Vocabulary Instruction | Flocabulary

**Just sharing, not getting paid for it, per usual.  Opinions are my own.

Oh vocabulary.  I do love you.  I often think about how I should really work on expanding my own vocabulary.  Or maybe just using more of the words I know instead of the same old, same old.  I should get one of those word of the day calendars or apps or something.

Our district tells us we are to spend 5-10 minutes on spelling/vocabulary a day.  That's...not a lot.  We don't have any set vocabulary instruction, so it's basically up to us.  I love that.  So I set out to see what I can do that is low maintenance, but highly effective for our time in class.  

So this year I started with Flocabulary.  I wasn't quite sold on it because it's $99/year, but I signed up for the free subscription and then I couldn't NOT pay the $$ because I loved it too much.  Flocabulary vocabulary words are based on words that are most seen on student testing.  I was a little skeptical on how often these words actually show up but my students can't stop pointing them out to me, so now I know they see them all the time.

Then I introduced it to my students and OHMYGOSH.  We have to watch our video every day.  They love it.  They do have a few favorites, but they have yet to completely dislike or be unengaged during a unit video.  They sing and do their actions and memorize the lines.  They also have their homework done every time.

It always surprises me when I think students know what a word means, but they still don't use it correctly.  They can read a word and tell me the meaning, but they try to use the word in their own writing or speaking and it doesn't make sense.  So although there aren't a ton of words that the kids have never heard of, they still don't grasp the meanings well enough to use them properly all the time.    I think that's why I'm still drawn to the words that Flocabulary has chosen.  Plus, there are 10 words each unit, so it isn't overkill and I don't feel like I'm pushing words into their brain just to have them spit them back out at me.  

I can't just throw a video on the board and tell the kids to do some worksheets (well I CAN, but that's not really great teaching) so here's how I set up my Flocabulary lessons for the Word Up Project.  

I do put the "exercises" together into a unit packet for each unit.  We use it almost every day in class for lyrics and meanings, and the exercises are used as homework in my classroom.  They aren't hugely time consuming and the kids find them pretty painless.

During class, we watch the video every day.  At the beginning of the unit we make up hand signals or motions to help us remember the meaning.  The kids do our signals when they get to the word in the video.  Lots of the kids also do the signal any time they hear the word during the day, which really keeps me on my toes.

Flocabulary does offer two timeline approaches to unit instruction.  There are only about 15 units included for each level, so I don't do "weekly" vocabulary.  Instead I just teach by unit and when we are ready to quiz, we do.  It's around a week and a half per unit in my classroom.  

I teach fourth grade, so I use Level Orange.  My units look something like this:

*parenthesis "section" is corresponding to the printable exercises for each unit

Day 1: 

Hand out packet.  Introduce Words.  Watch the video.  Possibly answer the comprehension questions for the video as a class.  Done.

Day 2:

Highlight meanings in the song lyrics (section B), looking for synonyms/antonyms/text clues for the meanings.  Watch the video. 

Day 3:

Make hand symbols/actions for the first 5 words (section C).  Students make up the hand signals, I do not- I have no idea what they will come up with.  Watch video.

Homework- Unit _section D/E

Day 4: 

Make hand symbols/actions for last 5 words (Section C).  Check homework (no talking allowed, they show me the answers with our motions).  Watch video.

Homework- Unit_section F/G

Day 5: 

Review hand motions and meanings.  Check homework (again, motions only).  Watch video.

Homework- Unit_section H

Day 6: 

Review.  Check homework.  Watch video.

Homework- Unit_Bonus crossword

Day 7: 

Collect packet (all checked, yay!).  Watch video.  Take quiz.

Now my students walk up to me every time they see a vocabulary word in their reading to show me the word.  It's... well, it's a lot.  Almost to the level of distraction but it's so great that they are noticing them, and pointing them out, and doing the actions, and using them, that I just can't stop them!  Instead, once I said "We should keep track of each time we see each word!" and suddenly the "students" thought of the idea of putting all the words up and keeping track.  So now we have... this.

I can't stop laughing at "Happy Word Finding!"- obviously they are my students!  It's bright (it's all I had at the time).  But they tally themselves and we add our new words after each unit.  Now we can see just how often we are seeing these words.

