Thanks to Daina Zemaititis, teacher at Saturn Street School, Thinking Maps for 4th Grade Risks and Consequences unit have been added. Find other Thinking Maps resources at http://www.thinkingmaps.org
Category: Open Court Reading
Going West: Tips for Teaching 5th Grade Unit
by Francie Kugelman I have changed the order of the OCR stories for Unit 5, Going West, for two years now, and have found that because of this, both years my students have a deeper appreciation for the plight of the Native American. Here is the order I used this year: 1. Sacagawea’s Journey Here …
Join the Discussion Board
On my list of top five list of suggested things to do before starting the new school year is to join the Open Court Reading Discussion Board. The Discussion Board has over one thousand members and has lively discussions. I have found it extremely helpful to chat with my fellow Open Court teachers whenever starting …
Writing About Fear Using Sensory Details
I used this in the second grade unit, Courage but it can be used with any grade level/story as a means for drawing out sensory details from students. In the story “Brave as a Mountain Lion,” the author uses language to describe how the main character, Spider, feels when he is scared of participating in …
iPods and Reading Fluency Testing
As iPods become more and more ubiquitous, here’s an idea to greatly enhance your reading fluency testing or running records. With an iPod and an attachable audio recorder you can easily record students reading without having to plug anything into the wall. You can then put those recordings on a computer or plug into a …
Third Grade Powerpoints
Much needed vocabulary powerpoints have now been added to the Friendship page of the third grade unit thanks to Pam Chinelli of Castle Heights Elementary in Los Angeles. I hope to have powerpoints for all stories and units by the end of the year. If you use a different Open Court edition or find there’s …
The Concept Question Board Part 2: Questions
While the first step, Part One: Soliciting Artifacts may not be easy at first, it can be a piece of cake compared to soliciting meaningful questions from students about the unit theme. This month I hope to provide some assistance on how to elicit meaningful higher level thinking questions from your students. 1. Activate Prior …
New Thinking Maps Resources
I just added a few great resources to one of the sub sites of Open Court Resources, Thinking Maps.org I added links to: podcast from the Accidental Technologist Blog with great examples of thinking maps used creatively in the classroom a ten minute film from the creators of thinking maps which is a good refresher/introduction …
New Class Session Opened
New class session for Integrating Technology in the Open Court Curriculum and Closing the Digital Divide has now been opened for this summer at LACOE for those who couldn’t get into the first class. Go here to register. This is a three day workshop. Hope to see you there! > Expand your instruction beyond the …
New Films to go With Open Court Reading Themes
Lots of new movies this week! My own class films, “Camouflage Jones, Private Investigator” and “We See Animals Hiding” are now online at VideointheClassroom.com These are related to the 2nd grade “Look Again Unit.” Special thanks to Stephanie Penniman for her third grade film, “Kids Did It In Business” and Gisele Lee for her second …