10 Literacy Applications for Google Apps

Google apps for the Classroom are THE thing for teachers right now, and why is that? Well, they're FREE, allow collaboration in real time, save automatically, allow instant sharing, and require little training. Today, in my post, I would like to share a few ways you might use these apps for literacy purposes.

Google Calendar

You may be scratching your head at how a calendar could be used for literacy instruction, but how about using it to map out your literacy instruction with colleagues. If you share your calendar or use the same calendar as a team, you can easily coordinate your resources, keep everyone on the same page for the grading period, and better plan your meetings. You can also use Calendar to manage library checkout/checkin for your classroom library. Simply have your students type in the title they're borrowing on the calendar. It may not ensure the book gets returned, but it may make tracking them easier. 

Google Forms

I LOVE Google Forms. You can do so many things with forms. For one, you can take anecdotal records by student and have all the data populate into a spreadsheet for you. That means you have an ongoing collection of all of your notes which we know is helpful in documentation growth.

You can also use forms for instruction with exit tickets, quick quizzes, to record answers to task cards you might use, to take class polls about reading materials, or to learn about your students' interests. Again, the data all goes into your spreadsheet for an easy place to see what your students know or don't know.

Many of us use reading logs to monitor independent reading. With Google Forms, you can have students complete a form each day to monitor their own progress. Need to do a spot check? Just print the spreadsheet and hold a conference.

Google Sites

You might be wondering how Google Sites could help you. It may even seem like that would be way to much to take on, but we know there is a great connection between reading and writing, right? How about creating a Google Site as your students are researching animals. Have them outline what they learn and add details as they read/learn. They can insert photos, and you can even share the link to the creation with parents later. Worried about confidentiality? No problem. You can set the privacy on the sites just like you can with blogger to allow viewing by the public or just those who have the URL.

Another option of Google Sites is to make a class portfolio. Each student can have a page where you insert photos of the work they've created. How neat would that be to show at conference time?

Google Slides

Google Slides works just like Powerpoint. You can easy to drop video clips into presentations, embed a Google form into it, and add links to materials in your Google drive. Google Slides doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Powerpoint has, but it is FREE. 

Google Docs

Certainly, one HUGE benefit to Google Docs is sharing. As a team, you can collaborate on plans and share ideas. It's easy to include links you want to use, materials your division has for you, Youtube links, and more. If you use Google Calendar, you can put the plan links into you calendar. Don't finish a lesson or find students need reteaching? No problem...just slide to the next day in your calendar.

One idea I've enjoyed is using a doc as a dialogue journals. Students can record their thoughts about their reading (quotes and their reflections), discuss with their literature circle without talking outloud, write quick writes on a a specific topic you're studying, and as teachers, we can easily work with students on revisions as we conference too. Add in Google Classroom, and it makes turning in and returning work easy too.

Google Sheets

Google sheets are perfect for RTI. We can track our students' data and easily print/share it with our administration. I love that you can color code your sheet to make it easy to see deficit areas too.

Google Hangout

Google Hangout works like Skype, so you could use it for guest presenters who may not be able to come to you. You might even use it discuss with colleagues in the next room or connect up with other classrooms to have virtual book clubs. Imagine how fun it'd be to have virtual pen pals in another classroom and actually SEE them receive your letters. Just use your imagination, and you're sure to come up with great ways to use this tool.

Google Classroom

Google Classroom pulls it all together. It is an integration tool, and I LOVE IT! I used it last year as a set up in my classroom. We have one-to-one laptops, and my kids just knew to log in and get started. As they began, it gave me time to work one-on-one with those who needed assistance. I also love that students can turn in their work and receive grades through Google Classroom.

Certainly, there are a lot of great posts out about Google Apps with more detail as well as tutorials offered through Google, but I hope this gives you a few literacy options to explore.

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Reading Wellness ~ How Is Your Reading Health?

It's summer, and I am excited to join my fellow Literacy Land friends as we journey into the book Reading Wellness by Jan Miller Burkins and Kim Yaris. I have seen that many of us have also been reading Who's Doing the Work? which is the book they wrote after this one. As a team, we will work to introduce you to this amazing book and help you and your students have "Reading Wellness"!

