Small Moment Stationery

Wow!  I am in amazement of the people who can keep up their blog once school is back in session.  I am having difficulty even reading all the great blogs that I follow!

This posting is really a piggyback post to Thoughts of a Third Grade Teacher.  She wrote a great post about the beginning of Writer's Workshop, brainstorming "watermelon" topics and then finding those "seed" stories.  Check it out here!

Don't you just love the posters? 

I also love, love, love the idea of assigning a point value to their brainstorming.  You may not do this with every session, but it would be good to pick a few.  I know that in our hearts we believe that writing is developmental, and grading of it is subjective, but grade we must!  This little point system is just one small way to quantify what is going on. 

So, why am I writing this since Third Grade Teacher already did?  After I read the post I whipped up two different papers for the kids to use for brainstorming.  My first one looked just like her poster, and the second one I did with a watermelon and seeds.  I sent them to her, and now I'm giving them to you! 

Enjoy!
          

Think of a Person                       Seed Story                        Back of both!

 

Mentor Text Madness--Day 1

Are all of these words rattling around in your head?  It is easy to get distracted with everything we have to do in those first few weeks of school. This time of year is perfect for reading mentor texts that will support Writer's Workshop throughout the year.  I like to read many, many picture books during those first few weeks of school to help break up the monotony of rules, regulations and procedures. I read the books for the pure pleasure of reading and listening.

The bonus?  Later in the year when you want to use one of those books for a writing mini-lesson, you can say, "Remember when we read this book?  Well today we're going to visit just a piece of it as we talk about...." 

Today's Pick:  What Do Authors Do? by Eileen Christelow

This story is about two writers who conveniently live next door to each other.  Their dog and cat start to chase each other and each author begins the process of writing a book about the adventure.  This is a perfect book to demonstrate where authors get their ideas, the process they go through for writing and the challenges they face during editing.  Students love to hear this book and beg me to read all of the thought bubbles from the dog and cat.  We return to this book many times throughout the year when talking about the writing process.

Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk

This is a story of a little mouse who lives in the library and reads book after book every night.  One evening he decides to write a book of his own and tucks the tiny book onto the library shelf. He writes several more books and the librarian leaves him a note inviting him to a "Meet the Author" gathering to share his secrets to writing. The mouse is too shy to come to the gathering, but he sets up a box that says "Meet the Author".  When the children peer in to the box, they see themselves in a tiny mirror.  Next to the box are small blank books and pencils for everyone to try writing their own book!

I love to read this story and have tiny books all stapled and ready to go.  There is something magical about writing in a tiny book and I use one of the mini pocket charts from target to display our newest treasures!  How fun!

Paint Away Those Tired Words

Here is an easy mini lesson on word choice that I did this year with my class AND it tied in with a current lesson they were having in art class. After the students were discussing colors and hues in art class, I brought in a stack of paint chips.

Source: flickr.com via Kitty on Pinterest

Using the paint chip I wrote the word fun on the lightest color.  Together we brainstormed words that could replace "fun" and ranked them in order until we got to the boldest color and boldest word.

I partnered students up, handed out paint chips, some tired words and a thesaurus and the students went to town.  Soon our door was covered in colorful paint chips with student made signs reminding them to pick a bolder word and other clever sayings.  After a few weeks, we attached all of the chips with a word ring and hung them up in the writing station.

Later in the year when they were partner revising their Young Author's Books, I heard more than one child say, "I think you could use a bolder word here," and they would run off to the chips! 

Here is a sampling of some of the phrases the kids came up to display our paint chips.  They created their own signs by hand and I wish I had taken pictures of the whole darn thing....but I didn't!

Bold Words










While searching Pinterest for a picture of paint chips, I came across some other cool uses.  Check these out:

Source: karrie-gull.blogspot.com via Kitty on Pinterest

How fun would these be to make?

Source: readingresource.net via Tara on Pinterest

So colorful!

Source: firstgraderatlast.blogspot.com via Elisa on Pinterest

Make some jazzy Elkonin boxes.  Reading Rockets has a great tutorial for this.

Source: howaboutorange.blogspot.com via Paula on Pinterest

I can picture bookmarks with reading strategies or icons printed on them.  You could use clear address labels to print your strategy so the color would remain.

You can get paint chips for free, but if you are like me you feel a little guilty taking a class set.  I had a conversation with my nice Benjamin Moore dealer and he gave me a whole pack of chips they didn't display because one or two of colors are discontinued.  Don't be afraid to ask!

Have you ever used paint chips in the classroom?

My Head is in The Clouds!

