December 2015 | Crafting Connections
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FREE Guided Reading Lesson Plans

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

This is a two-part blog post!

My primary purpose for writing this blog post is to share another set of guided reading lesson plans with you! Again, these aren't fancy, but they are lessons plans that worked for me. I wrote these plans a few years back when I was reading the book Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great  by Judy Blume with a small group of fourth grade students. If you happen to have multiple copies of this Level R book available, I'd love to be able to share these lesson plans with you, and save you from having to write your own plans. I know how time-consuming it is to write guided reading lesson plans each week! (Amazon affiliate link follows.)

My students and I really enjoyed this book. One of the reasons I enjoyed this book is because there are multiple times in this book that the 1972 copyright date is obvious, and it leads to some interesting discussions. As you will see if you download the lesson plans, the copyright date comes into play already in the first chapter when Judy Blume references a record. Later in the book, she mentions a "milk door" and a "mimeograph machine". My favorite way to explain these outdated concepts to students is to simply grab my iPad, go to google images, type in the phrase, and then show them the photograph and explain how it worked "back in the old days". 

If you have a Level R guided reading group and access to multiple copies of this Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, feel free to click on the image and download the PDF version of the lesson plans!
 Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great Lesson Plans

(If you'd like to see the other free guided reading lesson plans I have available, click on the links below.)
Shiloh (Level R)
Flat Stanley (Level M)


My secondary purpose for writing this blog post is to invite you to check out my new YouTube video. This was created by the amazingly talented Kayse Morris!  I thoroughly enjoyed working with Kayse on this project- her enthusiasm is positively contagious! I think she did a wonderful job, and would highly recommend her to anyone who is thinking about making a similar video.


I versus Me: A FREE Grammar PowerPoint

Monday, December 28, 2015

This was the conversation that took place at my house about a month ago: 

Brooke (my third grader): Emma played with Lily and me at recess today.

Kayla (my fifth grader who likes to correct her younger sister): Lily and I.

              Me: No, Kayla. She was actually right. "Lily and me" is the correct way                             to word  that particular sentence.

Kayla: No, it isn't. My teacher always corrects us when we say it that way. 
It's always supposed to be "Lily and I".

I won't bore you with the rest of the conversation. Needless to say, however, despite many attempts to try to explain why "Lily and me" was correct grammar usage in that sentence, I wasn't able to convince Kayla that I knew what I was talking about. Like most kids, Kayla thinks her teachers are much more knowledgeable than her mom. :) (By the way, I don't believe Kayla's teacher really taught her that misinformation... it's more likely that Kayla came to the conclusion on her own after hearing her teacher correct multiple classmates that truly should have used "(Name) and I" in a sentence.)

Actually, I can relate to Kayla's overgeneralization of the rule. When I was younger, I always thought that "(Name) and I" was the rule that should be applied to every sentence, too. I specifically remember the exact high school English class where I learned that me should be used instead of I when the pronoun is the object of the verb. For example, in Brooke's sentence above, "Lily and me" are the objects of played.  I is a subject pronoun, while me is an object pronoun. Therefore, in this sentence, "Lily and me" is correct.

This is a common grammar error among many upper elementary students. Frankly, I even know many adults who make the same mistake when speaking or writing. Therefore, the conversation inspired me to create this short "I versus Me PowerPoint"! 

This PowerPoint is FREE in my store, so go ahead and download it if it's a minilesson that might benefit your students. 
Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!

I start with some basic sentence slides where students fill in the blank with "I" or "me".
Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!

After the brief review, I introduce the structure "(Name) and ____".
Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!


Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!
               
                                The direction instruction slides, look like this:
Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!

Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!

Finally, the PowerPoint concludes with 8 practice slides like the ones below:

Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!

Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!

It also includes a PowerPoint companion handout where students can record their answers on the handout as you progress through the PowerPoint.
Do you have students who struggle with using I and me as pronouns in their speaking and writing? This grammar topic is confusing to many students... and even some adults! If this is a challenging grammar topic for your students, check out this free I and me lesson! It includes a FREE PowerPoint and handout!


Most of the amazing clip art shown above is by A Sketchy Guy. The clip art on the green slide is by Educlips

I hope you like the PowerPoint and it's beneficial for your students. 
Thanks for stopping by!

Math Properties- Connecting with the Terms

Friday, December 11, 2015
Commutative, associative, distributive... the math property terms can be a bit intimidating for elementary students being introduced to the addition and multiplication properties. I know some teachers who rename the commutative property the "flip-flop property", but personally, I'm not a big fan of renaming challenging words. A few years back, I was helping one of my ELL students complete a math assignment. She was supposed to match the equation in Column A to the addition property that was being modeled in Column B. When she saw the problem (5 + 8 = 8 + 5), her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, I know this! It's the flip-flop property!" Of course, she was exactly correct... but "flip flop property" was not one of the answer choices.

She sat there, tapping her pencil to her lips. I read the answer choices to her, and told her that one of them was the official word for "the flip flop property". Clearly taking a random guess, she pointed to one of the words and asked, "Is it this one?"

As an ESL teacher, I strongly believe in teaching students strategies that will help them decipher meanings of unknown words- whether it's by using context clues, finding a base word, or looking for a root, prefix, or suffix. In terms of learning the math property words, finding a base word is the ideal strategy. The anchor chart below shows how I extract the base words and place each within the context of a sentence to help students make a meaningful connection between the word and the meaning of the property. I also like to attach each property to a visual cue (another ESL teaching strategy) to deepen the connection.
Math Properties Anchor Chart! Teach students about the commutative, associative, distributive and identity properties this this anchor chart!
If you would like to create this anchor chart yourself, click HERE. If you print page 2 of the preview, you can color and cut out the images (by Educlips and A Sketchy Guy) on this page and use in on your anchor chart.

I recently created two math property PowerPoints (one for addition, and one for multiplication), and I used the same method described above. These slides show how I introduced each term.

Teach students the meaning of the commutative property of addition and multiplication by first making a visual connection to the term!
Teach students the meaning of the identity property of addition and multiplication by first making a visual connection to the word!
Teach students the meaning of the associative property of addition and multiplication by first making a visual connection to the word!

Teach students the meaning of the distributive property by first making a visual connection to the word!


Thanks for stopping by!

~Deb
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