Greetings from Reading in Room 11

Hi!  My name is Jenn from Reading in Room 11 and I am thrilled to be joining The Adventures in Literacy Land.  Through this blog I hope to share some reading strategies for struggling readers as well as some quick and easy interventions.  I am about to start my 13th year of teaching as a K-5 Instructional Specialist in Reading, and 9 of those years were also spent as a Special Education teacher.

Teaching was not on my radar in any way, not even when I started college. As a kid, I always dreamed of being a veterinarian but when I realized I would have to give an animal a shot that was no longer a career path for me!   Through a random series of events I ended up as a 1:1 Aide for a student with special needs in a preschool and that was truly a life changing event.  From that moment on I knew that I had to be a Special Education teacher and so that is what I set out to do!  Along the way I also became an Instructional Specialist.

I have a quick teacher tip for you that is a fun way to keep students engaged in a whole/small group activity - Teacher vs. Students!  Groups ask to play this daily and it makes any activity much more fun. Spoiler Alert: the teacher never wins and that’s just how the kids like it!  Here are some ways that I use it with my groups:

1. Phonological Awareness Warm Up

When we start each group we practice phonological awareness.  Each student takes a turn blending or segmenting a word and if they get it right their team gets a point - if they get it wrong I get the point.  Since this is a task that can be tricky I am always generous with the points!

2. Letter Sounds/Sight Words/High Frequency Words/Phonetically Regular Words/any name you have for words on flashcards

Same concept as #1 - if they get the word right they get a point and if they don’t I get the point.  Depending on the student, I often offer a hint or give them another chance to read the word.  I’m sure you are beginning to see why I never win, but that’s ok because the smiles on their faces when they get a point and I don't is worth it!

3.Self-Monitoring

I’m sure that we have all encountered a reader that just blows through the text and butchers sentences without stopping if something doesn’t sound right or makes sense.  For this use of Teacher vs. Student each student in the reading group gets their own score card.  When I take turns listening to them read I give them a point if they stop when something doesn’t make sense and another point if they use a strategy to decode the word.  If I have to stop them to say they skipped a word/missed a word/read it incorrectly, I get the point.  The score is often a lot closer when we play this way, but it is a great way to get kids to slow down and think about what they are reading.

Game Over:

When the game is over the students are always happy with the win and sometimes that is enough!  Other times I let them get an extra sticker or let one of the students take the score card home.  Once in awhile I rip it up into hundreds of tiny pieces and throw it in the trash declaring that we will never play this silly game again because I never win!

Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about me and how you can help engage and motivate your students with this simple game.  Can you think of another way to use this game?  Let me know in the comments!

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Some Tech for your Tuesday

In January, I wrote about some of the apps I use in my kindergarten class.  A couple people asked for some more technology ideas, and I thought summer might be a great time for you to be able to try some out for yourself.

The first one isn't really literacy related, but my kiddos and families loved using SeeSaw this year!  I decided to give it a try in November after seeing it mentioned a few places.  It was great for accountability at center time as well as a great parent communication piece.  One of my families dubbed it "Facebook for 5 year olds".

My kids' favorite thing to post to their account was Reader's Theater or reading a book aloud.  I do not allow them to take my classroom library books home.  They get homework books (Reading A-Z) and we visit the school library weekly and our public library bookmobile bi-weekly so I keep classroom library books at school.  They love sharing their favorites with their families via SeeSaw now.  When presenting a Reader's Theater, I have a child in the back of the carpet area record the students and upload it to their accounts.  All items come to me for approval before being seen by families.  This is how I tie in the accountability at centers and assess work.  Families are also able to now download from SeeSaw, which is great for those who want a print copy of access longer than just the school year.  It was a very positive experience for us, and I can't wait to use it again next year!

WordFoto ($1.99) is something I used for back to school 2 years ago.  My kiddos took pictures of one another then had to "interview" each other to find out some of their favorite things.  You then type the words in the app and it covers your photo with the words.  These were hanging in our room for Open House, which we do about 4 weeks into the school year.  You can read a little more about our little project in a post I wrote at the time of the project.

One thing my students struggle with, especially at the beginning of the year, is mouse skills.  This impedes their ability to use certain websites, especially our district mandated iReady.  They love the games on Mini Mouse.  These games are fun for them, but help them practice moving the mouse to clip the objects that are part of the game.

I hope maybe this gives you an idea or two of something you can try in the coming school year.  I'd love to hear any ideas you have too!