Last week I wrote about Wordle a favorite word cloud generator of mine.  Jen over at Runde's Room left me a comment about her favorite word cloud generator--Tagxedo pronounced [tag-SEE-doh] similar to "Tuxedo." I am in word cloud heaven.  Tagxedo allows you to make word clouds into shapes.  You can copy text, type in your own, or just enter the URL of a web page.  For example, here is a coffee-cup shaped word cloud of my blog:

The really neat thing about Tagxedo is that you have the option to include punctuation or numbers.  Here is my About blog post without numbers or punctuation!

The possibilities for Tagxedo are endless, but I know that my number one use will be to take the rather wordy emails that my principal loves to send and turn them into a fun word cloud.  I can't wait!  Of course, there are boundless educational uses for Tagxedo, but for now I keep thinking of the shapes and the people who would love them.

 How about a Tagxedo for the bus driver?

Or the music teacher?

In addition to the standard shapes there is an entire gallery of shapes preloaded with words.  Why is this exciting?  When you click it opens up in the creation window and you can paste in your own text and choose your own colors!

I need a monkey, ladybug and smiley face shape for a few of our staff members with those themes for their rooms.  Oh, and wouldn't a book be great? 

Tagxedo is the brain-child of Hardy Leung. The current beta version allows you to create your own shapes. (Warning:  It appears, to this elementary teacher, to be way more math and computer coding than I am willing to know/learn...I'm thrilled to leave it to the experts.  Thanks, Hardy!) Want to know more?  Check out this FAQ from Tagxedo.

Hardy has several fantastic blogs spotlighting, you guessed it, amazing word clouds. 

I encourage you to take a peek and start exploring.  I apologize to your family in advance for the delay in breakfast, lunch or dinner.   

All Things Tagxedo--The Official Blog of Tagxedo, Tag Cloud with Styles

 Daily Tagxedo--Current Events, Trending Topics, or Whimsical Idea of the Day

Celebrity Tagxedo--Celebrities+Words+Images=Celebrity Tagxedo

What Tagxedo will you create today?

Wordle Tutorial

 I promised you more about Wordle in this post.   I love Wordle and the possibilities are endless.  Here are two samples:



This shows all the different genres I like to write!

 




Here is a partial list of the My Weird Series





Tamara over at Teaching with TLC has posted a great article about Wordle. 

  

Check out my quick tutorial on using Wordle.

Creating a Thought Journal

One of the first mini-lessons I teach in Writer's Workshop is creating and using a Thought Journal.  Some might call it a Writer's Notebook, Journal or Reflection Notebook.  In my classroom the Thought Journal is a place where students can play with writing. They use the Thought Journal to try out new techniques in Writer's Workshop, keep lists of ideas to write about and reflect on their reading. 

This book by Ralph Fletcher is a wonderful companion for older students (4th - 8th) about how to use their Writer's Notebook. 

Younger students need more hands-on instruction with lots of modeling to use their Thought Journal. 

 

I teach the first lesson during the first few days of school. I show the students my own Thought Journal and spend a great deal of time telling them about the different parts and what all the pictures mean to me. 

That evening I send them home with an assignment to start collecting pictures.  I also post my samples on my class blog so parents know where we are headed. 

The next day I demonstrate Wordle for the kids and we make Wordle clouds for any topic we are learning that day.  I show them my the Wordle cloud on my Thought Journal and get them excited about creating their own.  I send home a blank composition book and directions for Wordle and give the kids a long weekend to complete their Thought Journal at home.  I wish I had taken pictures!  One was cuter than the next!  Stay tuned for directions on how to use Wordle!

Give Me a Quack

Rebecca at Create*Teach*Share is hosting a Linky Party about the use of Post-its in the classroom.  She is giving away a boat-load of Post-its, and who doesn't need Post-its?

Win this!!

I wanted to create an authentic purpose and audience for my second grade beginning writers.  I had spent the summer learning about Twitter and Facebook and thought it would be neat if the kids could have some way to express themselves and have others react but I knew we didn't have the technology or permission to put our kiddos on Twitter. Hence...Quacker was born  hatched.

I created an interactive board outside of my classroom door attaching paper and border using a hot glue gun.  :$ 

I slipped a Post-it pad on the top and Velcroed a marker to the wall.  I wrote the first post to get everyone started and sent an email to the staff encouraging them and their kids to leave us a note.



I also posted a reminder to encourage more participation.



My second grade students loved returning from lunch and special each day to read the quacks. Our principal and our superintendent left a Quack and the kids felt like they were famous!

It was a wonderful springboard for Writer's Workshop.  I encouraged my reluctant writers to "Quack."  Once their Quack was on the board I would have a staff member or former student respond to their Quack with a question or comment.  Soon, they had a mini conversation that very easily turned into a personal narrative. 

Low tech, low budget, but high on function.  Have you Quacked today?