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Early Elementary Digest
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
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"If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play."
~ John Cleese
1. THE DAILIES
September 7th, 1860
It was on this day that the American folk artist Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Moses) was born in Greenwich, New York. She left her one room school early, working as a house maid where she met her future husband, a hired man on the same farm. The couple farmed in Virginia for 20 years before returning to New York, farming at Eagle Bridge. Grandma Moses began painting at the age of 76 after her hands became too crippled to continue embroidering. A collector saw her paintings in the local drugstore at Hoosick Falls, New York, bought them all and paid her a visit. From there she enjoyed escalating success, with critics unanimously enthusiastic about her fresh perspective and joyful, primitive style. She became the leading American folk artist, often compared to the self-taught primitive artist Henri Rousseau and Dutch artist Pieter Brueghel. Grandma Moses died at the age of 101. Learn more about Grandma Moses here.
THE GRANDMA MOSES PAGE:
Learn all about the life of this amazing American icon, who began her painting career at 76. Then try the vocabulary worksheets, wordsearch, Web Trek, and writing exercise based upon this biography page. (For advanced 3rd grade; grades 4-8.)
THE GRANDMA MOSES WEB TREK:
[Answer Key]
Based upon The Grandma Moses Page above, students are asked a set of ten questions to think critically about the reading, and to respond with well considered responses.
THE GRANDMA MOSES PAGE: VOCABULARY I & II:
[LINK2]
Read the Grandma Moses Page in today's newsletter, above, and then print out these student worksheets to introduce and reinforce the vocabulary terms.
THE GRANDMA MOSES PAGE WORDSEARCH:
Here's another student wordsearch for you off the calendar items today. Use it for homework, or to reinforce concepts and vocabulary from the Grandma Moses Page.
GRANDMA MOSES: A CLOSER LOOK
A picture of Grandma Moses is the inspiration for writing in this exercise, along with guided student questions to prompt thinking about character traits.
GRANDMA MOSES QUOTE/WRITE:
Using the quote selected for today's Grandma Moses feature in our Resource Pack, students will consider their own positions and then defend them in writing.
WHAT'S IN YOUR JAR?
Not real jars, but drawn jars are going to be filled with.... ? It's your students' choice! What would they fill their very own jars with? You can use this art activity as a beginning of the year project, where they will fill actual jars with objects and talk about them, or as a fascinating art lesson, as directed at the URL above, at any time of the year.
"Now that I am ninety-five years old, looking back over the years, I have seen many changes taking place, so many inventions have been made. Things now go faster. In olden times things were not so rushed. I think people were more content, more satisfied with life than they are today. You don't hear nearly as much laughter and shouting as you did in my day, and what was fun for us wouldn't be fun now.... In this age I don't think people are as happy, they are worried. They're too anxious to get ahead of their neighbors, they are striving and striving to get something better. I do think in a way that they have too much now. We did with much less."
~ Grandma Moses
2. ONLINE EDITION
COLOR WORD GAMES:
Not only colors, but color words will have to be matched in this online memory game for early elementary students.
Doodle Pad
Just want a space to doodle? Online? Try Doodle Pad, with loads of colors to choose from. Change the size of your doodle pen as well by adjusting the scale at the top of your screen. You can also use it as a way to work out ideas for written projects, where students can draw their ideas first.
SUPER HYPER SPIDER TYPER:
What a great way to practice or even introduce keyboarding skills to your students! Lizards appear on the screen with letters on their backs at the primary or beginner level, and students must quickly locate the letter on the keyboard and type it in. As students advance in ability, those letters turn into words and the difficulty level increases. At the most advanced level, spelling comes into play as well when students must type in the complete words on the lizards' backs before they reach the spider.
3. FRONT PAGE FOCUS
FREE TEACHING RESOURCE BOOKS!*
Take advantage of our FALL PROMO with a FREE downloadable resource book for each renewal or new membership. We're really pleased with our selection this year and we think you're going to love them - it will be hard to choose just one! Go on, take a peek!
