A Teaching Pot of Gold: Transforming Student Writing

Happy Spring Everyone!  This is Jessica Zannini from Notes from the Portable and today I want to talk about using mentor texts to transform student writing.  Transformations are one of my favorite ways to introduce a new writing genre.  The rhythm and word choice of mentor texts are fantastic to get students motivated to write.

What is a Transformation?

When teaching transformations you take a great book with a specific pattern that writers can follow. Students write using a similar structure.  Transformations allow students to make reading and writing connections.  

Sample lesson using Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin

1. Read Aloud Click Clack, Moo: Cows that Type, by Doreen Cronin.

2. Ask, "What patterns did you notice in the book?"

3. Have the students look closely at the notes written by the farm animals.  Ask, "What are the parts of this note?" (Greeting, Body, Signature)

4. Discuss the organization/structure of this book. You may want to create an outline that student's can follow.  

5. As a class/group write your own version of the book.  (Ex.  Click, Clack, Neigh: Horses that Text, or Zoom, Zoom, Moo: Cows that Game. An example has been provided for you to use. 

6. You can extend this and have individuals or partners write their own version. 

Click, Clack Maa, Goats that Text

By: Jessica Zannini

 Dear Farmer Brown,

    We goats are tired of the same old trash. We would like to have some fresh flowers to eat.  The flowers will make our breath smell good.  We are tired of smelling bad. 

    Sincerely,

    The Goats

  
“What!” yelled Farmer Brown.  He threw his cell phone on the kitchen counter.  “Goats that want flowers? Who ever heard of such a ridiculous thing!  Goats are supposed to attract the bad things and eat trash. They are not supposed to have fresh breath!”

  In the background he heard:

  Click, clack, Maa.

  Click, clack, Maa.

  Ticky, tack, Maa.

  Dear Farmer Brown,

  If you do not get us fresh flowers we will not eat the weeds that are growing on the farm. We also will stick to one area and not keep the pests away from the other animals.  In addition, we will not socialize with the new horses you get.  How will they ever adjust to the barn without us?  If we get new flowers we will continue doing our job with fresh breath. 

    Sincerely,

    The Goats

    “I guess I will have to give them what they want,” sighed Farmer Brown.  “My new horses certainly will not adjust without them.” 

  
Farmer Brown plugged his phone into the charger and walked to the barn.  “Goats, here are your flowers.  But in order to get them, you have to give me your cell phone.  

The goats decided that they would rather have the flower.  They handed over the phone and thanked him.  Farmer Brown let out a sigh of relief, but when he left the barn he heard:

  Click, clack, Meow.

  Click, clack, Meow.

  Ticky, tack, Meow.

Additional Transformation Books:

1. When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant 

2.  T'was the Night Before Christmas

3.  Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (or any of the other Mo Willems Pigeon books.

Don't forget to check out the other Primary Peach posts this month to learn more about making learning magical!

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April Sharing Sunday

We are so glad you have joined us for another Sharing Sunday!  We have TONS of goodies and resources to make April FANTASTIC!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Teaching Pot of Gold: 5 Tips for Efficient Parent Communication

I am so excited to be back here at the Peach sharing some teacher tricks!  My post will hopefully make your year, well...a treasure ;).

When I first started teaching I would always gets annoyed when a child's folder came back fully stuffed with papers, obviously untouched.  I mean really, people?  How hard is it to check a folder?

Now that I am a parent I realize, it can be hard, very hard. And my girls are still in preschool!  I can imagine it will only get more difficult as the girls get older and we add dance and gymnastics and Wednesday night church to our plates.

I guess the trick is to make it as easy on parents as possible.  So how can you make this easy on YOU and the parents?  How can you increase parent involvement and communication? Here are a few easy tips.

When I was teaching I created a blog using Typepad.  It was easy to update during the week and  I was even able to add pictures of students during the week.  I also uploaded a copy of the monthly newsletter.

A friend of mine has created a private Facebook group. She loves it and so do her parents.  It might even be easier than a blog!  You can upload pictures and documents in a group and even add events to remind parents of special events like Open House, conferences, etc.

If you choose to do something online, just make sure the district approves this form of communication.  You also are going to want some kind of release form for photographs. Your school or district may already require one. Here are two examples I found. You can see them here and here.

