Learning Is a Hoot!

TRC and ORF and Progress Monitoring, Oh my!

10/06/2011

What a daunting task it is to keep up with all the aspects of READ3D! I need some way to keep it all organized so I'm really going to be working on some type of printable to keep all the information easily accessible. It seems there's so much paper to keep up with!

One way I've started to work better on progress monitoring is using activities on the FCRR.org website. I created a notebook with strictly phonics materials. I have the lesson outline and all that goes with it laminated and stored right behind the plan in a clear pocket. That way I just turn to the lesson and get what I need and use it. Immediately putting it right back in the notebook will assure that pieces won't get lost and I'll be able to find it when I need it again. I also made a similar notebook that's all comprehension activities to use with those who are ranked a bit higher.

There is a progress monitoring sheet that we were given to use. BUT it is not user-friendly. I'll be working on creating my own sheet and will post it on the printables page when it's complete. I'm also getting ready to embark on completing TRCs on a weekly basis with those who require it. I'll keep track of this on a calendar. I'll attach a calendar for this purpose as soon as I have it made.

Please check back to find the printables within the week..until then....LEARN SOMETHING NEW....because LEARNING IS A HOOT!

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The "F" Word....Fluency!

09/17/2011

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As I have been completing assessments on our county's program called READ3D, one major issue I have found that is a problem for most all of my students is FLUENCY! Yes, the "F" word! Fluency means that a reader should read as if they are talking. They should read quickly, but not as if in a race. They need to read for comprehension and reading too quickly can cause them to miss the content and not remember what they've read. They should read smoothly as well. One way to increase fluency is rereading passages. I have found a great site that will help you create your own fluency passages based on student interests! I have also created a printable for YOU to use! Well, actually, it's for YOUR STUDENTS to use to track their own fluency.

So, here's what you do. Find some interesting, kid-friendly passages online. One great site to find high-interest passages is National Geographic Kids. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/. (You may find passages anywhere online, however!) Once you are at the site, find some selections you'd like to use. You will need to copy the selections. Here's how: Use your mouse to highlight the entire selection. Then hit control and C. This will copy the selection. Be sure to write down the title and author of the selection. Next open up this website: http://www.interventioncentral.org/. On the right side, click on Reading Fluency Passage Generator. Once you've navigated to this page, simply type in the name of the passage and the author. Choose the font and size. I personally like the font to be 14. Next, put your cursor in the large text box labeled Passage. Then hit control V. This will paste the passage you copied into the box. Click "show sentence boundaries". Then check the box, Fleash Reading Ease. Then click on Download PDF. You will have a new screen pop up with the passage you pasted. It will have the word count on the page.

You will have a teacher page pop up as well if you'd like to have one, but if not, just print the student page. Now, go to the Printables Page of my website and find the Fluency Tracking PDF I created. Print it out and you are ready to go! Or...should I say, your students will be ready to go. Give them a printed passage and the tracking sheet. You might want to laminate the passage page so that it can be used over and over. Students will read the passage four times and track their fluency. They will need a timer and will read for one minute. There's a place on the tracking chart for them to keep up with the date and title of passage as well as their WPM, words per minute. I also added a section for them to write down any words that gave them problems. They can show you these words before they read a second time so that you can help them decode/find out what the words are. Their subsequent readings should become more fluent and their WPM should increase.

Of course, it's very important for you to model the appropriate procedures for using the Tracking Fluency sheet. You will also need several timers for the students to use. and you will need to teach them how to use them.

Please let me know how your students do with Tracking Fluency!

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This year has started off great!

09/05/2011

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I'm so excited about my class this year. I have 19 students! Yay for a low number. I have just 6 girls in the group. I can't say I've ever had such a low number. I'm hoping that there won't be any issues. Sometimes boys can be more challenging, in my past experience anyway. But I'm staying positive. And by the looks of things so far, I won't have a thing to worry about.

