The Open Court Resources podcast is now featured on the Apple Learning Exchange as a featured podcast by Apple Distinguished Educators. I’m sorry that the podast hasn’t been updated recently but it is taking a break for the summer and will be back when the traditional school year starts. If you haven’t heard the old …
Category: Open Court Reading
Literacy Coaches of the World, Unite!
All literacy coaches, content experts, and those responsible for professional development related to the Open Court Reading Program are invited to join the new global literacy coach network. The site has a new interactive format which allows for networking among literacy coaches from across the country. This is a perfect venue for sharing best practices …
Cooperation and Competition Unit Opener
submitted by Denise Caywood 1) Use preview skills to look through the unit ( this like a picture walk for younger learners) and we develop questions from titles and subtitles and list on large chart paper for answering later. 2) Handing off activity: I use a small (beanie baby frog) object to hand off to …
Daily Journal Idea
Submitted by Guy Swentek… Students write every day in a single-subject spiral notebook that they will take home every night for review and return every day. Some “typical” writings/lessons for the week: Monday – spelling words/sentences Tuesday – phonics & fluency Wednesday – word knowledge Thursday – vocabulary & context meaning Friday – writing lesson …
Student Audio Book Reviews
This from fellow Apple Distinguished Educator, Matthew Callison, an excellent tool for engaging students in reading. Mr. Callison works with a third grade population of English Language Learners. He has students record audio reviews of books they are reading and uploads them to this blog, BookLook.org. There are just a handful of reviews so far …
New Resources
Thanks to Kristin Papoi, we now have our very first set of fifth grade daily homework aligned with OCR 2000 vocabularly and spelling for the Cooperation and Competition unit. Scroll down to homework. In addition, there are more Clay Animation examples for Astronomy and Kindness units. As well as additional Comic Life work.
Online Webcast on Integrating Technology in Curriculum
If you’re available to participate in an online interactive webcast on Thursday, August 23rd, at 5:00 PM PST. Please join us. All districts are welcome. I will be cohosting along with two LAUSD teachers, Henry Anker of the world famous Anker tests and Jose Rodriguez, web 2.0 superstar. All of us are experienced with working …
Five things to do before starting school
1. Revamp your workshop/independent work time. No doubt by the end of the previous school year your IWT was starting to fall apart. It always does even if only slightly. Plan to start IWT off right this year. I usually start in the second week of school by picking a time that will remain sacred …
A Game for Teaching Cooperation and Competition
by Francie Kugelman I place the students in groups of 4, with one strong math student in each group. The directions are passed out, along with the two charts the students are to round to the nearest whole number. The students are given the directions and chart paper to write their answers. This project is …
Kindergarten Organization Tips
Submitted by Myrose, here are some very specific tips on getting organized to teach kindergarten… I am currently teaching Kinder OCR 2002, but many of the ideas are still applicable. –myrose Here are some of my organizational tips–I hope they help you: –I keep all my big books in a small chart box, in the …