Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Tried It Tuesday - Series Books Unit

Our third graders do a unit on series books, and last year I found I was a bit unorganized with the way in which my lessons were presented.
So - I put together goal sheets and reflection activities that have really helped.
First I looked through our district's targeted skills for possible "I can..." statement topics.
Then I looked through lessons that our literacy coach had suggested.
The lessons were great but didn't have follow-up activities that I felt I needed to review when preparing for report cards.

The result was a product I put together that includes "I can.." statements for posting, matching smaller "I can..." statements for students to put in their Reading Response Journals, and reflection activity sheets. Sometimes I have the students do the reflection sheets, and some days I just have them glue down the "I can..." statement in their journal, and write their own reflection on the topic.
The lessons have been going very well!

I used Nate the Great books as mentor texts for the beginning of the unit.
My students compared their thinking to the thinking of a character in one of the lessons.
I used the capture tool on my Interactive Whiteboard to capture this page from the unit for modeling the skill.

Some lessons are for large group, and some I've been using with small book groups.
I was pleased to see the author investigation work that some of my students did in small groups today.
A group used our three iPads to research authors of series books.

You can find this unit in my TpT or TN store!

Also - check out all the creative ideas popping up this week through the Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores Teach Creativity Blog Hop!
Here is the schedule for the week:


January 15: More Time 2 Teach

January 16: Learning in the Little Apple  (That's me!)

January 17: Ms.Fultz’s Corner
 
Thanks to Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper for hosting the Tried It Tuesday Linky!
 
 
 
 

2 comments:

  1. This is great, Jane! I am also intrigued by the screen capture tool on your board. Is that a SMART board? Does that let you take a screen shot of a PDF and then write on it using the SMART board pens? Thanks for linking up!
    ~Holly
    Fourth Grade Flipper

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    1. Holly-
      I don't have a SMART board - we have Interwrite Boards which are similar but less expensive and you have to use a stylus type pen.
      One of the tools is a Capture key that lets you lift content from the internet or a PDF to show on your board. Yes - you can then write on it.

      I'm guessing the SMART Board would have something like it.
      Thanks for always following through with comments to posts on your linky!
      Jane

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