Writing ~ week 12

My class has a blast using the Masterpiece Sentence technique to write sentences. The Masterpiece Sentence technique has 6 steps that guide your students through the process of writing a solid sentence. Students end up writing sentences that create wonderful pictures in the reader's mind. I start by introducing this technique with whole class instruction. I project an image on the smart board for my students to use as reference for the sentence. I then talk them through each of the 6 steps. Their response to each step is written on a small piece of paper or a post it note (see photos). The next several times we do this lesson, I put students in groups of three and have them work collaboratively. Each group is given a poster or a picture torn from a calendar to use as reference for their sentence. After everyone has learned the steps, I have my students write sentences individually at their desk or at a center. Finally, after several weeks of practice, I give my students sentence starters instead of pictures to work from.

Click here for my ppt on Masterpiece Sentences

Happy Teaching!!

Josie

Students that need differentiation ~ Week 13

I have a student in my class who struggles with various tasks. One of his struggles involves the use of his fine motor skills. He especially has great difficulty with writing. This affects all of his assignments. To help him he is often partnered with other students. This is not always the best situation for either child. He also uses a laptop computer to type his assignments. Some assignments just can't be typed into his laptop. I found 2 apps that I think can help him. One app will allow him to practice his math fact drills without needing to use paper and pencil. The other is a notebook app to help him keep all of his assignments organized.

Math Fact Practice

Any teenager would love this app. You can create folders for each of your subjects. You can then decorate them with stickers or by drawing on them. It also has a handy calculator! Fun way to take notes and keep up with assignments.

Ocean Unit ~ Week 8

Take me Out to the Ocean from Josie Cutler on Vimeo.

My fifth graders just finished a unit on oceans. In this unit students were taught (among other things) about the ocean zones and the animals that live in those zones.

Word Clouds!! ~ Week 9

Tagxedo-Creater link

Tagxedo is a really neat web 2.0 site. You type in a list of words and it randomly places them on a page. The part that I like best though is that you can change the color, font, orientation, shape of design, and the theme. It is very user friendly!
My students recently did a character building assignment in class. Each student had to write down one positive thing about each of their classmates.  I took those words and complied them so that they could be typed into Tagxedo. Above is an example of how one turned out. I'm going to put these in an end of year booklet that I am giving each child in my my class.