6 Things To Do with Paint Chips

I can't help it.  There is something about those multi-hue swatches that is so appealing.  I used them when I taught a scrapbook class on colors.  AND I love the commercials from Sherman-Williams using animated paint chips.   (It's long, so just watch a few seconds.)

I can't help it.  There is something about those multi-hues that is so appealing.  I used them when I taught a scrapbook class on colors.  AND I love the commercials from Sherman-Williams using animated paint chips.   Here are a few ideas for using them in your classroom.

1. Vocabulary Gradients

I love this idea.  It's a play on "Said is dead!"  If you want your students to stop using "generic" adjectives like cold, hot, small, and big, give them other ideas.  True text gradients, show words on a scale...icy is colder than cold, but arctic is colder than icy.  However, using smaller or shortened paint chips, even kindergarten can use it to describe "small" as tiny, little, or itty-bitty.  Vocabulary gradients can be alternative adjectives.  Students can also be given a mentor text to hunt for words on the gradient.  In the book "Shiver Me Letters:  A Pirate ABC," students can work in pairs in a word hunt to find words for said and write them on the paint chips.  They can find roared, cried, yelled, questioned, and moaned.) Later, when they are writing you can encourage them to make their writing "colorful."

2. Word Family Fluency Flips

As a word family is introduced, this is fun way to practice changing the onset.  Write several words from a single family on a colored strip and secure them with a ring.  Providing the students with word family words on a ring can create a fluency activity for independent reading.  

3. Fill in the Blanks

I would suggest laminating these cards and allowing students to use a dry erase marker, but make sure they know they can't erase until someone checks their work.  You can even tell them to write it with dry erase first, then copy the strips to a piece of paper.  This could also be adapted for several math activities, including filling in the missing addend, counting by 2, 5, or 10's, multiplication facts, and patterns.

4. Compound Words

This is a "newfangled" (it's a word) paint chip is great for anything that needs to be constructed or deconstructed.  Again, laminate and use dry erase.  They set above is for compound words, but it could be used for prefixes, suffixes, contractions, and...who knows what else.  Again, this can be used for math with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts (to name a few).

5. Summary Bookmarks

This activity combines three of my favorite things:  The Magic Tree House, SWBSA, and paint chips. Providing students with a bookmark for their summary is the perfect way to create a reading response activity.  If you'd like a full description of the summary strategy Somebody, Wanted, But, So, And, CLICK HERE. These can also be laminated for extended use.

6. Classroom Fun

Finally, this is just a fun one.  I loved making these ornaments at our Winter Party.  

Want more?

Check out my Pinterest Board for Paint Chips.

Be Fair

Don't clean out any paint supply section.  Get what you need here and there...and laminate when you can. For those of you who don't have access to paint chips, I made a sample pack of things to do.  If you'd like the Paint Chip Samples, click the link.

SO this is my mini-obsession.  Do you use these differently? Although I posted this originally on my blog, Cathy Collier's The W.I.S.E. Owl, I thought it was definitely worth the re-post.  I hope you agree.

Six Summer Reading Tips

By the end of the school year Kindergarteners have started to figure out how to read for themselves. They are voracious learners that are thinking of themselves as readers. How can you keep them reading when they go from this reading environment...

to this summer environment...

Children who read during the summer gain reading skills. Create a summer full of reading with these 

six summer reading tips. 

Go on Book Trips

Visit your local library or book store often during the summer. Make sure that young readers have their own library card and consider getting them a special book bag. Investigate summer reading programs at your local library and book stores. Sign up for a summer reading program. 
Scholastic Summer Reading Program
Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program
Half Price Books Summer Reading Program

Be a Reader

If kids see adults reading they will understand the importance of reading. My  8th grade son and I still love to read side by side, especially during the summer. This summer I have been reading in these fun pajama pants.

Schedule Time to Read

Swimming, camps, sports events, vacations and many other activities are fun things to do during the summer. It is important to help young readers fit reading into their busy summer schedule.  

Environment Full of Books

Make sure that early readers have a variety of reading materials on hand. They need their own copies of stories that they love along with a combination of informational text and storybooks or early chapter books. Subscribe to a children's magazine to give little readers something to look forward 
to reading every month. 

Read Together

Summer is a great time to read a chapter book to your little reader or practice your storytelling skills. Improvise with different character voices to 
make stories come alive. 

