Planning for the 4th and 5th Grade Day

Good Morning!

I am looking for some feedback as I plan the 4th and 5th grade days. What should we have done differently? Anything to add or take away! Give me some thoughts. Remember this is a grant and we want to show growth and collaboration...if you know what I mean! I'll be checking the blog....just hit comment and type away.

Ripon's 20 Big Ideas

Hey Everyone!
I would like to clarify a little about the 20 big ideas. We have a set of big ideas for each subject area. For example, math has 20 but language has 12. We are still in the process of revising these, as each curriculum rewrite comes up. We do not assess all of the big ideas from each subject area. We have picked these things to assess for our target assessments, three times a year - non-fiction reading, fiction reading (comprehension and written responses,) descriptive paragraph, solving 2 step story problems, 3 digit addition and subtraction, 95 addition facts in 4 mintues, 95 subtraction in 4 minutes, 95 multiplication facts in 4 minutes and graphing information. Is there a specific subject area you would like to know the big ideas for?

Native Americans - United Streaming videos

If looking for some good Native American videos, check out United Streaming. I am finally getting going on my Native American unit in social studies, and we watched the first streaming video on Friday. If interested, check out "Native Americans: People of the . . ." They have Plains, Forest, Northwest Coast, and Desert. How does everyone else teach the remaining culture area(s)? The 1990 textbook that we have labels it "California-mountain". The videos break them into plateau, great basin, etc. This is the culture area that I don't have resources for.

I, too, would like to see what Ripon has for the "Big 20" in third grade.

Thanks,
Eric

Hi, a couple of things.
1. Would someone from Ripon post the list of the 20 big things they feel third graders need to master? Thanks.
2. Map skills. We do this as a fun review for several things. We create our own continent on large paper. For example, the continent of Football. We name the oceans that surround the continent, ie National and American. We then divide it into two or three countries, ie., Offense and Defense. discussion of difference between continent and country. We discusss boundary lines. We color each country a different color the way they are on political maps. We remind them of the sizing of the words. We then add capital cities, ie Farve and Jets. We talk about map symbols. We also add mountains, rivers, lakes, other cities, deserts, etc. Names might be like Down River, Yardmarker Mountains. This reviews map symbols and some landform stuff. Then they take them home to decorate, ie, putting sand on the desert, using pine needles for the trees. We also make a map key. We paint the oceans with a water wash. The students have a lot of fun. They review a lot as they create.

Toad Rage / Toad Heaven

G'day again. The two books I was talking about at the meeting were 'Toad Rage and Toad Heaven. They are both by Morris Gleitzman.
I also would recommend the 'Tomorrow' series by John Marsden, another Australian author who lived about an hour from my house and ran writing retreats for teachers and students. These books are more suited to middle school students because of some of the language in a couple of them. However, if you are careful, read the book first, and make some minor adjustments I think you could manage in the older grades. Anyway, I think that as readers of youth fiction, you guys might just like to read them for your own enjoyment. I think that they're brilliant.
Thanks again,
Neil

Looking forward

G'day everyone! Just wanted to thank you all for the wonderful things you shared with me last Thursday. I'm looking forward to seeing where the blog goes. If you haven't done so already, I really encourage you to get on board the United Streaming bus. I used it once again today with my science class, and they absolutely loved it. Thanks again.
Neil

Check These Out!

Good Morning!
I had an opportunity to visit a couple of websites that were discussed on Thursday, December 7th at the 3rd Grade Meeting - Brainpop.com and the Discovery Education site. Wow! Really neat sites and seemingly wonderful information! If you haven't already, check them out:

brainpop.com

unitedstreaming.com

I also have these sites listed in the notes from the day - I will send a copy via e-mail to everyone shortly.
Have a great rest of the week!
Amy

nonfiction

I am modeling again the organizer I shared for non-fiction reading. It's with Weekly Reader again. I am going to model the main story. Then I'm going to let them try the other two short articles with their partner.
Nancy

Yesterday

Good Morning!

I had a great day yesterday and hope that you did as well. It'd be great to mention it to others in the district to get the excitement for sharing and cooperation going. Perhaps we can post some of the websites we talked about, book titles and other things.

Make it a great weekend.

Crabby Parent

Blogging

We are really hoping that you will use the bolg to share things that are going on in the third grade!

What do you think!

Whew!

We are there!

Whew!!

I feel like a kid blogging!

I'm In!

Hey, I'm here! Feeling pretty good - NOT! Will I ever be able to do this when I'm along?

1/2 of us are in!

I'm in; we're still waiting for Mona

Eric

It's a miracle!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Robyn

I'm in

Just want you all to know that I am in.

Just want you all to know that I am in!!!

success

I was able to access the e2t2 blog!!

Thanks

Thanks for showing us how to 'blog' John. :)

Welcome to Blogging

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, e-mail lists and bulletin board systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, such as WebEx, created running conversations with "threads". Threads are topical connections between messages on a metaphorical "corkboard".

The term "blog" is derived from "Web log." "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

As of November 2006, blog search engine Technorati was tracking nearly 60 million blogs. Another place to search for blogs is LibWorm.

My daughter is the director of the Menasha Library and has several blogs. Two of them are KidsLit and Sights and Soundbytes. Tasha is very active in web 2.0, and its applications to public library services. A library site that uses blogging extensively is Ann Arbor. This site blurs the distinction between a website and a blog.

News aggregators like FeedReader and Bloglines allow interested users to subscribe to blogs.

I also have a blog that realates to school, and one for family stuff.

The Tools of Web 2.0

Blogging has been around and is nothing new. A blog allows the author to connect with a group of readers by writing a post. Readers respond to the post by adding their comments. Readers become aware of new posts and responses through a RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed. Additional tools that extend the information community are social bookmarking, mash-ups, tagging, and wikis to just name a few of the new web appliances that are becoming available.

Education 2.0 is not a response to some "failure" of public education. It is not an attempt to comply with some aspect of No Child Left Behind. The idea of Web 2.0 was first floated by Tim O'Reilly. Web 2.0 provides professional educators with the ability to extend education beyond the physical and time constraints of the analog classroom.

In Uses and Potentials of Wikis in the Classroom, S. Pixy Ferris and Hilary Wilder state,

An alternative model of education that may be better suited to the cyber age would take advantage of secondary orality, which relies on the affordances of print culture but also reintroduces the value of such oral characteristics as communality, group-sense, and participation (Ong 1982). Additionally, secondary orality promotes self-awareness, magnanimity, responsibility, reasonability, and the development of a "world-cultural consciousness" (Gronbeck, Farrell,and Soukup 1991). Secondary orality is uniquely a product of the twentieth century, in which advancements in electronic technology created the conditions for a resurgence and reshaping of the oral characteristics of pre- or low-literate cultures. In a secondary-oral model, learners assume ownership of knowledge within learning experiences that encourage them to engage with texts electronically.

Secondary orality is another way to describe the commons. It helps explain the necessity of including Web 2.0 in the educational environment.