Analyzing nonfiction text is something that we have been focusing on this year with the full implementation of CCSS.  I am always on the look out for new resources to help me with this, and when Zaner-Bloser contacted me to review their new "I Read to Write Kits", I jumped on the opportunity. Disclaimer:   Zaner-Bloser sent me a class set of these kits in exchange for an honest review.  Though they did send them to me, the thoughts on the program below are my own and not influenced in any way by this. The I Read to Write kits are consumable workbooks for the students to use to dive into text.  There are three units in the 5th grade level, one about Space Exploration, one about the American Revolution, and another about Sports that use math.  Each of the stories are highly engaging and very relevant to what my students are interested in (and what I am interested in as a teacher....hello American Revolution!!) I have been using these with my class to get......

We dove into setting again while reading Tuck Everlasting .  As we delve more and more into citing text evidence, I wanted the students to really see what that meant. Chapter one of the book describes the setting of the book in great detail.  In fact, it is so vivid that I had the students dissect the chapter to create a drawing.  On that drawing, they were only allowed to put something that appeared in the chapter.  If it wasn't written down, they couldn't draw it. Then, I made a copy of chapter one for each student.  They were instructed to cut the text apart, gluing the actual text onto their picture to prove that what was drawn was in the text. This really helped to show the students that authors truly do paint pictures with their words.  It also allowed them a chance to "prove" their drawings using text evidence. Wow...short and sweet!  How unlike me :)...

I know that for most of us, teaching writing is a struggle.  Yet, in this day of performance based testing, it is a MUST.  The kids no longer can just rely on filling in bubbles and hoping for the best. Now they have to actually *write* complete, coherent sentences and paragraphs.  They need to have topic sentences, details, and closing sentences.  They need to be able to write on any topic on demand. I looked over the released questions for the new nationwide state test (we are taking the SBAC) and saw that the kids will be given pictures to write stories about, graphic organizers to write stories about, and prompts to write stories about.  STORIES.  Not lists of things.  Not what what they see.  Actual stories .  Can you say DAUNTING??? Yeah...I am a little overwhelmed by it all too.  I mean, I had gotten so good at teaching the kids how to find evidence in the text, eliminate answers, and basically take a multiple choice t......

I don't know about you, but I have seen these Hot Dots all over the web.  They are cards with multiple choice answer and a fancy pen that lights up when you choose an answer.  Cute, right?  But, to be honest, I thought that there was no way they would work in my room.  They are WAY too babyish.  Boy...was I wrong! Educational Insights sent me a set of their Hot Dots for spelling .  There are a whole bunch of funny jokes on the cards, with a word misspelled within the joke.  The kids then need to find the correct spelling of the word.  When they find it, they use the nifty Hot Dot pen to check their answer.  By putting the pen on the black dot next to their choice, it either lights up green for the correct answer or red for the incorrect answer.  There are also sound effects....which is what my kids LOVE! Now, to be fair, some of the words are fairly easy for them.  However, to up the rigor with the cards, and to tr......

We have been looking at subject verb agreement in class as of late and I just wanted to show you what we have been doing as far as showing "evidence".  It sort of came out naturally as I was teaching and really, I am surprised I never thought to do this before. Most of the time, when I ask my students why a sentence is correct, or a word fits in where it does, the standard response is "It just makes sense".  Well, that just isn't jiving with me anymore.  I mean, there has to be a reason WHY it makes sense and for our subject verb agreement statements, I have finally found a way to show it! So here is what we did.  After learning all about how a singular subject needs a singular verb and a plural subject needs a plural verb, we went to the task of dissecting sentences using our workbook.  Yep, we used the workbook.  First the students had to decide upon the subject.  What is it and is it singular or plural? Then, the verb was identified as singu......

It's been a long time since I have written a Test Prep 180 post....but here we are again, back in the "testing" mode.  Today, during my small group, we did something I found useful, so I thought I would share...just in case you could use it in your room too. We have been looking at the released questions, specifically the questions that ask about writing strategies.  They are different than the comprehension questions, and require different thinking skills, so we created this little chart in our notebooks.  Sorry for the terrible picture.  I did this on my easel white board. Basically, the students told me what made comprehension sections different than writing sections, and then told me the different types of questions they may encounter.  This isn't all encompassing, but it is a start and it really helped my students to see that these two sections are, indeed, different. We then looked at one released passage with three questions.  We literally t......

Have you ever seen the show Top Chef?  It is a competition between chefs for some amazing chef prize (I am sure it is amazing, however not being a chef...nor someone who can actually cook anything other than the 4 standard dishes I have...I wouldn't actually know)  Anyway, one of the competitions they have on the show is a switch-a-roo challenge.  It goes something like this: Chef one begins the dish. Ten minutes later, Chef two enters and continues the dish, without ever talking to Chef one. Minutes later, Chef one reenters to complete the dish, again, not talking to Chef two. The point of this is to see if the chefs can use common cooking techniques and strategies to complete a well rounded, delicious dish.  That point fits in very well into my classroom.  When we are talking about testing strategy, I am teaching them the common techniques that will help them to gain the most well-rounded and complete answer.  Since the challenge meshes so well wi......

