The Concept/Question Board, the second cousin twice removed, to the KWL chart, is a required component of the Open Court Reading program. Some teachers don’t use it at all. Others have gotten good at putting them up but then they just kind of hang there like wallpaper, barely touched until the end of the unit …
Category: Open Court Reading
Heritage Unit Project Ideas
submitted by Francie Kugelman 1. The students can research a family recipe that is handed down from generation to generation. They must cook it, and write step by step what they did in order to make it. They must also include the history from the recipe. 2. The students can create a fictional story about …
Martin Luther King Birthday Activities
Multimedia Link: I Have a Dream Speech Video and Text The following links are reprinted from Doug Yonce’s TEKTok newsletter. Highly recommended. Sign up for his newsletter here. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Activities from the Holiday Zone (all grades) Martin Luther King Art Ideas (PreK-5) Martin Luther King in the Classroom (all grades) …
Reflections on City Wildlife Unit
Having completed the City Wildlife unit for the first time, these are my thoughts on what the unit is about and how I would approach teaching it next time. Students already know a little bit about animals. They’ve had the animal unit and the camouflage unit prior to coming to third grade. But this is …
Bill Pinkney’s Back
The Incredible Voyage of Bill Pinkney is now available on DVD. This is a fantastic film which brings the story to life. It’s long. I would not play it in its entirety in one sitting but would play a piece every day as you read the story. Some teachers find it objectionable that …
Classroom Mangement Educational Technology Macintosh Tips Open Court Reading Reading Comprehension Vocabulary
Energize Your Classroom: How Jim Cramer Made Me a Better Teacher of English Language Learners
I’ve become a better teacher of English Language Learners by watching one of my favorite TV Shows, Jim Cramer’s Mad Money. This is a show about buying stocks. If you’re not interested in stocks you might be turned off already, but Jim Cramer is an entertainer. He takes what could be boring and incomprehensible and …
Celebrate Seuss Day Collaboratively Across the World
I’ve been doing a lot of work at my new school with video conferencing as unit opener and culminating activity. We spoke with Cornell University’s bird scientists last month and we just spoke with another third grade class in LAUSD to share our new knowledge about City Wildlife. Here’s an opportunity to video conference for …
There’s No Such Thing as a Dumb Question But…
It’s true that there’s no such thing as a dumb question when it comes to the Concept/Question Board (or KWL chart). It’s okay for students for students to put up whatever unit related questions they have whether they’re silly or not. However, what’s not okay is for those silly questions to stay up on the …
Cool Mac Apps for Cheap
MacUpdate is currently offering seven Mac Apps for just $50. The apps are ForkLift, RapidWeaver, Swift Publisher, Marine Aquarium, Xslimmer, MemoryMiner, and Yep. I’m familiar with Yep, it’s a cool iPhoto like application for PDFs which helps you organize and tag them. Marine Aquarium is an aquarium simulator (fun but not particularly useful). RapidWeaver is …
Give Up Control
Although teachers tend to view Open Court as a scripted program, there are some places in the program (or any other) where teachers need to give up some control. Not everyone is comfortable giving up control as a teacher. Are you? My classroom management has always been firm. I’m not someone who likes a free …