Showing posts with label lesson plans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lesson plans. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Earth Day activities!

     Earth day is Thursday April 22.  Here are a few sites that have activities that engage students and  bring awareness of Earth day and global conservation!


Education. Com

https://www.education.com/resources/earth-day/?msclkid=72ef303863821bc8cebd504f6a6c81cf&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Search%20-%20Spring%20Holidays%20-%20BMM&utm_term=%2Bearth%20%2Bday%20%2Bactivities&utm_content=Earth%20Day

  

  This has some good worksheets and activities for students  to celebrate earth day



Tinkerlab


https://tinkerlab.com/fifty-earth-day-activities/


  Another site using natural materials for students.



Project Learning tree

https://www.plt.org/educator-tips/earth-day-activities/


   Some more interesting activities!


Tuesday, February 16, 2021

StoryJumper.com

  StoryJumper.com  is a great site ! A few years ago I did a very brief post about StoyJumper. It has come to my attention again , so I decided to really look and see what they had to offer.

 

    I think teachers and librarians would really like to use StoryJumper with their students. There  is information on the site for teachers . They give examples of projects for student activities in each subject area.( even Math & Science!!)


   There are also  ideas for different types of writing: nonfiction, expository, collaborative projects, and creative writing ideas. And there is opportunity to use student art work or use the StoryJumper art work.


 Students can have their book published online for free; Of course , there are options for the publication of the book in both hardcover or paperback for a fee.


There is a wide selection of student work,that can be read online, which will also give students a chance for reading and a spark to create their own work,

I 


https://www.storyjumper.com/school


Sunday, January 31, 2021

World Read Aloud Day!

     On February  3rd,  there will be a World Read Aloud day with several author volunteers doing a quick virtual read aloud with classrooms around the world to share the joy of reading. 

  Some of the authors are Tracey Baptiste, Debbi Michiko Florence, Hena Khan, Meg Medina, Ellen Oh, Dawn Quigley, Rajanni LaRocca, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Linda Urban, Anne Ursu,  Kate Messner and  Renee Watson

  Each  author will  read a five-minute sneak-preview from one of their upcoming books for readers in grades 3-7.  The whole segment will run about an hour.

 The link to the video will be on Kate Messner’s site and she will post it  a day early so that teachers / librarians can embed in Google Classroom if they want . You could also use it in classrooms or share with parents.

The presentations won’t  be long, Kate’s site has the following information.

  • 1-2 minutes: Author introduces himself or herself and talks a little about his or her books.

  • 3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel

  • 5-10  minutes: Author answers a few questions from students about reading/writing

  • 1-2 minutes: Author book-talks about a couple of  other books they love.

https://katemessner.com


Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Quizizz.com- another tool for library and classroom


   Here is another on line tech tool that students, teachers, and librarians will love to use. It is perfect for virtual learning and compatible with Google classroom.


  There is a lesson and quiz creator. But there are also numerous lessons and quizzes already  created that you can use . Some lessons use power point. The Quizzes are self check. 


    There are tutorials to help you set up lessons , which I did not go all the way through, But the steps seem to be easy. Teachers can assign lessons and quizzes. There seems to be a lot of information to assist teachers in using this with their classes.

 

  There are quizzes in English/ Language arts, Math, Science , Social Studies, World languages,

Creative arts, computer skills, and career/ tech education.


Check this out , I think it will be helpful!




https://quizizz.com/teachers?ref=header_tab




Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Making your teaching more student centered-2

  Here are a couple of more ideas for creating more student centered learning. This is not an easy task but it is so worth while to get the students engaged and involved their learning,

  1- Design more active practice  of skills and lessons that the students need .Provide more opportunities for students  to engage with materials and activities. This will ensure that students retain information  and be able to use then skill/ information a new context. If you use guided practice and provide feedback, this will also lead to student centered learning.

  2-Reveal your practices and processes  when discussing an assignment or project. Talk about your approach and share how you choose a topic. Acknowledge that are many possibilities for solving a problem.

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Making your teaching more student centered

As you thinking about back to school ( hopefully) , we can be strive to have our classes and lessons more student/learner centered. In my reading, I have come across some ideas that may help,
  1. Explain to students why you are doing things. Share with them why you are asking the students to learn a skill, perform a task,or complete an activity. Emphasize why it is important and worthwhile.

2. Eliminate should or ought. Appeal to the students/ learning. Appeal to the learners autonomy / or inner motivation. Appeal to their interests and passions instead of using controlling language.
Change your language to incorporate the student ideas. This will take time and effort but will result in better communication.

