Fictional Narrative Pre-Writing: Monster in a Jar

In class we have begun working on our next narrative.  We will be writing a fictional narrative.  Our "prompt" will revolve around the idea of having to capture a monster in a jar.  To get "things" going, we captured our own classroom monster: Lenny.

With Lenny in captivity, we began describing what type of monster Lenny is.  As it turns out, he lives underneath students' beds and/or in the depths of their closets.  He makes very loud screeching noises.  His beak like mouth is extremely sharp and his eyes can blast lasers beams.  What a creature.  

The next step in our pre-writing process was for students to create their own, squished, "Monster in a Jar."  They needed to imagine what their monster looks like, what sorts of features it has, where it lives and more.  All of those characteristics helped students imagine what their monster looks like.  Today, we voted for favorite monsters.  We even brought in two fourth grade classrooms, so our votes were unbiased.  While only one could win, all of the monsters have turned out great.  Can you find Lenny in the picture below?

Tomorrow, we will begin imagining our narratives.  We are excited to see where our imaginations will take us.

Making Word Study Fun!

Understanding how to create, spell, and analyze words is a very important part in becoming a successful reader and writer.  Using the Words their Way curriculum, we do a variety of activities to get better at our word knowledge ranging from meaning sorts and activities to several strategies for better spelling of words.  Throughout the day, students have many opportunities to get better at using words and to become better spellers in general.  Below are some pictures from some of the activities students did today:

"Banana Grams" with Large Magnetic Letters

"Written Blind Sort"

"Scrabble" with Magnetic Letters

"Secret Decoder" Spelling Cups

Rebooting our Imagination with Katy McKy

Our school PTO generously brought our students the great fortune of meeting author and educator Katy McKy this week, as our author in residence.  To begin the week, Katy McKy, surrounded by nearly 600 eager students, transfixed us with her exciting tale of how pumpkins took over the small, quaint village: Pumpkin Town.  The show was entertaining, start to finish, with Mrs. McKy developing much of her fun story using our school's principal (Poppa) as her center of attention.  Quickly, she brought nearly 80 students up to the front stage to become instant props, while bringing forth staff (myself included) and students to act out various parts one might read in her book.  As she retold the story Pumpkin Town, all legs sat criss-crossed, backs were straight, and eyes were glued to what might happen next.  The morning was a success.

However, our class' individual time with Mrs. McKy this morning may have taken her presentation to a whole new level.  Regularly she asked my students if they were "Tough enough to focus."  You bet they were!  In her energetic ways, she reminded them to REFUSE TO GIVE UP!  Our morning was based largely on her tale Wolf Camp.  As a group, my students had to identify every single element her story might include using the props around us.  We used leaf blowers for wind, squirt bottles for rain, feather dusters as creepy crawly bugs.  My students quickly memorized the "things" they need for a camping trip, from a water canteen and filter to an emergency pack.  Before we knew it, we (myself included) were crawling around on the floor pretending to be bears or packs of wolves invading an imaginary camp which Katy and one of my students inhabited.

With our remaining time, Mrs. McKy had my students write their own story using all the elements we learned about in the first 45 minutes.  Their stories had to include: a setting, a problem, a bigger problem, an even bigger problem, and a solution.  With students camped up into tents, Mrs. McKy and myself wandered our campgrounds causing rain, wind, and creepy bugs to invade the tents.  These distractions were no match for my focused writers.  Many of my students were upset to end / leave, because as they might tell you, they still have a long way to go on what some of them see developing into a great story.

Mrs. McKy taught my students that each of them has a extraordinary power within them...their brains.  Their brains are capable of anything they want them to be, so long as they have will power and courage to do their best.  McKy provided me, with a much needed (though I did not realize this) professional development session.  I learned that my students can be very focused with the correct cue, and that some directions don't need to be so dragged out.  I also learned to power of oral editing.  I cannot wait to integrate Katy McKy's strategies with my own to create a very positive and unique learning environment.

We will have one more all school assembly with Katy on Friday, where she will then let our students tell their parents all the "Truths" about what she really told them...giving her just enough time to get out of town.  The following are some pictures from our fun writing session this morning:

Guys Create - Summer School 2013

The first two weeks of summer school are complete!  That went fast!  So fast that there was little time to update every couple days on what sorts of great activities my students did.  That said, even though I taught two classes, the one I will go into detail about right now is "Guys Create."