*Free books with a purchased or renewed membership during our fall membership drive.
VOWEL PATTERN CARDS:
Download and print out these cards to use in your literacy centers, for phonemic activities in class, or for homework and skills drills. Several sets are available.
FLIP-FLAPS:
Learn how to make Flip-Flaps with a piece of paper, a few simple folds and cuts, and themes that are entirely up to you. Try back to school, book characters, plot timelines - or whatever theme you are currently exploring in your classroom.
READING CHAIN:
Besides correctly sequencing the story and sentence strips in this reading exercise, students will also be able to practice oral reading skills, and understand how sentences should flow smoothly when read aloud.
CREATE A READING RACE TRACK:
What a clever idea - and visually appealing as well. Here is a reading incentive program for the elementary classroom that we're sure your students are going to love!
A BOOK A WEEK LESSON PLANS:
Just in case you haven't yet discovered it, it's worth running this resource again! With numerous activity cards for each book selected, picture cards, charts, and word wall entries, it's an amazing teaching resource for primary teachers.
ACTIVITIES FOR STRUGGLING READERS:
To build a sense of security and confidence at various reading levels, try these suggestions to help improve student reading skills.
STORY SAMPLERS: CONSIDERING CHARACTER
Each theme - responsibility, courage, etc. - is explored with one featured title and several other related and recommended titles in this teaching resource for K-3. Guidance includes tips on how to read the story, what kinds of questions to ask, post-story discussions, and student activities.
BOOK ACTIVITIES:
Covering books such as Roald Dahl's "BFG", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", or "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the entries all provide an overview of the important features of the story, and suggest class activities for exploration of the themes. Primary teachers will find numerous and familiar selections at their students' reading levels as well.
TEN MYTHS OF READING INSTRUCTION:
Are there myths by which we try to teach children to read? Does it really come "naturally" to some children, and not others? This article discusses what it calls ten myths, all related to reading instruction.
BOOK ADVENTURE:
This free program encourages students to read and respond to books, complete quizzes on the books, and then earn points to put toward prizes. Book Adventure often sponsors a reading contest in the fall as well.
READING GO, SLOW, AND WHOA!
On a laminated poster, your primary students will use stickies to offer feedback about books they have read. You could do this project in columns, with books listed on the left, and three columns for the different headings for approval or disapproval, providing an easy method for your youngest students to participate in reading responses.
BOOK ACTIVITIES FOR EARLY ELEMENTARY TITLES:
Harper Collins offers this extensive, alphabetical list of their major titles for early elementary classes. Click on any title you may be studying or using this year, and find teaching resources and student worksheets to help you out.
ADDING SNAP TO LANGUAGE ARTS:
Stimulate your language arts lessons by using photographs, as described here. They can be added as starting points for simple photo captions, headlines, news stories. short stories, plays, letters, or cards. Here's how one teacher uses photos in her language arts lesson plans.
4. THE MATH PAGES
THE PLACE VALUE MACHINE:
Robbie the Robot guides students to correctly place numbers according to their place value in this delightful and interactive math game. Ones, tens, and hundreds are covered.
DRILLFLY:
Want some online drills in math concepts, along with performance assessments? Try this free program, where you can either use already created drills, or create your own with your own customized parameters and requirements.
5. LANGUAGE ARTS REPORTER
THE ABCs of FRIENDSHIP:
Each student in your class is assigned a page for a quilt-style poster, corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. They must then think of some great character traits that a good friend would have, and design their pages with their assigned letter, words, and doodles. Find out more here.
BOOKS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN ONLINE:
Magic Keys offers a selection of free online reading books, most beautifully illustrated, and a few including audio as well. These selections are appropriate for young readers.
LITERACY DICE:
A sample is given here, but you will be able to input whatever parameters you wish; try prefixes, fragments, literary terms, etc., and then submit to generate some literacy dice to review phonemes, vowels, digraphs, double consonants, etc.