Be a Rainy Day Reader

The best thing to do on a rainy day is to read a book. Make a list of rainy day books so that you are ready when the clouds roll in. 
Happy Summer Reading!

                        

Bookopolis: An Online Reading Community

I love stumbling onto random websites that turn out to be super cool!  Does that ever happen to you?

Today, I came across a fun online reading community called Bookopolis, where kid readers (mainly ages 7-12 years) can explore new books, create a bookshelf, share book reviews with friends, and earn points for rating, reviewing, and book reporting.  The mission of Bookopolis is to ignite a love for reading and to connect kids with other young readers about books and reading.  Teachers and librarians can use this website (for free) to build a community of life-long readers in the classroom.  Students can connect with friends to share book reviews and also swap book recommendations.

Bookopolis is a free website (which is the best kind of website!) where educators can sign up, create classes and add students by giving them a username and password.  Educators and students can log onto Bookopolis from a computer or a tablet.  Once classes are created and students added, educators can monitor and view their students' Bookopolis reading activity (the reading activity information is below).  Plus, if a student had an account the previous year, the website will prompt you on how to merge their accounts so students can always have access to the books that have been read.

Let's dive into this website together to see what it has to offer.  I created some fake student accounts onto my educator profile to walk you through all that this website has for your students.

1.  Student Profile Page
Each student has a profile where they can do a multiple of things.  Students can create a "world name" (which is what their home page will be called), add their gender, birthday, genre preferences, and choose from a large variety of pictures for their avatar character.


2.  "My World" Page

Each student has a homepage which is called "My World" (or whatever name they change it to on their profile page).  "My World" is where students can see their reading activity progress.  It will show their total minutes read (if recorded...definitely an optional feature), total number of friends that they can share books ideas with, book ratings, number of books on his/her bookshelf, number of book reviews and book reports written, and their total points earned (students earn points for everything they do in Bookopolis).  Students will also have access to the books that have been recommended by friends.

3.  "My Books" Page
"My Books" is where students can search (by using an online search engine) for books to add to their bookshelf.  Once a student searches for a book, a summary of the book will pop-up, along with the genre, grade level, interest grade level, Lexile level, guided reading level, and a large number of  student reviews of the book.  Students can add the book to their account bookshelf and categorize it by "Reading It Now", "I Read It", or "I Want To Read It".  If the book is read, students can include the finish date, the number of times read, a 5-star rating, and a written review.

Students can also write a Book Buzz (which is a new feature that was added last fall) and a Book Report.  A Book Buzz is where students share a short book summary, a description of their favorite part, the reason why they read it, and why other kids HAVE to read it.  Book Buzz is basically a way to SELL the book to others. A Book Report is more in depth about the story elements of the text.  Students can also go into the class roster and recommend books to certain friends and give a short reason why they think their friend will like the book.  The recommendation message is then directly sent to the friend's account.

4.  "My Badges" Page
Students can earn points for everything they do in Bookopolis.  Then, those points will turn into badges.  Students can get 5 points for adding a book, 5 points for rating a book, 10 points for reviewing a book, 20 points for writing a book report, 10 points for inviting a friend to join Bookopolis, and 5 points for sharing a book suggestion with a friend.  Once a students reaches a certain point level, a treasure of badges can be unlocked and put on the student's Bookopolis page.  Students can collect as many badges as they can by adding, rating and reviewing books, doing book reports, and inviting and sharing book ideas with friends.

5.  "My Friends" Page
"My Friends" page is a way for students to view their friend's Bookopolis activity ("friends" basically means everyone in their class).  Students can view their friend's Book Buzzes, Book Reviews, Bookshelf, and Awards/Badges.

6.  "Recommended to Me" Page 
This page will show the reader the books that have been recommended to them by other classmates (or friends).  Students can click on the book that have been recommended and read a book summary and multiple reviews.  Students will have a chance to add the book to their bookshelf and categorize the book by "Reading It Now", "I Read It", or "I Want To Read It".

There is so much more to explore and I recommend you go check it out.  Unfortunately, I just came across this website and have not been able to use in my classroom with students yet.  But-I'd LOVE to hear what you think or if you have used it before.  Do you think this would be worth using in your classroom?

Here is a quick, 3-minute video on the introduction of Bookopolis.