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Looking for some great mentor texts for your February reader's workshop block? Struggling to get you
Looking for some great mentor texts for your February reader's workshop block? Struggling to get your kiddos to discuss their reading independently? This shares 6 + love-themed titles and activities and lesson ideas for your February reader's workshop.
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
This post introduces a year-long empathy project designed to develop students' discourse skills. It…
This post introduces a year-long empathy project designed to develop students' discourse skills. It outlines the fifth grade class project, identifies essential questions and the data points (WIDA/WAPT & Serravallo Conversation Progression). Empathy-themed books are identified, as well as ways to teach discourse.
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
How should you use math games at the beginning of the year?
Every year, without fail, I use math games to review skills and teach collaboration, discourse and social skills. YOU CAN TOO! I don't want to use games that teach new concepts because I want to watch my students interacting independently. If I have to step in to reteach new math concepts, I can't observe. I want to be able to see how Andrew interacts with others when he's losing. I want to know how Bella handles mistakes, or how Tom behaves when he trounces Emily.
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
Civil Rights Heroes: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
Ask any kid about heroes, and he or she will rattle off names like Batman or Superman, or a list of professional football or hockey players' names. And yet every January when my team and I begin teaching our civil rights unit, my kids view King, Mandela, Gandhi, Helen Keller, and other activists with round eyes. Whenever we read a biography or picture book about these people, I can see my fifth graders mentally placing superhero capes over the shoulders of these activists.
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
Poetry & Descriptive Reading and Writing: .A Teacher's Story of How "Fluff" Led to Rigor
Do you your kids struggle with those "About the Text" questions on Fountas and Pinnell assessments? You know, the ones where they're asked to identify descriptive language in the passages? This post is FOR YOU! This creative approach might seem "fluffy" to some teachers, but I can assure you it's not. Found poetry created rigor in my classroom!
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
Love Letters & Brussel Sprouts: Exploring Odes and Point-of-View
Valentine’s Day can be a hard holiday to navigate with upper elementary kiddos... the hormones... the precarious friendships...the hurt feelings. Here’s an idea that’s fun, easy to implement and COMMON CORE ALIGNED!
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
Writer's Workshop: Free-Write Fridays
Free-write Fridays changed my classroom culture in writer's workshop. When students are given choice, writer's workshop is rockin'! Kids take ownership of their writing, think like writers and are motivated to write independently.
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
Civil Rights Heroes: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
Ask any kid about heroes, and he or she will rattle off names like Batman or Superman, or a list of professional football or hockey players' names. And yet every January when my team and I begin teaching our civil rights unit, my kids view King, Mandela, Gandhi, Helen Keller, and other activists with round eyes. Whenever we read a biography or picture book about these people, I can see my fifth graders mentally placing superhero capes over the shoulders of these activists.
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
Visible Thinking & Vocabulary: When a Web is More Than a Web
Need to expand your students' understanding of vocabulary? How about tackle tier 2 vocabulary words? This post is for you. It outlines a strategic visible thinking routine called Generate-Sort-Connect-Expand and how it can rock vocabulary instruction.
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings
Claim-Support Question Visible Thinking Routine
Do you wish your students supported their thinking with evidence? Claim-Support-Question routine gives students a structure in which to do just that! #visiblethinking #makingthinkingvisible #fifthgrade #fifthgrademath #mathteacher
Wild Child Designs
Mossy Oak Musings