Content-Area Word Walls

Found these gems in some 5th grade classrooms. Look what these teachers are giving ALL students!
 

Writing teacher, Linda Moore, includes verbal (provided by her) and pictorial
(provided by the students) descriptions of each of the five steps in the writing process.



Math teacher, Sarah Ashton, displays examples of essential math components.

A Formal Debate

This week's topic was Child Interpreters. Of course, we read from Jorge about his experience being a child interpreter. Then we split into two groups and played "Fact & Opinion." Both groups read an article about the topic--one stating why it's so important and the other discussing a law about barring children from interpreting for their parents (specifically in medical situations). Then we had a word war. (Boy, were the kids excited about war!) Each student read one fact from their article and then stated their opinion about that fact. It was quite the heated debate!

My Name is Jorge

Jane Medina is an author--one of my favorite bilingual authors! One of her books is written from the perspective of an elementary Mexican newcomer named Jorge. Of all the characters in all the books in all the world, Jorge is my all-time favorite.

We begin each week with some Jorge Time. I always start with "My Name is Jorge," as names are a great place to get to know kids. During that same week, Imelda and I read "T-Shirt" (they both deal with mispronouncing names). We do lots of different things involving these poems, but this year, we also decided to have kids do some recording. Here is "T-Shirt" in English and Spanish.

JorgeName_English.wav
JorgeName_Spanish.wav

(Try hitting "play" first before downloading. If that doesn't work, you can download them for free; you just have to sign up. I've previously used a website that had the player right in my blog post, but I can't seem to find it right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated!)

Board Meeting

To culminate our work on our tattoos, we held a Board Meeting, complete with clip-on ties and all! :) Only this Board Meeting, you're only allowed to talk through writing on a big piece of paper taped to the board. It always starts with an essential question.

Students then answered the question, asked more questions,
and responded to each others' new questions.

The 5th graders didn't feel like their conversation was finished by the time
class was over, so...they came back during their lunch break, put the ties back
on, and spent the next 20 minutes in absolute silence finishing their conversations!

The pictures below range from 3rd to 5th grade, as I'm sure you'll note the difference in maturity.

"Nothing." "Do you think listening is important?" "It's hard." 
"Why is it hard?" "I am stuck because I don't listen." 

One student noted his difficulty in auditory processing. I'm so glad to know this about
him and am looking forward to finding ways to help him listen better and easier. 

"I do not listen to dreckshon" "Why not?" 
"Because it takes too long."

Hey, at least he's honest!

"And when you take the Istep you won't know what to do if you don't listen."
Wow. An Istep reference?? By a 4th grader??

"if you listen well you could earn yourself a scholarship"

This student only knew the word "beca" but really wanted to
use its English counterpart to answer this question.

Loved this one; you go, girl!

JUST FOR FUN

Of course, silly bands came up as a point of
distraction from listening. Those darn bands!

Ha ha ha! So this was one student's use of an idiom--"clean up your ears"
but another student's total misunderstanding of it. Buddy, we don't literally mean
that your ears are dirty when we say, "Ya need to clean your ears out??" ;)

Hank's Tattoos

Welcome to Hank's Tattoo Shop!

I'm Miss Star, one of the artists here.

And this is Senorita Estrella, our other artist.

Here's our design process:

Step 1: Take notes on another person's values.

Step 2: Design a tattoo uniquely for that person.

Step 3: Write a paragraph describing how this tattoo "represents" (key word!)
your partner and present it to them in front of the class.

Special notes from summer school

I realize summer school has long past (and in fact, the regular school year is about to begin!), but I was just getting rid of the last of my goodbye letters and had to keep some very special quotes. I think they'll help me start out my year remembering from the get-go that I'm not just here to impact minds, but I'm also here to impact hearts. Enjoy!

