Social Studies Fun: Civil War

Hi everyone! I'm Jennifer from Teaching with Grace and am so excited to be sharing my first freebie with everyone! Since I am transitioning from teaching Kindergarten to teaching Science and Social Studies in 5th, I decided to look at my first Social Studies unit. 

While reteaching myself all about the Civil War, I decided to start with the fun stuff and made this great word search. I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine did!

Sincerely,

Jennifer

Teaching with Grace

Monitoring Basic Reading Comprehension {with The Primary Gal}

Today's educational world is filled with data collection, progress monitoring, and somehow knowing what to do with it all.  Over the last couple of years, I have worked hard to develop systems and procedures for making the data collection process easier.

This past year, I monitored the fluency and comprehension rates for a group of fourth grade students for my evaluation so the pressure is on to make sure that my methods for collection and organization is top notch.  While working on this, I was also taking a Response to Intervention class for my masters.  The two things could not have come at a better time.  The following post may make you feel like your back in school but trust me it is full of valuable information!

The Data Collection Process
Data collection can occur in many ways depending on your style, what works best for your group of students, and schedule.  Since I was monitoring fluency for a group of 18 students, I struggled with how to find the time to complete all of the students efficiently and effectively.  During the first nine weeks, I would attempt to do a running record and ask comprehension questions with each student.  After working at this for four days just to complete ONE round of data collection, I knew I had to find another way.  This was too time consuming and left me little time to actually deliver interventions to help them improve on their fluency.

Meanwhile, my husband was using the Educreations app to make videos for his flipped classroom.  While observing him recording a video one evening, I had a great idea to let me students read aloud to the iPad and I could listen to it all later.  Saving me three days of wasted progress monitoring time.

I hand my students the iPad with the app open and the fluency passage that comes with our reading series so our kids are being monitored on a grade level text.  They press record, read the passage, and raise their hand when they are finished.  Then, I can ask them their comprehension questions in about 45-60 seconds depending on the student.

They LOVE this!  There are also many advantages to this, such as getting a true indication of how the student reads independently as well as taking away the nerves of having a teacher sit next to them recording each and every miscue they make while reading.

I always ask them the questions included in the freebie below.  Click on the image to download a pdf version.  I also provide this to parents at my annual conferences so they can ask the same questions and discuss the answers at home.  I tell parents that these same questions can apply to movies, cartoons, and TV shows as well as books.  They are basic questions and if they cannot answer these, then deeper more meaningful comprehension is not possible.

Overwhelmed yet?!?!

Making Use of the Data

Here comes the fun part!!! I discovered this website through my masters class where I was required to complete a module from the IRIS Center on Response to Intervention.  {VERY helpful and insightful if you want to check it out!}  Part of the assessment process that is often skipped is the part to make use of the data to drive intervention.  The IRIS Center has included a special calculator that helps to determine if an intervention is effective.  {This calculator really just calculates slope....if algebra isn't your strong suit, I would stick with the calculator!}

As you can see from the chart above, the slopes of my student's fluency scores range from 0.29 to 2.6.  Since this is my own intervention and monitoring series, there is not a predetermined value for slope to prove whether an intervention is effective or not.  However, I can use common sense to see that if some students are progressing at a rate of 1.5 or above and others are less than 0.5 something else must be done to those lower level students.  Although my students are all increasing in their fluency speed, could something else be done to help these students progress at a higher level?

Thanks for reading my post!  If you like what you see, feel free to check out my blog by clicking "The Primary Gal" button below!  

Now it's your turn....how do you progress monitor?

Organizing Hanging File Folders

Before - nasty crooked writing ;-)

Hi Everyone!  It's Katie from Teaching: The Art of Possibility.  I'm excited to be apart of Fifth Grade Freebies and here is my first of many freebies I will be sharing with all of you.  

Neat - typed - beautiful

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm all about having a neat and organized classroom.  From the labels on my students' desks to the labels in my filing cabinet.  There was a time, when I would handwrite my hanging file folder labels but I HATED the way they looked.  Either my handwriting wasn't consistent or they weren't properly centered.  My reasons to not like it could go on and on.  (Have  I mentioned I'm a bit OCD? ;-) ) And because of this craziness need, I have created a SIMPLE little template to help make life easier. So Bam!  Here you go - a template for you to type in and have perfectly neat hanging file folder labels like me.  Go here to download it. 

