Just keep teaching, just keep teaching, teaching....

Anybody else find Dory's quote from Finding Nemo a little too relatable these days?

 Luckily, my classes have just enough left of their novels to read; & there are plenty of end-of-the year events occurring to keep us all occupied until the last day. This past week, we were busy editing & publishing the 8th issue of The Hornets' Nest; a school newspaper my students created & have done an excellent job on all yaer! The Hornets Nest allows students to brainstorm, survey, write & edit their own articles about school events for the student body to enjoy!

Speaking of end of the year activities, we had our Faculty Banquet this week, which was OUR time to get recognition for our hard work this school year! Below is a picture of a few colleagues & myself  from the banquet. This group of ladies are not only my co-workers, but they were my  collegiate classmates all four years in the Education Dept. So not only do we work for the best, we learned from the best, too!

As the end of the school year for my students is fast approaching; my quarter in graduate school is coming to a close, too. For a final project this week, we focused on Oral History. Oral History is the concept of students focusing on a topic, conducting various interviews with interviewees relevant to that topic, analyzing the data, and presenting it in an interesting way. I attached a link to my Prezi presentation to give you teacher-istas a better understanding of this new strategy. I definitely recommend adding "Studying Oral History" to your summer teaching to-do list!

Hang in there, we are only DAYS away from sleeping in & wearing flip-flops...

MAY my "FANTASY" come true? I need a vacation to cure my Spring Fever blues...

Its only May 3rd? WE'RE ONLY 3 DAYS INTO MAY??

 I know I do not stand a lone when I say that I need May 23rd (or whenever your last day may be..)

 to get here faster than!


Speaking of end of the year, how are you other Teacher-istas surviving? This is the time of year I miss teaching science and math; where creative, hands-on, lessons & projects have the power to keep the kiddos eager to learn. However, to make up for the lack of teaching those subjects, I am blessed with students who have a very advanced reading level. Therefore we are able to conduct enjoyable (for me, duh!) novel studies. We're really focused on the Fantasy Genre (hence, the post title). My 4th graders are reading the Percy Jackson series to take a deeper look at Mythology(the books really do help make a real world connection to the complex concept!) Meanwhile, my 5th graders are transforming the classroom into Hogwarts by diving into the Harry Potter series.  Both of these books are extremely engaging and entertaining for students and teachers alike; and also provide a good opportunity for students to broaden their vocabulary and cultural knowledge. Not to mention, they will make for AWESOME movie days during the last week of school (which will consist of compare & contrast strategies of course..)

Both fictional series have an abundant amount of resources that will save you lesson planning time. Click here to visit a Harry Potter website that provides FREE worksheets, lesson plans with objectives, book project ideas, and neat craft/recipe ideas. It is the perfect resource for educators who want to role play Dumbledore for a few weeks! :)

One more thing: my old college roommate (now one of my closest friends & colleague that is literally across the hall) decided to hop on the blogging bandwagon! I helped her establish her blog for her history classes (as a part of a grad school assignment) but she quickly grew to love the networking windows blogging opens for educators. I must say, for a short tutorial she caught on to the concept quickly, and her blog is looking pretty spiffy! Please go check out her blog, History vs. HER-STORY, and show her some love!

Enjoy your weekend & may the force be with you for the next few weeks!

Happy Poetry Month!

As most of you fellow teacher-istas are aware, April is nationally known as the month to recognize poetry. I've been looking forward to this unit for quite some time; my kids are top notch when it comes to thinking creatively, so I was anxious for their final products! In this unit: all three of my grades learned about different types of poem: Alliteration, Acrostic, Color, Cinquan, Haiku & the 5 W's. With my 3rd grade class, we learned about one style & constructed an example of one type of poem a day. 4th and 5th graders were more fast paced and learned about the different styles within 2 days, and then begin working on their Poetry Projects.

 In years past, Poetry Projects have always been books that published students' poetry into actual books. Its a very cute idea, and makes for a good keepsake, but not ideal for this 1st year's teacher budget at the time. That's when I decided to incorporate my technology skills, and have students make a PhotoStory with their poetry. Similar to the format of the content slide I made for ECT 510; students first typed their poems on PowerPoint, selected a design/theme and then saved them as individual photos. We then worked together to import the photos into PhotoStory, add voice narration, and I think their FAVORITE part was mixing the tunes for background music (who knew they were DJs, too?). To ensure parents still received their "keepsake" of this project, I burned each presentation onto a CD-Rom that they can play on a computer. 10 cents a CD is WAY more affordable than $3 a book! Here is a sample of one of my 5th grade student's presentation:

Only 4 weeks left of school, can you believe it? Its officailly down to the survival of the fittest!

