Week 7 Blog Post #SEACCR

Amber Hanson

#SEACCR

Week 7 Blog Post

As I mentioned last week, as a result of the students interests survey, I made some adjustments to my classroom library.  Included in this post is a picture of what it looks like.  It’s by all means not complete, as I don’t want to put in the time to make pretty signs and color code the books until I am fully satisfied with the categories and organization of our library. So far it’s been a success.  My students are excited about the different types of books we have and are definitely reading a lot more nonfiction books.  This may be due to the fact that nonfiction is what is primarily displayed however, but I’ll take it!

I also indicated last week, that as a result of an exit slip, it was discovered that students weren’t too comfortable creating an idea web on their own just yet.   As a result, another lesson in which we as a class created an idea web-took place. After this took place, I had students (Tier 1&2 in pairs, and Tier 3 in a small group with my aide) *attempt* to do the activity on their own, with a short article from Scholastic News.  Everyone had the same article; therefore it made it easier to gather as a group to share what we came up with you.  Boy did I do this prematurely!  As soon as I had students begin working, I had almost every pair calling for my help!  It was soon discovered that although students could indeed point out details related to a particular main idea…they lacked the ability to actually find the main idea itself!  It appears that I spend more time on details than I did on actually figuring out the Main topic of an article.  Oops!

Thankfully, due to a suggestion from Courtney last week, I had an activity up my sleeve to help me!  Courtney suggested conducting a listening activity based around a piece of informational text. Once the text was chosen, as a class we would do a picture walk as well as look/read the headings we find throughout the pages.  From there students came up with suggestions/ideas on what we might read about in this book.  After this, I had students (as a class) come up with words that they thought they might hear as we read (reading the headings really helped with this!).   Next, we made it to a type of game.  The children’s job was to raise their hand if they heard any of those words read in our story. This definitely helped with keeping some students activity engaged with the text.  I awarded points (as Courtney suggested).  I told student that for every 5 points recorded on the board, they would get a class marble. I reminded them that Halloween was in a few weeks and that it would be really nice to have a class party for it! At the conclusion of this activity students actually received a total of 43 points!  Therefore they receive a total of 9 marbles (I included a little estimation in this lesson too :p ).  Each time students pointed out a word that we had heard; I put a point next to the word.  At the end of the story we had a few words that were repeated much more often others.  We used this as an aid in discussion how we can use repeated words to help us find the main idea of a section.  We also talked about how the headings helped us pinpoint the main idea as well, as most of them specifically named the topic, or alluded towards it. 

After the completion of this activity, I had student get in their paired groups from the day before.  I gave them the same article from the day before.  I have to say, it was soooooooo much more smoother than the day before!  Seriously Courtney, THANK YOU!  I’m not sure how I had missed such a huge portion in my instruction, but your suggested activity was perfect! 

At the conclusion of this activity, I had students use Survey Monkey to indicate how comfortable they felt with using an idea web, finding the main idea, listing details and had them indicate one thing they learned from the article (after-all, my aim is to improve comprehension isn’t it?).  Best survey/exit slip result EVER!  All students were able to tell me one thing they learned from the article they read with a partner, and also indicated that they felt pretty comfortable with main idea/detail.

The next day we conducted a similar activity, and instead of using an article, students chose a book from our library to read with their partners.  It was great seeing some of the kids do the picture walks and recording the words/phrases they expected to read about.  I was a bit nervous having students take part in this activity as the text was longer, but it ended up being pretty successful!  At the end students used their idea webs they created to share with the rest of the class what they learned from the book they read. 

Ok, so I know I said this entire time I would be using Starfall as a means to include digital text for my students, but I discovered a MUCH better site in which I will be using instead.  I might still show student starfall, but it will not be the primary site anymore.  The new site I discovered is called “We Give Books” The website is: http://www.wegivebooks.org it’s free, easy and includes SOOOOO many books!  Please take a look at this site; it will be worth your time! 

I will be using this site this coming week to have student look through and choose a book that they are interested in reading.  From there students will create an idea web independently. At the conclusion of this activity I hope student will share their discoveries with the rest of the class.  I’m not sure how long this activity will take to complete, but if have results by the end of the week-I’ll share it.  If not, I’ll let you know of my progress.  I will also be pulling a Maze test off of Aims Web to administer with the students this week.