1st Grade Plot

1st Grade Plot

Over the past week, I had the opportunity to visit our first grade classrooms. Our lesson focus was on story plot. We began the lesson by talking about what Plot is. We defined plot as "the important events that make up a story." Before reading, "My Lucky Day" by Keiko Kasza, I introduced the template students would be using to record on during the lesson. The Characters and Setting are story elements that play an important role in the story, but separating them from the plot--beginning, middle, and end--helped our 1st grade students really focus on the plot of the story. After looking at character and setting, we turned our focus towards the plot. I asked the students the first thing they noticed about the boxes for beginning, middle, and end. Of course they said the middle box was a lot bigger. I asked them "why?" and they knew that a lot more events happen in the middle of a story, then at the beginning and end.

After reading, "My Lucky Day" we filled in the template together. See pictures from the lesson below:

Students then transitioned back to their Chromebooks and pulled up Google Classroom. On Google Classroom, they accessed you tube to listen to the story, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." After listening, students pulled up Google Slides, with the template broken down into different slides. We worked through this together! They practiced dragging and dropping and typing sentences. The students loved using the Chromebooks to complete the task. I was impressed how well our 1st graders are typing.

I love using Google Slides for lessons. However, there is an extra step to turning it in (there is no turn in button on the top right). Students navigate back to Google Classroom and hit the blue "Turn In" button."
Here are some of the screens of students from this weeks lessons:

Blank Plot Template
Blank Google Slide Template

Kindergarten CVC Words

Kindergarten CVC Words

This week I had the opportunity to visit our Kindergarten classrooms and do a lesson on reading and writing CVC words. To begin the lesson I defined our focus: Kindergartners can read CVC words and Kindergartners can spell CVC words. We used the anchor chart to the right to begin our lesson. I had students repeat the learning focus as we moved to the different sections on the anchor chart. I also covered up the pig and the net so that our focus was on blending sounds and getting our mouths ready to say the sounds in the word. 



We then used Google Classroom to link to Google Slides for the students task. The students were asked to read cvc words and drag and drop pictures that matched the cvc word. The second part of the task on Google Slides was for the students to build cvc words. Students were given the letters and then asked to drag and drop them into the correct boxes. 
Here are some pictures from the lesson:

 

This is pictures of how the Google Slide Activity looked:

 

CVC Anchor Chart
CVC Google Slide Activity 

4th Grade Main Idea Versus Theme

4th Grade--Main Idea Versus Theme and Constructed Response Using Google Classroom

This week I had the opportunity to visit our fourth grade classrooms and model a lesson on Main Idea versus Theme and Construed Response using Edulastic.

The main idea lesson started off with using an anchor chart. It allowed us to look at the differences between main idea and theme. It also pointed out how our readers can determine the difference between the two. 

We used the passage "A Tricky Monkey" to pull Theme and Main Idea from. Using Edulastic allowed for students to practice the drag and drop feature and hot text feature they will see on ILEARN. 

The other lesson I did in 4th grade this week focused on using Edulastic to write a constructed response after reading an article. I pulled the article: Issue Overview: Should we have Zoos? from Newsela and copied it right into Edulastic. You can do the same with all the questions and answers.


Issue Overview: Zoos Edulastic (Qs and CR)
Issue Overview: Zoos Edulastic (Only Constructed Response)
Theme Versus Main Idea: Edulastic

Main Idea Versus Theme

3rd Grade Main Idea Versus Theme

This week I had the opportunity to visit our third grade classrooms and model a lesson on Main Idea versus Theme. To begin the lesson, we used an anchor chart to talk about the differences between the two. We also used a common story that many of the students were familiar with: The boy Who Cried Wolf. We talked about the lesson that the boy learned and the main idea. 

Students then used Google Classroom to Navigate to Edulastic. Edulastic was used as a teaching tool to show students some different forms of questions they will see on ILEARN: drag and drop, hot text, and passage with questions to the right. 

Passage:

Did you know you can copy and paste any Newsela or ReadWorks article into Edulastic? Then you can create questions that will show up to the right of the passage (Which looks exactly like ILEARN)!

Drag and Drop Questions:

Our students are use to these types of questions. They see these on Lexia and iReady. 

Hot Text Questions:

This is a new type of question on ILEARN. Students are able to select group of words in a text as their answer choice. Check out the assignment on Edulastic. 

Link to Edulastic Assignment