I'm getting into the groove of lesson planning again. I worked so hard on my room and stuff for my room that I felt like I needed a break already....and I got one that's for sure! Hurricane Irene sure left her mark on Pitt County!! During that time off, even without power, I was able to do some thinking and planning. I completely changed how I plan thanks to my co-fourth grade teacher. Instead of doing all plans on one sheet, I'm doing plans based on subject in a running sort of way...lesson 1, lesson 2, lesson 3, and so on. That means each subject has a page. I'm thinking I am really going to like doing it this way. Plus, I am doing it on the computer instead of writing them by hand. This helps, too. I can type so much faster than I can write these days.

I'd love to hear how YOUR year is going so far. Is there something special you'd like to see in the printables section? I do take request and have made lots of stuff for my teacher friends on Proteacher.net. Let me know how I can help you! Be sure to leave a comment here or on the first page comment section.

Thanks for visiting and please stop back in soon....I haven't forgotten the Harry Wong follow-up that I promised in the last post! I am using some of his ideas and they are working really well. Til next time...learning something new because LEARNING IS A HOOT! ; )

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I'm all done!

08/17/2011

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My room is now done and ready for some kiddos! I still have a week til kids come but open house is next Tuesday night. We have lots of workdays in between but lots of meetings and staff development as well.

Today was a real treat!! Our district had Harry and Rosemary Wong speak during our opening meeting! It was great. I will share more about what I learned in an upcoming post! There's LOTS to share!!

Take a look at the classroom page for 2011-2012. I've uploaded some photos of my owl themed room. Please leave me a comment if you have questions, etc.

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Worked all day in my room...

08/15/2011

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Gots lots done but still have to work on it all day tomorrow. The first order of business was my closet. I opened the doors and a bunch of stuff fell out!! So, needless to say, that was the big thing I had to do before I could do anything else. Other than that....I got my data wall up, my genre posters on the wall, along with my OWL poster for choosing books, I finished labeling my library and getting that in order and also put up thinking maps. I got the desks cleared off and then brought in stuff from the car and filled them up again! :( But tomorrow is a new day and I'm determined to get it all ready by the end of the day. How's it going in your room?

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Have you tried VISTAPRINT, huh, have you, have you??

08/06/2011

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Yep, I placed my first order yesterday. Vistaprint is a great site...when they have great deals. You can print all sorts of stuff for your classroom! I printed a t-shirt, appointment cards, business cards, business card magnets, a banner, a poster, brochures for open house...the list goes on.

If you can catch the site when they have a good promotion, it'll pay off! I got a deal!! Order $30 worth and get free 7 day shipping...PLUS LOTS OF FREE STUFF! Check them out at vistaprint.com. You'll be glad you did...or maybe you won't...depends on how much you spend! LOL

Check out the printables page to see what I created. It's a PDF called, what else...vistaprint!

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It's been a busy week and it's only Tuesday!

08/02/2011

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I've been working on updating the site with a few more printables. I have included a vocabulary calendar for the year. My plan is to read a particular book on Monday and introduce the new words (there are 3-4 words each week). During the week, students will complete tasks each night using those words. I'll also be using that same book for other reading lessons throughout the week as well. The work is done for you! Just go to the Printable page and scroll until you see the Vocab Calendar. I'm sure your library has the books listed!

The second thing I've posted is a Spelling calendar for the year. I've always struggled with spelling and have done it different ways. This year, I decided to go ahead and plan for the year. Each week, the words are based on some kind of pattern or type of word, contractions for example. The plans are made up until right before end of grade testing, same thing for the vocabulary calendar. So if you can use them, feel free to take advantage and print them out!

You will also find lots of activities and printables to go with a science unit on Animal Adaptations. Please note...some of the activities require you to get a few things together first. The Bird Beak Bonanza activity is a big hit! Kids love hands on learning and that activity will definitely get their attention.

Please also look at the Ideas and Inspirations section as well as the Stuff I Made section for some new things you can create to make your classroom more inviting and appealing!