Hope it helps you like it did me.  

Katie Lyon

Back to School Freebie: Sharpening Pencils Procedures

It's that time of the year again! Students will be entering your classroom ready to go. We are offering up a great FREE resource for back to school. 

We all know that we have to establish procedures for sharpening pencils. So included with this procedure is a teacher page with purpose, teaching ideas, modeling and role playing that you can do with your class.

Also included is a kid friendly poster that you can review with your students and even post in the room! You can download this free resource by clicking here. 

Fact Fluency Freebie

Hi, I'm Mercedes from Surfing to Success.  I'm currently a K-6 Intervention teacher.  Part of my desire to teach intervention came from my year as a 5th Grade Math teacher.

One of the biggest challenges teaching 5th Grade Math was the lack of background skills.  I found myself trying to teach a 5th grade skill to students that on a 3rd grade math level.  It is important to communicate with the students and parents what you expect.

Today's freebie has a poster that shows what students should be able to do fluently in grade K-6. 

Click here to get a copy.  There is a second version included that has the standard numbers.

There is so much to accomplish in 5th grade math.  Knowing that multi-digit multiplication is the Common Core Math Fluency goal, can help provide some focus.  

We start the school year screening for multiplication fluency so we can provide basic multiplication intervention for the 5th graders that need it before they fall too far behind.

from

40 Book Challenge FREEBIES

Hi everyone!  I'm Melissa O'Bryan from Wild About Fifth Grade and I'm so excited to share a recent FREEBIE with you!

Have you read the Book Whisperer and/or Reading in the Wild? This past year Donalyn Miller, the author of both, inspired me to incorporate a 40 Book Challenge into my reader's workshop.  I challenged each of my readers to READ, READ, READ as much as possible, to take every free minute, and to reach the feat of reading 40 books over the school year!  Many think there is no way they'll be able to accomplish the challenge, and some don't, but ALL were surprised at the end of the year with how many books they did read.  Myself included - there's something beautiful about visually keeping track of your progress and then celebrating what you've accomplished!

We started the challenge on the first day of school and we talked about it every day.  I kept track of the books I read on our classroom door. 

How cool was my door?? I loved seeing the books I read increase throughout the year, and I loved talking about those book with my own readers and even readers in the hallway who noticed a cover while passing by. I hated having to take it down at the end of the year, but I also can't wait to start again this year.  P.S. I've started my 40 Book Challenge this summer for this upcoming year so I can keep up with my readers.  :)  I'll post a few covers on the first day of school to kick off our 2014-2015 40 Book Challenge!

If you'd like to make a similar display on your door or a classroom bulletin board, click HERE for an editable FREE 40 Book Challenge poster of your own.

While I kept track of my 40 Book Challenge progress on our classroom door, my readers kept track of the books they read in their reading binders.  I created these record keeping pages for my students to log their progress.  And because I'm so excited for YOU to incorporate a 40 Book Challenge into your classroom, I'm giving away these record keeping sheets for FREE! Click HERE for the FREE 40 Book Challenge record keeping pages.  

Included in the FREEBIE are two options of student recording sheets.  One page (to be copied front/back) with 40 slots for each student to record the title and author of each book they complete, the genre and whether the book was easy (E), just right (JR) or challenging. There is a second option with the 40 left off in case you want to differentiate the challenge to fewer or more books for your students.  Secondly, there are two options of a genre requirement sheet.  The first has the breakdown of genres (how many of each genre) that my students are challenged to read for their 40 book challenge.  The second again is blank so you can create your own genre expectations if necessary.  

The record keeping sheets helped my students stay on track with their 40 Book Challenge progress, and I was able to spot check their progress during daily conferences and strategy groups.  Also, we also kept a total running record of our books read and had a little friendly competition with some neighboring 5th grade classrooms.  Gotta love a good competition!

I would love to hear about how you are incorporating Donalyn Miller's 40 Book Challenge into your classroom! 

Enjoy your last few weeks or days of summer!

Back to School Freebie: The Great Writer's Race

Welcome to The Great Writer's Race! Your students will be challenging themselves to complete creative writing activities as the school year progresses. There are over 40 creative writing ideas included!

Your students will have a blast "racing" to complete the activities. This is a great addition to Daily 5, writing stations, and for a creative writing unit. You can download it by clicking here. Enjoy!