Well, things got even more interesting as my work with fractions unfolded on day 2! For those of you who read my first fraction post, I discussed how we used paper folding to get our fraction concepts unit "launched", and we ran out of time to finish the investigation before digging into some fraction misconceptions. I gave them another 25 minutes today to work on folding their different ... Read the Post
Fraction Folding–discovery learning
Today we kicked off our fraction unit, and I think I am going to really try to do a lot of blogging about it over the next few weeks--because I will be immersed in it AND because it is such a critical component of the Common Core for intermediate grades. I think it is vital that we dialogue about ways to help students build their understanding of fractions, so I invite you to share along with me ... Read the Post
Studying Dialogue to Improve Reading AND Writing
Today is my day to post over at Upper Elementary Snapshots, and I hope you'll head over to read about a lesson I did last week to help slow down my readers and get them thinking more deeply about the books they read. I am excited to see if our dialogue studies transfer to their writing next week--so stay tuned! Want to learn more about what we did? Just click the image above and ... Read the Post
LOVING our narrative writing unit!
Teaching narrative writing isn't easy. Writing a story from start to finish can seem like a pretty overwhelming task--and it is! I've been working for years on how to make it more accessible and meaningful to my students. Let's face it, writing stories for a living isn't what 99% of them will be doing. That being said, the PROCESS of writing a story and the creative energy of planning one is ... Read the Post
Improving our sentences…task card style!
One thing that continues to challenge me as a writing teacher is helping my students push themselves outside of their comfort zone. As my fourth graders began to write in sentences in kindergarten and first grade, they practiced writing "simple" sentences. I like ice cream. The Packers are awesome. Snakes have lots of scales. After teaching older students for 24 years, I still ... Read the Post
How to introduce opinion writing
As we begin our unit on opinion writing, I wanted my students to realize that there are many different types of opinion statements. This can be as simple as requiring a yes or no answer (“Do you agree that school uniforms should be required?”) to more numerical/quantifiable opinions (“How many days long should our school year be?”) to more open-ended statements requiring students to provide their ... Read the Post
Narrative Writing: Starting off a unit on the right foot!
As many of you might have seen either here or on Facebook, I am one of the twelve collaborators on a new blog called "Upper Elementary Snapshots". Yesterday was my first official post over there, and I'd love to have you stop by and check it out! Just click our great logo to take you right to the post. While you are there, if you haven't followed us on Bloglovin' or Facebook, ... Read the Post