We have been spending a lot of time reviewing for The TEST lately.  One of the areas I have been focusing on with my class are text features.  These little areas in text are so easy to skip over when reading.  How many times have you seen a timeline or a diagram and just passed over it?  The only problem with all of that is that often times, vital comprehension information is contained within them.  So I have been spending a great deal of time in class helping the students to use these features when reading. We begin each week with a different text feature.  After diagramming each feature, we look for examples in our text books of them.  We have been creating on-going foldables with these examples.  Inside the flap, the students list the uses of the text feature. The students have a few of these by now.  4 text features can fit on one page.  To make this, take one piece of white paper and fold in half.  Then glue that to the t......

We are in crunch time until our big TEST.   The next two weeks are basically review for the students as far as math goes.  Because I like to embed my test prep all year long, I really am not doing the "take out your test prep book and bubble in the answers."  They get that.  They know how to do it.  We have practiced all year so I am really not worried about them underlining and showing evidence. What I am worried about is them forgetting the actual skills they need.  There are just SO many skills that we teach in 5th grade, it becomes a big blur...even for me at times.  It would be easy to break out a workbook and just drill and kill them, but seriously, I am bored just thinking about it.  The best way to review that I have found with my students is playing a game.   These kids *love* games (I honestly think if I had them take the TEST as a game they would all ace it).  And I love anything that they are learning with.  So I crea......

I teach the after school intervention class at my school.  I have it set up in stations, so that I can maximize my one on one time with the students and I wanted to share what we did today....as I felt SO good afterwards!  (don't you just love when learning comes together???) We normally start with a warm up of Prepdog.com , then head into a mini-lesson of one of our key standards.  This week, we are focusing on Root Words (we have done many things on Roots, as you can see in these posts , and this is our last week...sort of the "put it into practice" week)  So after our short lesson, the kids broke into their three groups. Root Word Memory Game:   Game play was as normal ( you can read about it here ), but today the kids were really into it!  I think because their group was missing a student, so they had more chances to gain cards.  They were very diligent about making sure everyone knew the meanings of the roots.  I guess we have played the......

On our endless pursuit of comprehending text, we have been focusing on fact and opinion (and how they add to the overall main idea of a text).  We began by reading an article from Time for Kids (on a side note, TFK is SUCH great, easy to read non-fiction...perfect for having students dissect info for comprehension purposes)  The article was about how people came together to help each other out and survive a shark attack.  After reviewing what facts and opinions were, the students set out creating a foldable using direct quotations from the text. When you opened the foldable, on the inside the students needed to write if it was an opinion or a fact and their evidence of it.  In my class, it is just not enough to be able to identify that it is a fact or an opinion.  You must be able to come up with a reason.  There is SOMETHING that made you think a statement was an opinion (maybe someone else could disagree, maybe there are strong adjectives that aren't pr......

I am a big fan of Test Prep all year long (as you can tell from some of my posts !).  Engaging the kids in learning the genre of Test Prep is one of my priorities as a teacher.  Since they HAVE to take The TEST, I might as well make it intriguing, engaging, and....dare I say it...fun! Using the computer is always a great way to motivate students.  My friend, Rachel Reyna, of Fisher-Reyna Education , is offering fans of Teaching in Room 6 an offer we simply can not refuse.  She asked me if I thought my fans might like to use her Hi Tech Test Prep program and I jumped at the chance.  She is giving us exclusive access to ALL of the lessons, materials, and information from now until May 2012. To access your membership go to: www.fisherreyna.com Click on " School " account Then login.  Our login is the blog name with no spaces: teachinginroom6     For more information, click here to access the welcome letter Rachel wrote for us.  ......

This is a long one.  It is worthwhile though :) Last year, my school instituted a common schoolwide time dedicated for test prep.  This was 30 minutes where we all had to be doing some sort of test prep with the students. If you have been following my posts, you know that I am the sort that likes to embed my test prep in everything I do, so I really didn't want this to be a time where we just did "fill in the bubble on the practice test" type things.  That is just plain boring, and frankly, wasteful (in my opinion).  What I decided to do instead was have Test Prep Stations for the week. Having 36 students, I set up 6 different stations, with 6 children at each station.  All of the areas were skill based testing prep.  They were practicing strategies and Language Arts skills no matter which station was chosen. The Basic Set Up On Monday, the students chose what station they wanted to visit and placed their number on the Monday board.  I pre-w......

Inferring is such a hard task. Subconsciously we are making inferences at any given moment of the day, yet asking a student to infer what an author means or reading between the lines, is so, so difficult!  One thing I have done in my class to make inferring a bit easier....well, more accessible because it never truly is "easy"....is to use picture prompts.  You find an interesting picture -- it could be from a magazine, newspaper, the internet, even one you took -- and place it on the doc cam.  The students look at it and write one sentence describing what they think is going on.  This becomes the topic sentence.  The sentences which follow are a compilation of evidence from the picture, justifying the inference. Using a picture like this is a great way to get the kids started.  In most cases, students have some sort of connection to people getting married -- either in real life, through television, or some other way.   Seeing a picture like this, ......