And once more...try to learn something new today...BECAUSE LEARNING IS A HOOT!

Feel free to leave me a comment, question, or suggestion! You may also email me at the website on the homepage!

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Saturday Sayings...

07/30/2011

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Over the past few days, I have been surfing around the Internet trying to find some new ideas and new things to try in my classroom. During that time I have come across some great sayings that you might enjoy. Some have been posted in classrooms or school hallways, others have just been shared on teacher websites. I want to share some of them with you today!

"When ONE teaches....TWO learn!" How true...you may be the teacher in the room, but how often is it that you also learn something from the students as well!!

"Excuse the mess, my students are making memories." Keep this in mind when your principal does a walk-through...it might be a mess at the moment, but they are learning and making memories.

"Teachers teach more by what they are than by what they say." Sometimes it's just not about what comes out of our mouths.

"It's not how many questions I can ask the students...it's how many questions I inspire them to ask me." Woah...deep!

Here's my personal favorite...bet you'll know why!
"A wise old owl sat on an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird?!" ....Need I say more?

Have a great Saturday...it's gonna be a HOT one!

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Thursday Thoughts!

07/28/2011

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Today I have decided to create a Data Wall in my classroom. I've been reading about some teachers doing this as a requirement. I am going to try to display data on things such as math topic tests, weekly vocabulary, spelling, and reading comprehension tests. I also plan on displaying in some way how our class is doing on READ3D.

The Data Wall WILL NOT contain individual student scores, but class averages on assignments. I do not in any way want to make any students feel bad about their individual performance or the opposite, I don't want any students to brag on themselves either.

I think the teacher would benefit from displaying this type of data in one place. Being able to see at a glance how students perform will make you reflect on how you taught a specific skill or strategy. They will help teachers create small groups for intervention purposes...or even for accelerated groups!

I would like all students to realize where they are and think about how to improve. Therefore, I plan to create Data Folders for each child. I will include graphs for them to keep track of their scores so that they can see how they are doing from one test to the next. I'd also like to include some way for them to reflect and set goals for themselves on how they can improve. I want them to come up with strategies that will help make them more successful.

So for now, I'm going to get back to work on thinking through Data Walls and Data Folders...I'll let you know how it turns out and share a photo or two when I have it up and running...

Til then...LEARN SOMETHING NEW....because LEARNING IS A HOOT!

Leave a comment...let me know what you think!!

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My First Blog Post...how exciting!

07/27/2011

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So I have worked on the site, and was thinking, why aren't there comments? Then I "think" I realized the problem! I guess I need to add a blog page and then comments will show after each post if someone makes a comment. So we will see if this works!

I have been quite crafty lately, thanks to Proteacher.net and Pinterest, I have got lots of great ideas. Check out the Ideas and Inspirations page and Stuff I Made! page to see what I'm talking about.

I have also added some new printables, so check them out as well!

I went to school yesterday to work in my room. NOTHING got done. I moved a few shelves around and in the process, I had to take my book baskets off. I realized how awful they were. Many were broken or stretched from trying to fit too many books in them. So guess what I did?? I went to Dollar Tree and bought new baskets. (among other school related things) I made some cute labels for them this morning. They have a lime green polka dot border and a little owl on each one, of course! Some are pretty generic and some are specifically for books that I put together...example, Bionicles, Pokemon, and Animorphs. You may download them on the Printables page. They are called "library labels".

So today, I'll hit the classroom again for a couple of hours later on. I hope to get all my books in the baskets and the labels put on! We'll see what else I can do...the air is not on and it was hot in there yesterday!

Leave a comment if you want so I know it works! I may just have to leave one myself to test! LOL

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TRC and ORF and Progress Monitoring, Oh my!

The "F" Word....Fluency!

This year has started off great!

I'm all done!

Worked all day in my room...

Have you tried VISTAPRINT, huh, have you, have you??

It's been a busy week and it's only Tuesday!

Saturday Sayings...

Thursday Thoughts!

My First Blog Post...how exciting!

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