Teachers" to get to the next part.
Teacher screen - you can see examples or click "Get A Free Teacher Account" on the right.
This is what appears as a sample explanation. The ones the students will see are much cleaner, visually speaking.
When you click to get a free teacher account, you have to supply a bit of information - but no credit cards!
Now the fun part - this is a screen shot of the lists of textbooks. The pictures are showing just a few of the Elementary Math (grades 3-5) textbooks. There are almost 30 to choose from! My specific book isn't listed - but I don't let that stop me. You can change your textbook at any time. I simply look at the "Math Topics" and preview the lesson. If it matches what my textbook/curriculum teaches, I use it. If not, I'll change textbooks until I find one that is better. For what it's worth, the "Nutshell Math Virtual Textbooks" listed at the bottom of the page have been my best bet so far. We have "Math Connects" and it has a very hands-on, inquiry based approach. Most of our strategies have been included in the Nutshell Math textbook.
As you can see though, there are other math topics covered - Algebra 1 and 2, Geometry, Trig, Calculus, and Middle School Math/Pre-Algebra. This is an AWESOME resource. There is a "pay" option of course - how would they may money otherwise? You can set up student classes (perhaps with student access) and assign videos and quizzes for them to take. All accounts get this automatically for 30 days - I never used it. I simply didn't need it. I wanted the videos - because sometimes, just hearing and seeing someone different is all it took for some of my kids to "get it."
So, if you think Nutshell Math would be good for you, go sign up! I absolutely love it - if I'm ever out long term, you can bet I'll be leaving this site for my sub to use! It is that good!