"The teachers in this school are cool except for you, you are Awesome." -Ismael

"You help me with reading and writing. And especilly not being shy in front of the classroom. I improved in summer school because I can do stuff by myself. I though that I can do anything When I got here in your classroom." -Wendy

"People in the school is really nice. mostly Mrs. Steele. You helped me improve my reading levil...I started to a K and ended with O :). For myself I improved talking a little more." -Jemina

"The teacher I like is Mrs. Steele she is funny cool and alsome I so like her. We Like to write to echother and We do reading, and word work in the libray I like her she is nice."  -Madisyn

"I think Daniel was funny when he was the alien in the readers theater play called The Alien, cause it sound funny and it gave me a cool picture in my head." -Jewel

Letters in Summer School

The kids and I have been writing to each other this summer school (highly recommended, by the way). I've been reading them one poem a day (from My Name is Jorge by Jane Medina) and having them quick-write a response. Then we have a written conversation about what they wrote. The responses below are from the poem "Invisible," which talks about how Jorge likes to be unseen by those around him because at least then he doesn't get things wrong, etc. These. Are. Incredible.

Goodbye, Reading Buddies!

What a great relationship we had between Lakeview's 8th grade Reading Buddies this year and our 4th grade ELLs! Here are two final letters from our 8th graders to our 4th graders.

A little gem I found while digging...

We received a crisis e-mail last year about a potential mega drop in funding for ESL programs across the state of Indiana. Our ESL director, Wendy Long, invited us to write letters to the senator, telling him why this was a terrible idea. Well, senators tend to ignore teachers. But...who can resist kids?! We all wrote letters to Senator Kenley (below is one gem of an example), and he actually did not sign that awful bill. We still have ESL; it worked! (At least, we'd like to think that we're that influential.) Side note: He responded to all our letters, and we all wrote him thank you notes!

Spanglish

We're writing bilingual books with our 3rd and 4th graders. We've talked about several different ways to write bilingually and even gave a couple examples of mixed language books, where some sentences contain Spanish and English--Spanglish!

One 3rd grader loved the idea so much that he wrote this poem on his own in our afterschool club (our topic is Culture and Cooking, so his poem is about food, namely, chocolate). It's attached. I asked him to read it out loud for me. Just so you know, he says chocolate the Spanish way for this poem, not the English way. Enjoy! :)

The Friendly Letter Song

Karyn Brumbaugh rewrote the Miley Cyrus song: "Party in the USA." (Click the link for the karaoke version of the song; that's what we sang to!) We actually made a music video to it, as a culminating event for writing friendly letters. I'm still working on getting permission to put the video up, so here's the audio version. Enjoy!


"The Friendly Letter Song"

I thought to myself just yesterday
I really miss my best pal
See, she lives far away in another town
And her name is Sal
I wanna do something totally awesome
Too bad I just can't mail an opossum
I know that sounds crazy
I'm not trying to be lazy
All of a sudden I get a great idea
And I remember Miss Rudolph
Teaching all of us in the ESL
A letter writing song
A letter writing song
A letter writing song

So we throw our heading up
And write their name
Juan, Lili, or Jose
And then we put our intro in
And that's where we say hey
Then we have the body
Where we write questions
And hope answers come our way
Then closing, like saying bye
And then we sign our names
Yeah, and then we sign our names!

Poem for Two Voices

Went to the Intesol Conference in Indy this weekend. Was phenomenal! Best one I've been to yet! One great activity that we did was in Katie Brooks and Maggie Robillard's presentation--we wrote a poem for two voices. While I'm an avid poem writer, I've not yet tried this type. I worked with two inspirational writers/teachers; here's what we came up with:

Social Studies Class

by Denise Anderson, Ana Arroyo (both IPS School 15), and Sarah Steele

I sit every day                                    I stand every day

listening                                                talking

                                                                 About American ideals

About America's ideas

                                                                 The Founding Fathers

They found padres?

I'm lost                                                  My students are lost

Here we go again                               Let's try again

I have a question                              Shh!

                                                                 We have to get through this lesson

But, but who are the padres?      THE   F OU N D ING  FAA THERS

But                                                          You're interrupting

Stop!                                                       Stop!

2nd Grade Poetry Slam!

Our 2nd graders wrote poems using the -ing form about things they know that are particularly busy, such as schools, families, houses, parks, etc! Here are some pictures of the event.

We all had such a great time, reading our poems, listening to others, and sharing kind comments!

