Sunday, February 26, 2017

Five For Friday - Digital Resources for Fables and Myths

I'm back for a look at my week through Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday!
We've been working on reading traditional literature.
A few years ago I came across this great app that features many popular fables, and they are told through animation.  My students love them.

The app is called Animated Aesops Fables and is $1.99.  You can find it at this link.
I created a reflection booklet for our unit on Fables, and it covers many of the Common Core skills.
You can check it out in my TpT store here.  It is a great deal at $2.50!
These are some the books we use for our Fables unit. 
You can find the suggested titles in my TpT product.




We also read myths as a part of our unit on traditional literature.
I used the easy myths from Starfall, but was surprised to find that the website is no longer free.
Luckily, they do offer a free app, so my students were able to access the myths through that.

Our current social studies unit is on Russia.
Our city has a sister city in Russia, Kurgan, so we research what life is like in this large country.
I created a class Google Slide presentation, and groups of three each worked on a specific topic.
So, each group was responsible for preparing one slide of the class presentation.
It was a jigsaw-like activity where students then presented their research to others in the class.


We had President's Day off which is a rare occurrence in my district.
My college friends and I took advantage, and drove to St. Louis to see BON JOVI!
The concert was awesome, and we got a great deal on a hotel room on Hotwire.
Our hotel was right next to the Arch.
Unfortunately we missed the photo shoot of the band that apparently took place the day after the concert.

How was your week??



Sunday, February 5, 2017

Five For Friday - Stone Fox, Black History Month and More

Happy Weekend!  It's Five For Friday time!
Here's a look at five events from my teacher life this past week.

We started Stone Fox as a read aloud.  I LOVE this book, and so do my students.
To invoke curiosity about this book before we begin reading I put a potato, a dog collar, and a tax bill in my classroom mystery box.  I pull out each item and explain that each one is somehow important to the story.

On to number two!

I'm part of a teacher book club, and this was the book we read this past month.
I'll admit that it was hard to read, but it really got me thinking.
The author spent time living in two separate poverty-ridden areas in Milwaukee.
We had a great discussion, and all agreed there are no easy answers for solving the problem of housing in low-income areas.


We do a poem a week, and this is our poem from last week.
I created a template of the poem for students to revise, putting their own spin on the concept.
I loved their ideas.
We just don't get to do enough poetry!


I have ten iPads in my classroom, although obtained through grants.
Recently, the screen on one of our oldest iPads shattered. 
I heard about a match offer on Donors Choose from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The crux behind the match offer is that the project must support student/parent communication.
We use the Seesaw Learning Journal app to communicate with parents throughout the school day, so it seemed like a no-brainer to write the project with this idea in mind.
The wonderful parents and grandparents of my students funded this project in
LESS THAN 24 HOURS!
We are so lucky to have such supportive families. 3>


Black History Month has begun, and we will soon tackle some research about Famous Black Americans and their contributions.
My students love the projects within this packet.
There are guidelines for working through the projects, as well as rubrics for scoring.
Take a look at this product here.

Below, you can see one of the projects included in this packet.
The product also includes a colorful display banner!



If you'd like to use the poem by Eloise Greenfield to begin your study of Black History Month, 
you can find it here.

Be sure to check out all the posts on Doodle Bugs Teaching!