In this class our goal was to take part in creating, as well as see how "stuff" is created.  We were able to do both in ways that guys would enjoy.

After day one of the class I was a bit worried about whether or not my lessons plans could withstand the group of boys that had just left my classroom.  I called our district technology coordinator and asked for some ideas...which between the two of us...the thinking caps got to work.

In my class the boys went on three field trips to two local businesses to see how they create.  Last week we visited Dynamic Designs, which is a family owned business in our village who creates screen printed clothing, embroiders clothing, does web design, and much, much more.  Our task was to have them help us take our designed T-shirt from day one of class, and turn it into an actual T-shirt our students could wear.  In rewind, on day one students had to provide a design for a particular letter/word/number in "Guys Create Summer School 2013."  The design had to reflect their creativity.  They also voted on a shirt color and ink color (green and orange...in that order).  Next we delivered the design and got a tour of their building.  The boys got to see all the different "things" that Dynamic Designs does.  Two days later we returned, only this time to actually create our shirts and bring them back.  Check it out:

This is the original design the Guys created.

Our next field trip, just this past Wednesday took all of our boys to Bay Tek Games, in our village's business district.  At Bay Tek, our boys were treated to an incredible tour showing them how an arcade style video game is constructed, beginning with a lot of plywood to a finished product.  The boys learned that their is a lot more to the video game creation, than just plopping one down in the middle of an aisle and waiting for quarters for eager players.  Many of the boys were surprised to learn that Bay Tek's games travel all over the world.  They were also excited to recognize many of the games built here.  They now have a better respect for the creating process.  This trip was incredibly interesting and really made an impact on many of the boys.  To top it off, they got to test out one of the games ready for production: Dizzy Chicken.  

Along with these great field trips that we were fortunate to be able to either walk to or take a brief bus ride to, our class also focused on using iPads and Chromebooks for the creating process.  

We made action movies using an app called: Action Movie FX.  SUPER FUN!  BOYS LOVE IT!  Girls probably would too.  Since this was a summer school class, and BOYS, my technology director gave me permission to download this app.  Permission needed, because basically the app takes live video footage and adds special effects; such as boulders falling from the sky, laser beams, cars rolling, missiles launching, and much more!  Check out my example:

Another iPad Creation apps that we had fun with was Coaster Frenzy.  This is a roller coaster creation app.  Sky is the limit with this app.  The user literally creates and tests their coaster(s).  Today they had a final challenge of creating a roller coaster which lasted 2 minutes, within 10 seconds, and had to exceed 65 MPH. They had 20 minutes to do this, and a lot of fun!

We had a lot of fun with many other apps.  I should also mention that my students used our Chromebooks for some fun, creative creation projects.  We used a Chrome app called: Lego Builder.  This app is a simulated, virtual Lego world.  You can build almost anything to your heart's content with this app.  The boys did say it was challenging, and made their brains hurt.  To me, that sounds okay...it challenged them!

We also used our Chromebooks and Google Presentation to create business cards for a fake business idea.  Of all the activities, this one probably presented the most challenges, because many of the guys lacked needed background knowledge on using either Google Presentation or Microsoft PowerPoint.  Some business cards turned out really great.  In addition, we played with a Chrome app called Cargo Bridge, in which the goal is to create bridges for the character to carry a load over...lots of fun.  Lastly, the boys created animations using ABCya!'s animation creator site.  This both challenging and rewarding, once the final product is complete.  

Overall, we had a great two weeks!  It is hard to believe it is already done.  Scary to think...but bring on July!

Inventorying Grade Level Guided Reading Books

One last BIG project.  Our students inventoried over 175 guided reading novels from our grade level library.  They organized all of them, added lexiles, and created a HUGE spreadsheet for our teachers to use for years to come!  They did incredible!

We had a great school year!  Best wishes to our fifth graders as they move on to the middle school!  Have a great summer!

Next up...summer school...then presenting on 1:1 Google Chromebooks in the classroom at SITA...then get ready for the next bunch.

Blog entries might get slow for a while.  Enjoy the summer!

~ Mr. H and Mrs. O.