Alice Mercer has her unit opener plans completed do you? Do you know how to plan a unit opener? Here’s a few ideas to get you started for Unit 1: Kindergarten: School Unit Openers First Grade: Look Who’s Reading/Let’s Read! Unit Openers Second Grade: Sharing Stories Unit Openers Third Grade: Friendship Unit Openers Fourth Grade: …
Category: Unit Openers
The Concept Question Board of the Future
I’ve mentioned elsewhere teachers who have used blogging as a modern day platform for their Concept/Question Board. Alice Mercer has now re-imagined the Concept/Question Board using VoiceThread, an online digital storytelling platform. Here, students record their voices asking questions and telling what they know about the coming unit. See VoiceThread Online Concept/Question Boards: Third Grade: …
Making A New Nation: Five Ideas for a Unit Opener
The American Revolution Unit contains several wordy stories of American History. The goal of the unit opener should be to assess prior knowledge and plant the seeds of recognition of a few key characters and motivations so that the following stories are comprehensible and relevant. Unit Opener Objective Students will be able to explain …
Unit Opener Planning Week is Back
Back in October, I hosted a Unit Opener planning week for Open Court units #2. It resulted in some terrific ideas being posted by web site visitors and fellow bloggers and those ideas are now linked to from the unit opener pages of those units. As teachers at different schools have different pacing, editions, and …
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 …
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 …
360 Degree Views
Here’s an awesome site which allows you to see 360 degree views of locations that have been photographed such as Times Square on New Year’s Eve or Macworld 2007. Do preview the images before showing them in class (I’ve heard that the night life of Paris might not be the night life you’re thinking of) …
City Wildlife and the Songwriting Process
Sandra Bacall, teacher and singer, created this film with her classroom about a song they wrote together for the City Wildlife Unit. At the end of the song, students talk about the songwriting process and compare it to the traditional writing process. Using music appeals to students’ different learning modalities and increases engagement.
Unit Opener Planning Week Reflection
A thank you to all those who participated in Unit Opener Planning week by posting, reading, and responding.In addition to the ideas presented on this blog:Here’s the schedule for this blog (entries posted at 7:30 AM PST): Monday 10/15 Best Practices for Unit Openers/Anticipatory Sets Tuesday 10/16 Virtual Guest Speakers: Videoconferencing Made Easy Wednesday 10/17 …
Fifth Grade: Astronomy Unit Opener
by Francie Kugelman I cover the clock with a piece of paper. I ask the students how the ancient people knew what time it was before clocks were invented. Students usually mention the sun, sun dials. Then we talk about seasons, and the need to know when to plant and harvest. The discussion leads to …