Helping students improve their writing

Stephanie Farley (writing in Middle School Web) shares her 9 step solution to help grow student authors.  Her thoughts stem from her students’ feedback and confusion about their grades.  By modifying her instruction (including student self-evaluation) her students' writing and confidence grew.

Search for “Untitled”

 

(This tip came from Monica Burns Spring Cleaning Newsletter.  Since several of her suggestions related to Gmail (which we don't use), I didn’t link the entire document.

Here’s what she shared: 

Do you make lots of documents on the fly? Whether you are demoing a strategy for students or showing off a quick tip to your colleagues, you might have a lot of documents that aren’t serving a purpose anymore. In Google Drive, these documents are named “Untitled” by default. So head over to your Google Drive or OneDrive or wherever your files live and search by keyword for “Untitled.” Then, either delete these documents or give them a name and drag them to a folder.

If you start feeling overwhelmed by this task, set a timer for 10 minutes so you have a stop time. Suppose you feel like you want to keep going when the timer goes off, awesome. If not, set a reminder on your calendar to revisit this task.

Move those slides!

 

Here’s a newly added Google Slides Add On which will allow you to randomize your slide deck as well as roll some dice.  Special thanks to Kristen Boehm (EES) for her suggestion! My one-minute video here will walk you through the process.

Gentle Guidance Interventions

Classroom management can be a struggle even for the most experienced educator.  I found this article by Scott Ervin 5 Ways to De-Escalate Challenging Student Behavior an interesting read. Will every strategy work for every child (I think I have to work on my confused eye a little)- maybe not, but at least I will be aware of more options.

Adding Borders to Google Docs

Looking to spruce up your Google Docs?  Here’s a quick video from CottenTechCoach with three methods to add borders to your Google Doc.

Gamification Made Easy

I recently watched an EdWeb webinar with Brian Thomas (he’s a former educator and now working for TCI). If you want to watch it- here is the link.  Brian shared several ideas for both team building and content-related games that are low-cost and easy to use in the classroom.  I especially like
Scenes from a Hat and Who am I?  He shared several resources as well as a collaborative Padlet.

If you are interested in game-based learning, I would join EdWeb (it’s free) and become a member of this Game Based Learning community.

New- the Kami LIbrary

Kami has now introduced new graphic organizers and templates.  Please click here to view.  You can search by grade level and content.  Here are a few screenshots.

Earth Day and BrainPOP

Log into your BrainPOP account to check out these earth-related resources.  Many have the new Pause and Play features to help check for understanding during the video!

New from PBS - Earth Day

Here are some new resources from PBS on Earth Day. I especially like that they have listed materials for a variety of grade levels ( from Prek and Elinor Wonders Why to high school resources on global climate change).

Math/ELA Suggestions from BrainPOP

In the BrainPOP March newsletter, they shared some mini-lessons to help your students.  Please see their suggestions here

Here’s a sample:

Murder at the Met

In this mystery website, students will explore great art from the Metropolitan Museum and try to solve the murder of Madame X.  Here is a review from TeachersFirst.

Student Winner in Vocabulary Contest

 

The NYTimes recently published their vocabulary video winners.  Watch these 15-second videos to see the students' creativity! What could your students produce?

Screencastify Library

In a recent Screencastify blog post, they shared their new library feature.  It couldn’t come soon enough- now you can sort and search.

Art Podcasts

Are you looking for elementary art ideas, lesson plans, and podcasts?  Look no further than The Art of Education University.  Here you will find various resources including the Everyday Art Room and their podcasts.

Posts for Poetry Month

Here is a collection of posts from MiddleWeb with suggestions for celebrating poetry month in April.

Video Prompts

These writing prompts from John Spencer are worth a look.  How can writing be boring with this sendoff? The above is just one example.

April is the time for poems

The New York Times just shared over twenty-five lesson plans to help you introduce
poetry to your students.  Please see the lessons here.

Lessons for Ramadan

TeachersFirst recently shared their page with Ramadan resources.  Ramadan is celebrated this year from April 2 to May 2nd.  Please see their site here for a wide variety of material for all grade levels.

Autism Resources

 

Au

In honor of Autism Awareness Month, TeachersFirst has shared a collection of resources for your students and their families.  Please click here to see the collection. The video above came from this site.

Brain Dumps

While I had read about this concept before, this blog post from Matt Miller reminded me how effective it could be.  A brain dump is a nongraded exit ticket where the student literally shares everything they know about a specific topic. Please note in the post, Matt shares several resources including Flipgrid.  As a reminder, Flipgrid is not a district-approved tool and shouldn’t be used in the classroom. Feel free to use Socrative or pencil/paper.

Changing your default font

Is Arial 11 not your personal favorite?  Would you rather have Google open with font Comic Sans (in 14)? You can change the default font in Google.  Here is a short video (from Kasey Bell and ShakeUpLearning) that will walk you through the process.

Poetry and PBS

PBS celebrates poetry month with Sesame Street and more.  Find their resources here.

New in April from BrainPOP

From Poetry Month to Earth Day to Financial Literacy, you will find it in BrainPOP.  Please click this link for their April newsletter.