Author: mthorne0503

Let the Mystery Begin!

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One thing I never had the chance to blog on yet, but I wanted to take the time to do was our first class Mystery Hangout session!

I had attempted completing a hangout with another grade at our school to connect with a previous faculty member of ours, but it became too chaotic with so many bodies in one room.

I received an email from another teacher in Nebraska, based on a group that I was signed up for with mystery sessions. I figured it would be a perfect time to connect, since my students would need something new to try and have fun during the week of state testing. They may think of this as a brain break, but it actually does require them to work and critically think. 🙂

I reviewed my notes from my previous attempt and began consulting one of our district iCoaches for another brain to discuss ideas with. We narrowed my classroom into 7 specific jobs.
1. Back Channel leaders – managers of our discussions on Today’s Meet
2. Google Mappers -eliminating locations based on questions
3. Social Media – Taking pictures and video to post to instagram and twitter. I also had a student complete a guest blog review on our classroom blog.
4. Researchers – helping to research and narrow down facts on the mystery location
5. Greeters – Welcomed and asked/answered questions
6. Recorders – Took notes on the answers that were given to us for our yes/no questions
7. Runners – managing the tables to guide and relay information to other teams.

The students had fun and they are ready to give it a try again. They definitely learned how to be more prepared for our next session scheduled.

Things I recommend doing:
1. Make sure EVERYONE has a job, everyone did in my class, but I still had some that needed more
2. Eliminate groups that you see not working and change job titles (Example: Back Channel will now be local researchers for just state facts.)
3. Practice in advance, role play with the students so they begin to understand the format.
4. Remember, this is when students take the lead. Be their coach and have fun!

On a side note, one of the more exciting parts is that another teacher found our classroom blog somewhere in cyberspace. They contacted me on Twitter and we now have our 2nd session setup for when we return from spring break!

Literacy Leveler App Review

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Every Tuesday, our district iCoaches send us helpful links that we can incorporate into our teaching as their “Tech Tuesday” email series.

Well, this week there happened to be an app listed that caught my eye. I’m very much a frequent follower to Apps Gone Free, but this one happened to not be listed on there, however, it was still discounted as FREE from the normal price of $4.99 in the App Store.

So, what is the app that I am leading up to? It is called, Literacy Leveler. Literacy Leveler is available for both the iPad and iPhone. If your school uses a reading leveling F&P system or by Lexile Number chart, this will be an app you won’t want to miss!

The app is so simple to use. Once opened, you can scan a book’s barcode and up will pop the lexile number and level. As with any library, not all books are listed in there. But, my students and I have found that it is pretty successful, you can also use the option to try and search by title. I can’t begin to tell you how much time this has saved when my students search for books independently at their level.

I highly recommend keeping an eye out for it!

Restaurant Design

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Practicing area, perimeter and map skills can get quite tiresome with the traditional drill and practice on paper. One thing that I have challenged myself to do more in math this year is to really focus on applying math to real world situations. When doing so, I believe it makes the experience in my classroom much more valuable.

The original idea for this project came from a project that I saw posted by “Room 205” on Proteacher.net. There were bits and pieces of the original project that I used, but I did modify it to fit the needs of my students.

Students were presented with a hook, to get them excited about the project. I probably could have just stated they were going to design a restaurant and they would have been just as happy.

Directions were given to students and then to make the experience more valuable, we dug through the internet for vacant buildings in our local city. We selected a building with dimensions that we agreed upon and away the students went with the first phase of their project. I say “phase” because rather than making this one large project due on a certain date, it is much easier for my students to chunk the project and turn in for mini deadlines. This way they just have to piece it together in the final.

Here is a breakdown of the individual phases:
Phase 1 – survey the community and collect data on restaurant theme ideas, graph and analyze
Phase 2 – measure out a floor plan based on the dimensions, work with the art teacher to design a digital logo to go with the name of your restaurant
Phase 3 –  Make your floor plan digital and add in dimensions of various rooms
Phase 4 – Adding in table and furniture measurements
Phase 5 – Use Room Planner “Free” on the iPad to build the restaurant into a 3D model. Students can decorate the inside.
Phase 6 – students complete final presentations and design a menu that fits their theme

Each phase lasted approximately 1 week, as it was also built into the other activities that were taking place with our weekly iTunes U math rotations.

Overall, the students had a great time with this project and immediately asked if we could do another one identical to it. I love seeing my students excited to learn! Next year, I would love to move the level up this project up by connecting with professionals in the area to seek advice in designing or possibly even visit a vacant site.

#ReadingThoughts

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Why yes, I am starting to use hashtags in my reading instruction!

The idea came to mind when a friend of mine, who is also a 5th grade educator, posted a story to his blog about making videos more interactive with a back channel. The one thing that stood out to me was the use/creation of hashtags after the students responded to videos to contribute to discussion. Check his sit out at Teachers Use Tech

After some thought on one of my commutes to school, I thought that idea would be perfect to use in my reading workshop. My students were having a hard time recording their thoughts on post-its, they just didn’t see the meaning to it and it was hard for them to relate to.

So, last Monday, I decided to introduce the idea of using hashtags to record their thinking as they were reading. We practice with me modeling and then having discussions based on our read aloud, Tiger Rising. NOW, it is really starting to click for them! It really has helped our discussions on books and those who wouldn’t normally participate, are starting to contribute. They are even bringing them up in conferencing discussion, just like I was hoping they would.

See the example below from one of my students. I’m really hoping this will be a huge help as we begin blogging.

Digital Catch-Up

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A lot of things going on this week in our classroom, almost too much to absorb sometimes, but the great feedback from our parent followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook keep us motivated.

Let’s rewind and take it back to earlier this week….

Monday was filled with a very inspiring institute day. I sat in on a great blog session from a colleague at our local Middle School, who inspired me to get my kids blogging again! Operation blogger is on the mends in 5T this week!

Besides attending, I also got to present myself. If you haven’t checked out Aurasma, I highly encourage you to do so. It is a great way to turn what used to be the new and exciting idea of QR codes to the next level. My kids really love augmented reality and I encourage you to try it. View my slide show below that I used for our institute day. It will easily walk you through step-by-step.

Forwarding to the middle of this week, Nearpod has been an app that I have been experimenting with in the classroom. I’ve been implementing it during math to review our flipped assignments. So far, the feedback has been amazing from the students and they really enjoy using it. 
If you aren’t familiar with it, Nearpod can be used on computers or on the iPad. It is a way to mirror presentations to multiple devices. The instructor can create the presentation in advance, similar to a google presentation, and then publish and share a live code with the students. Students can view the slides and answer live questions using different formats of activities. You can even pull a report to see how students answered for an assessment review. 
After the response I had in math, I contemplated using it in reading. I figured, what the hey, might as well give it a shot. So, on Wednesday, I experimented with using Nearpod to guide my minilesson for Reading Workshop. The idea was to give my students the text and visuals to follow along with me, since many of our population needs ESL strategies. However, let’s be honest, those strategies are good for any students. 
Using the app, we analyzed a You-Tube video and did some shared reading from our current text. I encourage you to take a look at the website. Any feedback on how you use it in the classroom would be greatly appreciated! 
We also had a bit of fun experimenting more with our iPads during guided reading to focus on inferencing! 
1:1 Guided Reading photo BemxDoBCMAABaRC_zps8bde74d0.jpg Nearpod photo Bems4OVCAAEQzxU_zpsc9f67588.jpg Â