Q & A Journal

Have you seen this book?  My wife came across it on Pinterest the other day and absolutely fell in love with it, as did I.  We both found it very pinteresting! (Insert eye roll here.)

The idea behind the book is for your child to answer a question a day in just a few short lines.  It's billed as a family keepsake to keep treasured for a lifetime.  What a wonderful idea!

Then my fourth grade educated mind...wait...can I try that again.

Then my educator of fourth graders mind...there we go...went into high gear.  Can I use this in my classroom?  And the resounding answer inside my mind was YES!

And then my edtechy mind took over and I began envisioning my fourth graders tweeting an answer a day to the question in 140 characters or less.  While tweeting may not be the way to go, maybe blogging, I still love this idea.  Asking a question a day; some questions dealing with content and CCGPS, some dealing with current events, and some just dealing with life.

How will my students respond?  How will I respond?  Since this is a new idea I'm not sure if I will start it this year.  I think I'll make some questions up with a cutesy font and whimsical pictures and make a million dollars on Teachers Pay Teachers!  

Any ideas on how you could use this idea in your classroom.  I'd love to for you to share so I can steal it!!  (It's called collaboration, right?)

Until next time.

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Mythology

Okay...so the Common Core has arrived in Georgia and we have jumped in head first.  (And here I forgot my floaties, because I think I'm sinking!)

Um, yes I believe I am adjusting well.  Or is it, well I am adjusting.  Not sure of the correct syntax for that sentence.  Two very different meanings!  And that's mainly because of this standard:


ELACC4RL4:  Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in 
a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology 
(e.g., Herculean).

In order to determine the meaning of words as they allude to mythology the students must know mythology.  Do I really spend precious time teaching mythology just so they can determine the meaning of an illusion...er, allusion.

Well I guess so, and recently Richard Byrne posted about Hero's Journey from Read Write Think.  While it's designed for more advanced learners, I do believe it holds some potential for my 4th graders.

Within the next few weeks my students will pick from a list of mythology.  I plan to give them a list of options of different mythologies from different cultures to choose from; mostly Greek/Roman, but also some Native American and Chinese.  This will be a great opportunity assess on several of our new Common Core standards!!

I'm excited to see what my students discover...and maybe they can venture out and write their own mythology.

BTW...Check out the Myth-O-Mania books(if you haven't yet) by Kate McMullen.  My LBK's love them!

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Jello: Liquid or Solid? Your Thoughts...

The definition of a solid--it retains it's shape as it is moved from one container to another.

The definition of a liquid--it conforms to the shape of whatever container it is placed in.

So...the question of the day in science was: Is jello a liquid or a solid? That really wasn't our main focus today, but I just rolled with it! My LBK's were really arguing this point...so we focused on the properties of a solid and a liquid.

We looked at examples of solids and saw how they did not change shape no matter what you put them in or on. We determined that jello has properties of a solid after it gets cold.

Then we looked at an example of a liquid and saw how it changed it's shape according to what we put it in. We determined that jello has properties of a liquid before you put it in the fridge.

Fifteen minutes later (yes, it took my precious ones that long) we determined that jello is a solid. (Unless it breaks, then it's a liquid according to one of them!)

I love my Little Big Kid's!!

Back on Track...with the American Revolution!

Whew! What a crazy past few weeks it has been. With all the goings on I have neglected my blogging and reflection duties...but now I'm back on track.

And I wanted to get back on track with this wonderful little tool I have discovered.  It's a newspaper clipping generator! Check it out.

My LBKs have been working their little fingers to the bone on their persuasive writing.

The assignment: You are a reporter in 1775 America and you have to pick a side. Are you crown or colony? You must write a persuasive newspaper article to tell your side of the story to convince your readers to join you. Thank you Liberty Kids for the idea!




So far we've gotten some wonderful writings! Look for some of the articles soon.

Until next time (and this time it will be sooner!!),

Mr. A

The Moon is Made of Cookies!!

For the past week (and a couple of days) my LBKs and I have been discussing the moon. And no, not because they are all space cadets!! It's actually one of our state standards for fourth grade.

Anywho...we have been discussing how the moon orbits the Earth, that it doesn't actually change shape or size, and that it goes through phases. Well, the phases of the moon is what we had a sweet time with today. I grouped my LBKs and passed out some cookies...and I didn't let them eat any! Mwaa-ha-ha-ha (that was my evil laugh!)

I told them to show me what they knew about the phases of the moon and this is what they came up with!

Pretty sweet, huh?!

The LBKs really enjoyed this project.  I think it had something to do with being able to eat the cream that they scraped off!

BTW...I did have some extra cookies on hand to let them enjoy after we all finished!

Until next time,

Mr. A

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Very Good Grasshopper

So...being new to 4th grade classroom management has been something that has kept me up at night.  Not that my students are running around like wild little monkeys! I actually think I have very good classroom management, but I've never really had a set tool that was used in the classroom.

Some of my fellow nut jobs...er...4th grade teachers use a positive/negative system.  At first I really didn't like the idea. (Mainly because there was a lot to keep up with!)

But then a fellow (super) blogger came to my rescue. It's like she jumped into her phonebooth, changed into her red and blue pajamas, and saved me from the ledge I was dangling from! Well...not really like that, but close.

Ginger Snaps posted about a website called Class Dojo.

It is a classroom management tool that works through their website that can be projected for the whole class to see. But the interactiveness (is that a word?) is not the coolest thing about it.  This site is most awesome because I can give positives and negatives through my phone and it will *bing* up on the screen!! I don't have to say a word!

(Not real students!)

If a student is on task I simply select that student and give them a positive for being on task and it will show up on the SmartBoard. That way the students can see who is getting the positive and for what. The past two mornings have been wonderful! Whenever my LBKs get a little off task I simply pick one that is working hard and give them a positive and everyone settles down. Not a single word was spoken. (It's really fun to do it when I'm outside of the classroom!)

Not only does it do all this but check out the weekly report I can print off and send home...

There are some improvements that need to be made but my initial review is that this is a wonderful tool for classroom management. I'll let you know what I think a few weeks from now.

Until next time,

Mr. A


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Collaboration-Day 1

Ahhh...Google Docs. Who doesn't love it?! (Well, I know a few. But they don't love tech of any kind.)  Now, I'm hoping to help my LBKs fall in love with it.

Today was Day 1 of our collaboration slide show project.

We have been studying the 13 original colonies and I have been racking my brain as to what we could do for a final project. So, off to do a search with no map...only a destination. With my trusty laptop by my side (well, on my lap...it's close to my side :-P) I went venturing into the world of the online educator and came up with...nothing.

Don't get me wrong, there was T-O-N-S of stuff out there. But I could never find anything that really struck my fancy. So, to Google I run. And as always they had the answer...Docs!

So, I divided my class into three groups for the three colonial regions.  Then each group divided up the project into the assigned sections and off we went following the yellow brick road to the computer lab. No, there were no lions or tigers or bears but there was one really grumpy teacher...

I linked up each slideshow project on our class website and off we went! They were excited to see that they could work on the same project together. In fact, I had some issues with some of my sweet LBKs going on someone else's slide and messing with them. Once we got settled down they really seemed to take to it, but all we could get done was a brief intro and they got their title on their page.

As we progress we are going to discuss more about aesthetics and animation...but for now we have our titles!

I'll keep you up to date on how this goes because this is my first experience teaching how to do a slide show and this is most of the LBKs first experience with making a slide show.  I love it when we get to learn together!!

Until next time,

Mr. A


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