6. EXTRA! EXTRA!
SILLY PHONEMIC GREETINGS:
Each day of the week, you'll use a different letter of the alphabet for this greeting or attendance game, where students' names have their first letters replaced with the targeted letter (you could do it for the week instead of daily, giving students a chance to participate as well). It's fun, it teaches phonics, and your primary students are going to love it!
CHOOSING YOUR WORDS AND ACTIONS:
In a very simple - but extremely effective - demonstration with toothpaste, your students will very quickly understand the value of choosing their words and actions well. This demo is great at the beginning of the school year, for all ages. You may even wish to make a poster for your walls to remind students of your simple experiment at the beginning of your year.
FIVE LITTLE MONSTERS WENT TO SCHOOL:
Download and print out the mini book to color, read, and share during your beginning weeks at school, and find out what happens to monsters when they go to school - and what happens to school rules!
7. TEACHERS' FEATURES
PEN PALS WANTED!
Are your elementary students ready to take on some pen pals? If so and you want to find a class to exchange notes and drawings with, send us a note to: penpals@realmworkscommunications.com and we'll post it up on our Pen Pal Bulletin Board. Be sure to include your school contact information, and take a look at the Pen Pal Alley Bulletin Board to see if you can find a match!
THE TEACHER BOOK WIZARD:
Over 50,000 books are available to customize and share a book list, based on themes, subjects, age, interest, or grade level. While a free service provided by Scholastic, other publishers are also included. Discussion questions and extension activities are available for each title, and you can complete a leveled database by interest level, reading level, book type, genre, and more. List exchanges are also offered, created by teachers to share with other teachers.
10 NO-NOs with WHITEBOARDS:
Avoid possible pitfalls of using interactive WhiteBoards in your elementary classroom by following these few simple rules, and make sure everyone is on track and stays focused with you throughout the presentation or activity.
TIPS FOR FORMING PARTNERSHIPS WITH PARENTS:
It's always helpful to form a strong bond between families and schools to foster student learning and performance. This article provides some tips for working with early elementary families, finding workable strategies and approaches to forge meaningful partnerships.
A LIST OF WAYS TO ENCOURAGE GOOD BEHAVIOR:
Here are some ways to help you keep your students focused, with a helpful list of ways for encouraging preferred behaviors - get these strategies established at the beginning of the school year to save you trouble later on!
TEACHING READING IS ROCKET SCIENCE:
In order to help prevent reading failure, this publication offers research, background, and practical skills for reading instruction in the elementary classroom.
READING CURRICULUM PLANNING GUIDE:
Download and print out this easy planning tool to work around your reading curriculum for the semester, month, or school year.
8. HEADLINES
WHEN DOES HOLDING TEACHERS ACCOUNTABLE GO TOO FAR?
The Los Angeles Times invited pandemonium when a team of its reporters published a value-added analysis of Los Angeles School Districts' individual teachers' progress scores, saying it was providing transparency for parents. The technique used is controversial, to say nothing of the report and its release. And then in Washington, schools chancellor Michelle Rhee fired over 100 teachers before school started, based on value-added scores. Is it an appropriate measure of accountability? As this article points out, value-added scores are often swayed by the appointment of students to classes; it's not a random system, so lower scores accompany low-skilled learners in the first place. Some suggestions included here: improving standardized tests and adding peer reports to teacher evaluations.
MORE ON VALUE ADDED MODELING:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/education/01teacher.html
*Comment on our news selections, at our blog:
http://classroomflyer.blogspot.com
9. SUBSCRIPTION & CONTACT INFORMATION
Everyday Teaching Resources are member-subscribed services. Our E.T. Digest include:
MON: Early Education PreK-1,
TUE: Primary 1-3,
WED: Upper Elementary 3-6,
THU: Middle-High School 6-12,
FRI: Art, Holidays, & Events
For more information or to subscribe, please visit: our Digest Subscription Page
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