Great Student Centered Activities (Grades 4 - 5)

Greetings,

I hope you had a great week. I know a lot of the fourth and fifth grade teachers have been waiting for this blog article. In this blog article, I will be sharing with you the free student centered activities for grades 4 - 5.
The Student Center Activities for Grades 4 - 5 include three books and one DVD: The DVD is broken up into 6 parts. Here are the three books:

1. Advance Phonics and Fluency Student Centered Activities
2. Vocabulary and Comprehension Student Centered Activities
3. Teacher Resource Guide

1. Teacher Resource Guide

Part 1: Five Components of Reading Instruction, Frequently asked Questions, Implementing and Managing Student Centers in the Classroom, Interpretation of Activity Plans, Implementation of Activity Plans

Part 2: Crosswalk, 2-3 Glossary of Reading Terms

Book 1: Advanced Phonics and Fluency (8 Page PDF)

A. Advanced Phonics

Part 1: Variant Correspondences (62 Page PDF)

Part 2: Syllable Patterns (48 Page PDF)

Part 3: Morpheme Structures (88 Page PDF)

B. Fluency

Part 1: Word Parts & Words (70 Page PDF)

Part 2: Phrases, Chunked and Connected Text (44 Page PDF)

Book 2: Vocabulary and Comprehension (8 Page PDF)

A. Vocabulary

Part 1: Word Knowledge (60 Page PDF)

Part 2: Morphemic Elements (60 Page PDF)

Part 3: Word Meaning & Analysis (80 Page PDF)

Part 4: Words in Context (48 Page PDF)

B. Comprehension

Part 1: Narrative Text Structure (64 Page PDF)

Part 2: Expository Text Structure (60 Page PDF)

Part 3: Text Analysis (40 Page PDF)

Part 4: Monitoring for Understanding (66 Page PDF)

To download all the resources and to view the DVD parts for FREE, click here.

Ok, I hope you enjoyed all the valuable resources on all the Student Centered Activities you can make and use for interventions with your students.  Remember all these activities have been researched through the Florida Center for Reading Research. 

For more information or to view their Mission Statement, simply click on the blue link above this sentence.  I will see you next week with another exciting topic.  Take care.

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What is BrainPOP?

Happy New Year!

Today I am sharing with you a wonderful web site that will enhance learning for your students.  BrainPOP is an animated, curriculum-based program that enhances student learning by engaging the student through video tutorials.  BrainPOP uses animated characters, robots, diagrams and more to motivate and engage the learner.  BrainPOP also offers free lesson plans, activities and sample video tutorials to try out. 

Currently BrainPOP has a teacher community of more than 125,000 people.  They have even completed a research study on the effect of BrainPOP on students.  To download this PDF click on the picture below:

They have hundreds and hundreds of videos to view. To see how many videos they have just alone in Science, simply click on the picture below.  If you see a pink oval shape that says FREE, then you can view the video without a subscription. To see all the videos yourself, click on the picture below and it will take you to their site.

They have over 50 free videos you can view on their entire web site. If you want to see their Science Units, simply click on the picture below.

If you have never tried out brain pop, you can vist them by clicking on the blue link: http://www.brainpop.com/  BrainPOP is for grades 4 - 8.  It is also a subscription based web site.  If you want to get it for your home use, it will be a $99 investment per year.  Well worth the investment if you use the videos to enhance learning.

Once you arrive at the site simply click on the academic area you are interested in. You can view free videos in Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Art & Music, Health and Engineering and Technology.  Once you click on the Subject area, you can narrow down your search by clicking in the content area, or you can click on the link on the left side that says See All ______ Movies.  Once all the videos pull up, look for the words free next to the small pictures and clickon it.  Once you click on it, the video will begin to load and follow the instructions on the screen.

After you click on the "Click Here To Play The Movie" you can see the video.  Most videos are anywhere from 3 minutes to 5 minutes long.  After the video you can give your students an assessment or a quiz by clicking on the following picture:

After you click on the Quiz picture, you will see the following options to choose from:

According to BrainPOP, the video tutorials are Ideal for both group and one-on-one settings, BrainPOP is used in numerous ways, from introducing a new lesson or topic to illustrating complex subject matter to reviewing before a test. Content is aligned to academic standards and easily searchable with online Standards Tool. Uniquely suited for 21st-century learning, all products are fully compatible with interactive whiteboards, learner response systems, projectors, Macs, and PCs. No downloading, installation, or special hardware is required.

BrainPOP also has BrainPOP Jr. for grades K - 3.  I will be blogging about BrainPOP Jr. next week.  Hope you have a great week.  Take care.

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Valuable Writing and Brain Based Resources!

Hello,

Today I will be sharing valuable writing and brain based research resources. My first web site has numerous writing resources you can use with your elementary writing class. The web site is located at: http://tinyurl.com/Writing201 I attended three full days of training in which most of the ideas came from Colleagues/Teachers who attended the New Jersey Writing Project and shared their wonderful ideas with us. Here is a list of the recommended books that were given to us at the NJ Writing Workshop.





The next web site has many brain based research resources that Eric Jensen shared with us at a Workshop in San Diego, California. Eric Jensen is a major leader in the brain based research area and speaks at numerous engagements every year. Also there are resources and ideas from another work shop I recently attended in Dallas, Texas. Most of the ideas can be used as topics for discussion with teachers to facilitate collaborative discussions in Professional Development settings. The web site is located at: http://tinyurl.com/ErikJensen Hope you enjoy these two resources. Here are a few of the resources that were mentioned in his workshop and I have already added these resources to my library.

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