3. Do less in a lesson!  Students can only process a limited amount of information at once. So plan on fewer  learning outcomes. And then provide more active practice on the learning outcome. Give more time to each essential outcome.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Keyboarding Program

  Typing.com is the online program I am using to teach my middle school students  keyboarding.. It is free and it actually pretty good so far I looked at another program  that  my principal wanted me to look at  but I don't think she was convinced it was worth the price/ ( Not quite sure what is cost- that was never made clear  to me.)
   Typing.com has a great dashboard. For each class , a code was created  so I can view and check on each class ,and their activity on each lesson.This will make it easier for me to do grades.I have not figured out how to import the grades to our School Tool but I am hoping it will work.  Each lesson comes up grades with an accuracy and a percentage.
 
    There are basic exercises,more advanced, typing tests, games and passages to type.

    Does anyone else have a keyboarding program that they like?  Does any other librarian have to teach keyboarding? ( I have 10 sections!!)  Please tell me what you use with your students! 

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Flipgrid is now free for educators!!!

Already planning for the fall??? Note that Flipgrid (which I know many of you used the limited free version of this year) is now offering their “paid” version COMPLETELY FREE for all to use.
Put it on your “to do list” of a cool way to engage your kids next year and see me if you have questions!
 See my earlier post about using Flipgrid- I will probably be doing several more posts as I want to encourage my staff to use it!

Read about it here:

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Benefits of Breakout Boxes

  The Breakoutboxes edu have many benefits. Firstly, the games /puzzles are highly adaptive  and can be customized to grade  levels and students  capabilities . At teachers / librarians we can develop games to git in with a novel, unit of study, or standard skills.. We can also use the breakout boxes to introduce , review, or reinforce skills that the students need.

  The games are collaborative so students work in groups They can read the clues or search out the clues hidden in texts, illustrations, poems, ect. There is a group dynamic between the members of each group.This helps build class relationships between classmate they may not be familiar with.  The group work builds confidence, skills,  and the ability to try out new ideas.

   Some students will emerge as leaders, others will be working on clues, some will be  timekeepers or some may be taking notes. All will be encouraged to contribute ideas for solutions. Each will fall into their talents that they may not know they have.  There will be sharing of ideas and talking out of possible ways to open the boxes to gain access to further clues.
   Breakout boxes help students build the skills to tackle problems and work together as a unit.

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Lesson-: 1-2-3 Summary

 Many times we ask students to read and summarize an article or a passage . We want them to be able to present an overview of the article. We need them to tell us what new information they acquired.

   An organizer can help them show what they understanding about the information given. Give then the article and a graphic organizer to the students. In the first section( it can be a bubble, rectangle, or square)  , they will fill in prior knowledge ( what they already know about the subject before reading) .

  While students read have them highlight or underline the important ideas  in the paragraphs Then in the second section ,they can write in 3 or 4 main or most important facts they have discovered.

  In the third space, students can write down a fact or idea that was interesting to them , or a question they had about the topic. Students can then use this to write a short summary if you wish.

  The first time you do this , you may want to model what to do in each section. This can be adapted to almost any grade level.  You could have students do this in pairs.
  

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Library Jobs for students


   Our Professional Development person and our principals tell us that we as teachers are working to hard. They want the students to become more involved in the education and more invested in their learning.

  So during class time and instruction time, students should have responsibilities in the learning process. So I am incorporating this into my information literacy lessons. I have made a poster describing the jobs briefly.  So , there is a tech person who sits at the computer to deliver the power point. Also there are paper people who pass out paper, readers to read the slides. Recorders – which is most of the student taking notes.  The rest of the students are student repeaters who need to be able to repeat /explain the lesson or task to their table mates/ classmates.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Learn around the world- Virtual Field trip


     Learn around the world provides virtual field trips based on Geography and Science. They take classes around the world. Classes can visit space stations, underwater labs, and foreign countries. Many of the programs are interactive. They offer both paid ad free trips.
    Geoshow is geography based, interactive and free. Do a Geoquiz( like Kahoot) and participate with other classrooms  around the wor4ld.  The spring line up is on the site for what they are offering.
    Virtual field trips are 45-60 minutes long. The staff travels to locations around the world to showcase people, and places.

     When you sign in and register , the sites also gives an introduction,  standards , and lessons to go along with the VFT. There are also teacher resources linked to each field trip – note taking sheets (for an additional small fee and other items to go along with the VFT

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Read.Gov

  Read.Gov is a website which is a Division of the Library of Congress's  The site encourages everyone (kids, Teens, & adults) to discover the world of books and reading.  You will see a variety of free reading resources to explore.  There are programs to be done on line, and classic books to read online. Author webcasts( where authors speak about their  books and their work as a writer .)