Cognates Cupboard

Cognates rock! The kids are allowed to think of any words that look the same in both Spanish and English. We wish to value their language and help them see that because they know Spanish, they already know some English! Super fun!

Practicing Similes

So...we went on a walk in search of nouns and verbs. One of the favorite nouns we found outside was pumpkins. I wanted the students to write a poem using similes, so first we needed to practice writing some similes. This is one that we got:

BAHAHAHAHA!!!

While we are slightly embarrassed for Mom (although we can't say we didn't laugh hysterically!), hey, at least they understand the simile! :-P

Cultural Lenses

We made our own Cultural Lenses to start off the school year. On the left lense, you write general things about yourself--things that could describe a great many people. On the right lense, you get very specific--what makes you you. There were some really good ones, and we learned things about others that we never knew before! Things that made us the same as them and things that set us apart...

Here's mine.

It's things like this that keep us going...

So there have been a lot of changes...

 2009-2010 CHANGES

by Sarah S. Steele

It’s finally the day before the big day of the year

The kids are almost back now, and I think that I can hear

The quiet sounds of pencils writing, brains in thinking mode

And that’s when I remember all the changes that are coming

That make me want to start running

That will make my head explode!

Our class numbers are growing, although not our teachers’ aides

Our Sitton isn’t spelling “wonderful” like we had prayed

We want to learn to use our white boards with our Mimios

But the remotes for our projectors cannot reach outside our doorposts

                  Down the ever-winding hallways

                  To the place where they are stowed!

The math, of course, is different—grouping students into clusters

The 80% mastery has teachers in a fluster

The lunch prep has been shortened to tutor kids one-on-one

But with our time to prepare lessons given now to more assessing

                  Feeling more the pressure pressing

                  We are just about undone!

I feel called to mention Reader’s Workshop (not to start a riot)

The setup, training, all that testing—it’s harder than a diet

The students take their AR tests but don’t forget the other—

The F ‘n P and oh my, me! He’s not achieving Level G

It’s time, I think we all agree,

He’s failing; call his mother!

We have less time and money for our academic clubs

But we are pulled out so often that that money’s spent on subs

It’s all because we have no half-days for our teacher progress

Instead our days are loaded with data to be un-coded

                  People saying we’re outmoded

                  *Ahem* I believe I do digress.

Oh, the luxuries of yesteryear, doing what we want and when

But with the state dictating plans, we can’t even use red pens

And don’t even get me started on what I will do for grades

For those ELLs who leave my room and don’t come back ‘til half past noon

                  From yesterday ‘til we leave in June

                  And they just say, “Use S or U”

I could cry for goodness sake!

But my most consuming issue doesn’t deal with grades or rules

No, not even with the policies they hand us for our school

The problem is much deeper than the trouble in my classroom

The thing I’m needing most of all is in that place right down the hall

                  A place where I need not recall

                  These problems that do not enthrall

                  But make me want to hide or crawl

                  Or crouch down and feel very small

                  Or stand up straight and start a brawl

                  Because of the things I appall

                  But none of this matters at all

                  Because                 

                  *pause*

I need to use the bathroom!

"Chalk Talk"

So...I went to an ESL Workshop this summer. Learned a cool technique called "Chalk Talk" (although the term is a bit outdated; I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions??). The basic premise is that students answer a question written on the board, in our case, or a biiiig piece of paper, which we'll use for future "talking." Students answer the question, respond to each other, ask each other questions, and...bang! You have a very interactive and engaged group of students! They're not allowed to talk, only write. They can't be interrupted, because...well, they're writing. They aren't put on the spot, because they have time to think about what they want to write/how they want to write it.

Here are some pics from our 5th grade trial run. (We used an easy question for this first one to get used to the format. We'll use this many more times this year...)

The starting question.

Students writing, reading, responding, questioning, thinking...

The end result!

 

The girls started this discussion--shopping! 

 

Of course, we had a conversation about soccer!

We even talked about sleep! Really?? :)

Hope you enjoyed the "Chalk Talk" as much as we did! And if you have any new name suggestions, let me know!