Notice and Note: Close Reading with Signposts

If you have stumbled upon this blog post hoping to gain extensive information about "Notice and Note", close reading, and/or signposts within text, then you may want to press the back button on your screen.  However, if you are curious what this looks like in the very early stages in our fifth grade classroom, then read on.


We have been fortunate to have our district's literacy coach and reading specialist (Rhoda Wood) join our classroom for the past two weeks to teach us various signposts that author's use to help us as readers get more in tune with the character and the story, or with a non-fiction article.

We are working on signposts in text to prepare for our upcoming unit which largely focuses on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  Today we closed our mini-lessons with letting our students explore signposts within books they are currently reading.  This will hopefully be a great reading skill that will transfer over to other 

To learn some basics about signposts, click on the image to the left to see the presentation we created in our classroom.

Ecosystems...Gone Digital!

This spring I am trying to "change things up" a bit from previous school years in relation to our Ecosystem unit.  The first change I saw that needed to be made was to figure out a way to better integrate technology into daily lessons.  

Step 1: Create a Digital Packet:

CHECK!










So, with that accomplished, my next thought was, observations.  I cringe when I think of fifth graders making observations with our previous ecosystem packet.  Reason being - drawing and coloring.  The observations of the past were incredibly skewed and not accurate.  How do you provide the opportunity to make more accurate observations...TAKE A PICTURE!

Step 2: Use iPad to Take a Picture:

CHECK!





**Sigh of relief**

The next big task (not really that big) was to figure out a quick way for students to transfer images from the iPad to their Chromebook.  To do this I created a "dummy" Gmail account.  In doing so, I then put the "dummy" account on each iPad.  This in turn provided a solution for students to email themselves their group's observation picture.  Once they received their picture, they could then load it into their digital packet.

Step 3: Load Picture into Packet:  

CHECK!





The last task my students have left to do is to write some general observations (which you can see above) about their ecosystem.  

The benefit of this system for observing is critical in several ways:

1. Allows for regularly, daily observations.  In the past, this was a hindrance and not fun.
2. Integrates technology seamlessly.
3. Uses a variety of skills - tech, collaboration, writing, design, thinking, observing, etc.
4. MAKES SCIENCE REAL...ESPECIALLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY!

Check out future posts to see how this "experiment" with technology and ecosystem moves along.