  Also helpful to both librarians and teachers are the book lists that are related to research and school topics. There are  online book exhibits( Books that Shaped America- which shows covers of the first edition and gives a synopsis of why the work is important) There is also  a list of some best American literature. This is a good resource for librarians, elementary teachers , ELA ,and English teachers.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Using Non-Fiction Books/ articles with students


I am searching four ways to use and help teachers use non-fiction selections with students. Here are just two easy ideas.
1.       Teach students how to summarize, paraphrase and pull out main ideas. This shows students how to put ideas into their own words. Also this will reduce the amount of plagiarism. It will also determine if the student is understanding the material given. Start with a small amount of text.

2.       Give them choices- Use some different articles, books, selections on a unit of studies. Students choose what they want to read. Give them a variety of items on different levels-

This is where the library comes in- we can help getting together books on your topics.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Project Based learning- Why should we use it?

   Project Based Learning is the way most of the world works now. If you think about your life at home, and your life at work , you can see that we go through a variety of tasks and projects throughout each day. Each task requires that you learn new things and acquire new skills as you complete tasks.

   In real life , we don't spend several hours listening as authorities  in their subject area speak on and on. We  start with what we know and then we ask questions  about what we need to complete the task,

  The research shows that PBL is more effective than  the traditional lesson plan model. In Japan, Finland, Sweden and Denmark use this plan and believe it is the best way to learn. ( They score the highest on math and science tests.)

 The PBL teaching and learning approach  takes more time to plan. It also requires collaboration with other teachers.  And  it requires students have a set of skills that work with the process.
   This year, I am going to emphasize the PBL to my staff and hope to work with them to incorporate PBL into their lessons and curriculum, so I will be writing more about this as I do more research on the system.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Project Based Learning

   Shannon talked about Project Based Learning and Project Parades. In Project Based Learning, students are engaged in their own learning. PBL helps the students focus, requires higher order thinking skills, ad encouraged  and encourages partner or group work.  There is a lot of discussion among student, teachers and administrators.

    PBL is learning in which the students produce something useful to share with others. In the process of  creating the project , the student leans the inquiry  ( Scientific ) method, howto gather information and facts, analyzing data, write and record the facts ( produce the project) and then finally present the project.

     PBL emphasizes  creativity,thinking skills, cooperation, collaboration, and communication.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Middle School Lessons- Online Card Catalog

 Lesson for Online Card Catalog- Follett Destiny

 "Searching for a Book"


1) Review of Destiny- finding  library page, and where to find card catalog.
2) Discussion of ways to locate / or search the materials in the library.

Vocabulary: online catalog,author, title, subject, series, call numbers,  genres, keywords

 Resources needed:
   ( Students)Computers with internet access . Destiny worksheet
   ( LMS) whiteboard with internet access

Where the lesson takes place: in the library or computer lab

Student completes worksheet.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Middle School Lessons- Library Orientation

 This is a brief outline of what I will do  when school resumes in September for my library orientation so that students will be familiar with the library.

  Orientation & Map
1) Introduction to library, personnel, policies( circulation)
2) "Tour " of Library- Like Vana  since it is so small
3)  Review of Destiny ( Online Card Catalog- shown on whiteboard)
4) Explain  how to do map, and library and card catalog activity

Vocabulary: overdues, circulation, fiction, non-fiction, biography, reference, dewey decimal system, fiction arrangement, genres.

  REsources :Worksheet- 2part- general  & card catalog activity

  Where do the lessons take place?
 Orientation- Library
Completion of map and general sheet- in library
Completion of Card Catalog activity: library or computer lab

Can you share what you do for your orientation? This will work for  grades 5-8.


Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Middle school Lessons

 I am trying to devise a online curriculum for my 7th and 8th grade students. So I am searching what others have available as lessons and online tutorials.  So Far, I have found a few that look good and will als match up with my student needs.

  What is needed first is an overview of elementary lessons because when the students get to middle school, they forget what they have learned or they do not remember learning the basics ( like online card cat, arrangement, genres, dewey decimal system, ect.)

  Also I want to focus on internet safety, digital citizenship, and evaluation of websites, and also databases.
The reference process is I will do in collaboration with classroom teachers  when they are doing research/ inquiry. This will also include Easy Bib directions .

  As I search I will look for additions and adapt them to my students, This will go on my google classroom  for student use.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Active learning - Why do it?

     Active learning breaks up the  lesson into shorter segments. This helps students pay attention longer ad remember more of what is covered.  Active learning encourages integrating of previous knowledge with new information gained.

     Higher level thinking skills are required  in active learning.  Students develop questions  and may be required to find solutions and information, Independent activities give student the ability to incorporate their own learning styles into the activity.

    One of the Library Media ( Information Literacy) skills that go hand in hand with active learning is  questioning. Students need to learn about what makes a good question.