I am sure you have heard all about Remind. It is an awesome and FREE way for teachers to keep in contact with parents. You can send text straight to your parent's phones while keeping your personal phone number private.  It is an ingenious idea! It would be great for reminders of dates, special events, returning library books a folders.

Send home sweet notes to the kids.  Parents love knowing positive things about their children.  I know it can be hard to find time to do, but is so important. Did you decorate your door in the beginning of the year?  I can't find a picture of mine, but here is an example I found online:

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Instead of just tossing the die cut (or in this case the sweet little owl) into the trash or folder when you done, keep them! Write a note to the child on the back and staple it in their agenda randomly.  I kept all mine in plastic baggie.  When I had an extra second or two, I would pull out one or two.  Then I would write a note to the child and staple it in the agenda.  Stapling usually made it stay there long enough for parents to see it, too! 

 It was a win-win!  The kids felt good, the parents felt good, and was super simple for me since I had made the door at the beginning of the year.

Do you send home a newsletter?  I did one monthly.  Actually, I didn't.  My co-teacher did.  I was terrible at writing the newsletters. She was amazing.  We were a pretty good team! LOL! I struggled with newsletters because I felt parents did not read them.  When I wrote them, I only send home a newsletter once a month. She wrote one EVERY week.  I am telling you.  She was good! She included:

• homework for the next week
• specials rotation (art, PE, etc because it changed every week)
• a calendar of upcoming events
• important notes
• enrichment ideas

Here is a sample of what ours looked like in February 4th, 2013.

She did a great job.

If you worry about parents reading your newsletter, I LOVE this article by Jennifer from Cult of Pedagogy.  She did a guest post for Laura Candler all about how to get parents to read your newsletter.  She even included FREE newsletter templates!

Any tips I left out?  How do you communicate with parents effectively?

Pin it for later:

 If you would like more ideas from me, be sure to follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the freebies and ideas and more!

 

A Teaching Pot of Gold: Show What You Know!

Hey Y'all! This is Chandra from Teaching with Crayons and Curls! I hope that you've been enjoying our posts this month and have learned some magical new ideas to use in your classroom with our Teaching Pot of Gold: Making Learning Magical blog series!

I don't know about you, but I truly believe that for my students to LEARN, they have to be ENGAGED! So, I'm here to share some magic about how I try my best to keep my students engaged!

My  husband is also an educator and many of our conversations are school related. He has been so fortunate to attend many more education conferences than I have, and has always been willing (and excited) to share the information he has learned with me! At one of the conferences that he attended, he was very lucky to learn all about Kagan Structures. I had never heard about Kagan Structures before, but now I am completely hooked! I have to figure out a way to be officially trained or find a way to attend a workshop!

If you've never heard of Kagan Cooperative Learning, but you are looking for ways to engage your students and provide them with experiences for cooperative learning, I highly suggest looking into these structures! This book is absolutely incredible!

One of my favorite structures is Show Down! My students absolutely LOVE this activity and it's a great way to review for a math test while also allowing them to work cooperatively- hello Speaking and Listening standards!!!

You can read about the specific directions for how to complete this activity from the creator, Laura Candler, on her blog! I changed it up a little bit in my classroom for my firsties, but it's still very similar!

My students always use dry erase boards for this particular strategy. I LOVE using dry erase boards in my classroom because they are fast and easy, and my kids love using them! Win, win!  I have my students work in small groups of about 4 students and they sit in a small circle. We usually sit on the floor for this activity and I walk around the classroom to take observations on their work- great quick assessment tool!

In the actual directions, there is a team captain that switches a task card over! However, I usually just display the problem students are solving on the Smartboard. The task cards are a great way for you to differentiate the problems each group is working on, but since I usually use this activity for a test review, we are all working on the same problem! Once the problem is up, students get to work independently. I have them try to keep their dry erase boards hidden from the other members of their group, so that they are working independently. 

Once I notice that most students are done working, I yell "SHOWDOWN" and students turn their boards around so that all the students in their group can see their work. This is when they work cooperatively to discuss how they solved their problems or completed the problem. They can celebrate successes or tutor each other on how to correctly solve the problem. This is NOT a game, nobody wins or gets point! It's truly about working together and teaching each other! My students get so excited everytime I tell them we are about to complete Showdown, which makes my teacher heart so very happy!