Storybook

Even though testing week has come and gone; it still had major impact on my students. Before testing, to try to "relieve their stress" I had them help me with a Storybook project for my grad school class. Originally, we planned on using a Dr. Seuss character (we had just wrapped up that unit) in a new, original story. Unfortunately, the planning of that story line had my 4th graders way too stressed out; which actually served as motivation for Plan B...

...Students then decided instead of creating an original story, we would do a nonfiction story which is just facts. During that time in my class we were going over test-taking strategies and one of my Einsteins had the bright idea to make a "How To..." kind of book that's relevant to test taking strategies. She even came up with the idea to share this with other 4th grade classes to help them; how genius is that? I really do have the cream of the crop! We didn't waste any time in constructing the project. I had students divided into groups to summarize what to do before, during and after testing. They collaboratively put their information on PowerPoint slides; which I then saved as individual JPEGs and inserted into PhotoStory3. We then took photographs (since that is a trait of nonfiction) to support their ideas.

Then, the Friday before the week of testing, we were able to go to each 4th grade class to give them a pep talk and show this video. The kids loved the whole project from start to finish, and I was SO proud of their leadership skills; as well as confidence in test-taking strategies!

Review for the LEAP & Testing Week

Hello all! I hope you all survived the past few weeks of tedious test reviews and especially this week of testing! I know it drove me BANANAS having to sit still in an isolated space for SO many hours. I can only imagine how the kiddos feel, but I must say I am proud of their determination and confidence they showed up with every day. I posted a picture below of their testing incentives they received each morning to show my motivation method. I have to admit that it was relief, as well as a confidence booster, to hear them say "Oh, that way easy!" or "I remember that!". Now to keep my fingers crossed that their positive thinking will earn positive results!

Before testing, we had two weeks of solid review divided by spring break. Two of the main skills that Common Core really emphasised all year (ironically enough the two skills students had the most problem with) were writing compositions with evidence from a passage, and identifying the main idea with supporting details. To help review the "main concept" of the main idea I constructed a Content Podcast via PhotoStory3; which I posted below for you to review & use! :)

I also noticed that my Prezi link from last post was having problems showing up once you clicked the link. I might have uploaded the presentation wrong, so here is my 2nd attempt for all of you to see the Prezi Author Study: Kevin Henkes; which contains my book review via YouTube over Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse.

I hope you & your students all survived testing week and are ready to start the "creative" part of the school year where the fancy & fun projects finally get to replace the curriculum! ;) Be sure to get some R &R this weekend, you teacher-istas deserve it!

And the winner for favorite children's author is...

Kevin Henkes!

I'm a huge fan of any and all Kevin Henkes' books. I love his mice characters, especially Lilly, because they are so relatable for myself and students in real life situations. Not to mention, they are very entertaining and I love the vivid illustrations!

Below is a Prezi Presentation I completed for my graduate class that highlights important information about Kevin Henkes, as well as a read a loud of my favorite book: Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse.

Enjoy! :)

http://prezi.com/scvbyimupt0x/present/?auth_key=ghor764&follow=hjlxnes9d0fv

Movie Maker Project

The following is a video we were assigned to make for my graduate school class, ECT 510, that gives our classmates a little more background information about us. I used MovieMaker to make this video which is a movie editing resource found on most Windows computers. It is very user-friendly, and fun to use when making slide shows for special events!

1st Entry is a Little About Me...

Hello all! 


Thank your checking out my blog :) My name is Sami and I am southern-twenty something who is also a beginner teacher! I am certified to teach grades 1-5 and this is my 2nd year of teaching. However, this year happens to be my first year of teaching gifted students, which is far from the traditional teaching you learn about in college! My students are extremely intelligent (I learn something new from them everyday) and our class as a whole is a lot smaller in numbers. However, the instruction is much more fast paced, hands-on, self-directed and very engaging. I love having the opportunity to go by my own curriculum, as well as see gifted children be challenged and enthusiastic about learning versus bored and restless; which is the case too many times.
I teach three separate classes that are all centered around ELA & reading skills: grades 3rd, 4th and 5th. I love being able to interact with student of different ages who are at different learning stages, along with teaching my favorite subject and getting to read multiple stories all in one day! It really is the best of both worlds.
The school I teach is at holds students ranging from Pre-K to grade 8; the campus is huge to say the least! In the afternoons, I have the privilege of sponsoring the middle school cheerleaders which keeps me very busy, involved in our school, but entertained by these pre-teens all at the same time. Needless to say, at the end of the day, my brain is pretty wiped out from having to change from opposite ends of the spectrum! However, I feel very blessed to have the job position(s) that I do and love the school that I teach at.
The main purpose of this blog is to be able to network with other teachers who work with gifted children and collaborate with them on new ideas and suggestions for the classroom. Since there is no set curriculum, and especially with everything aligning to Common Core; I could use all the new, fresh ideas I can get that are guaranteed to have promising results on my students!
I cannot wait to get more involved in the blogging community and begin collaborating with others through this unique network. 



Happy blogging everyone!