I would LOVE to know what Kagan Structures you love using in your classroom! Make sure to comment below with your favorites!

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and

Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

A Teaching Pot of Gold: National PI Day

 
Hello! It's ScrappyGuy. I've found a fun March idea for you to try out in your Math class. Last year was the perfect year to celebrate

National PI Day

You can still make use of this idea though. Pi is a Greek symbol that is used in mathematics to describe the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

 

March 14 (3.14) is known as National Pi Day. If you build up your day of activities to the final 1:59:26 time on that day, your students will be able to be a part of PI. Your students will get a huge kick out of these fun math ideas.

 

This first one I found over at TinkerLab where you can download this easy art activity to keep your kids engaged.

 

 

There's a great book from the same author as Sir Cumference and the Round table. This one is called Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi. WiseOwl has a great free printable for you!

 

 

 

 

There are also TONS of fun ideas you could do with actual pies on Pi Day. Have a Pi Eating Contest. Throw cream pies at a teacher, measure the circumference of your pie and checking it against the actual measurement of Pi.

 

Be sure to post your super fun ideas here.

 

Don't forget to check out Primary Peach and follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

 

The Eraser Monster

Hey Friends! It's Theresa from True Life I'm a Teacher! The Peaches are sharing are best tips, tricks, and ideas to help you make your teaching magical! Here's what we've shared so far:

Erin | Learning About Insects

Meghan | Women in History

Kristin | Managing a Chatty Class

Jivey | St. Patrick's Day Mentor Texts and Leprechaun Traps

Anyone besides me have monsters in their classroom?

Seriously...pencil monsters, homework monsters, crayon monsters, dry erase marker monsters, sock monsters (oh, wait, that's just at home, I hope)...anyway, these monsters eat pencils, send homework into the abyss, break crayons in half, and mysteriously eat only the caps of dry erase markers and glue sticks leaving only marker and glue to dry out before it's day has truly come.

Oh, and erasers? Those babies never stood a chance. 

I don't know how to fight off all the monsters (please let me know if you've won the war), but I do know how to make the most of your last remaining erasers!

I started using this little trick my very first year teaching, and have been doing it ever since!

I hate cap erasers. You know, the ones that go on the end of a pencil. Seriously, they're outlawed in my classroom. 

Aside from not using cap erasers, this tip is really quite simple...just cut the erasers in half. That's it. Ta-da!!!!

Perhaps a bit anticlimactic, and no it won't actually keep the eraser monster gone, but it will "double" the amount of erasers you have.

I keep mine in a cute container near my "pencil station" that I think came from Target's One Spot quite a few years ago.

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and
Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

Don't forget to head back throughout March as the Peaches continue to share the magic!

St. Patrick's Day for the BIGGER Lads and Lassies

Hey Peaches! Top o' the mornin' to ya! It's Jivey, here. Unfortunately, the St. Patrick's Day magic often stops in the classroom after second or third grade... Fortunately, I'm here to share some great resources with you that will help the magic continue with those bigger lads and lassies! :)

St. Patrick's Day just so happens to be one of my favorite holidays because it's also my BIRTHDAY!

So, of course, I find any excuse to help celebrate my day a little more... here are some great resources you can use with your kiddos in the upper grades!

Mentor Texts

Here are some great books you can use for mentor texts or read-alouds this month!

The Leprechaun's Gold is a classic Irish legend that your kiddos will love! You can use this great mentor sentence freebie with the book, too!

Tie in some nonfiction reading with Gail Gibbons's book, St. Patrick's Day.

Get in some hilarious Irish blarney with the book, O'Sullivan's Stew!

Tim O'Toole and the Wee-Folk is a story about the wee-folk: leprechauns! 

And of course, everyone needs to learn How to Catch a Leprechaun!

Science

After reading How to Catch a Leprechaun, how about a little tie-in to STEM with a leprechaun trap? Use this freebie from my store to have students make a leprechaun trap using simple machines! 

Read this post from last year to see the leprechaun traps my fourth graders created, and what the leprechaun left behind after he visited (but no one caught him)!

I hope you'll enjoy making learning magical with these great resources for your upper grades classroom! Happy St. Pat's, friends! :)