Then we have special guests in our classroom teaching (guidance counselor, parent art docents, etc) and my students are interrupting them to tell them they saw a vocabulary word!  I can't help but smile and be embarrassed at the same time...then teach a lesson on how to keep track of those words without yelling it out and scaring our presenters.

Most criticism I've read about Flocabulary is criticism of the project as a stand alone way of instruction.  But since I've added motions, class discussion, plus our own keeping track of the words we are seeing and using, I feel like our class goes well beyond just watching the video and hoping the kids get it.  We take it to using the words in our daily lives, which is the point.

I would recommend viewing each video before you show it, particularly with older students, since it is "rap" there are some lyrics that you may not feel comfortable showing in your classroom depending on where you are teaching.  I haven't run into any problems myself, but it's always good to be prepared.

I like throwing in a bonus video for some of our other class units as well, since Flocabulary is more than just vocabulary raps, so when we did out unit on the solar system, we watched this video about the moon phases.  Most videos have activity pages that go with them as well.

If you want to check it out a bit more, here's some information (that isn't from the Flocabulary website!):

Review from Graphite|Teachers

Case Study: How to Reinvent a Failing Start Up (Flocabulary)

            

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All About Ivan the Shopping Mall Gorilla

I know I've blogged about Ivan before, but I just can't get enough of him.  I love him so much.

Bringing the story of Ivan into the classroom is so much fun because kids love animals and his story is so interesting and endearing.  It's hard to find stories with real emotion that both the boys and the girls will buy in to, but this story manages to do it.


We are almost finished reading The One and Only Ivan right now in class.  My students are hooked.  What I love about this story is that it is just a little tricky for fourth graders to comprehend, even when read aloud, because there is a lot of inferring.  It's perfect because that happens to be what we are working on in reading right now.  It's also quick and easy to find great mentor sentences to lift and use during writing time- especially for incorporating figurative language.  The writing is beautiful.

As I was browsing the shelves at the bookstore the other day, I found this new treasure... Ivan the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla.  I picked it up immediately and added it to my stash.

I love the contrast between the the true story of Ivan the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla and the One and Only Ivan.  In writing, we've been working on telling narrative stories and turning our true stories into fictional stories- this was PERFECT.  The author (Katherine Applegate wrote both books- bonus!!) took the true story and made it a "story we wish existed" by adding fictional characters to tell her story.  It is exactly what we are working on!  It honestly could not have been a more perfect fit or perfect timing.

PLUS, now that I'm in Seattle, the location of the "Big Top Mall" ("B&I Mall" in real life) is located in Tacoma, WA so my students were extra interested because it took place so close to us.  

The Urban Gorilla was a movie made about Ivan that tells his story.  The kids love seeing "the real Ivan" because they already feel like they know him.  If you're interested in watching the entire video, I included the link below where you can watch it online- or show parts of it to your class.

Since I read this book closer to the beginning of the year this year, I think I will have my class adopt a gorilla through WWF, since we will have the rest of the year to enjoy a pet gorilla.  Plus I can count this as a class pet and maybe be off the hook for the year.

You can learn even more about Ivan (and gorillas) by visiting these websites...

The One and Only Ivan

Meet Ivan: the Gorilla Who Lived in a Shopping Mall {NPR Article}

The Urban Gorilla {Entire Video- 53 minutes}

Zoo Atlanta- timeline of Ivan's life there

WWF Gorilla Fact Pages

WWF Gorilla Adoption

            

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Math Data Collection {eek}

Last year, my school dove straight into Common Core head first.  Like...head first.  We just went ahead and did it all.  I choose to really focus on Math.  Actually, I tried to tackle it all but let's face it, that was a ridiculous goal.

I had a few main CCSS goals in mind:
1. Keep my standards accurately (haha) posted in the classroom and refer to them.
2. Show student growth
3. Help students see their growth
4. Have students be responsible for their data

I did great at number 1.

{freebie alert- click here!!!}

Number 2 is a goal every year, so it wasn't completely out of the ordinary.

Number 3 and 4 were my trickier ones.  I wanted students to see where they started and how much they learned.  I started having students rate themselves with how they felt they were doing.  I started using Marzano's Levels of Understanding. If a student continues to get 100% but doesn't feel confident, I still have work to do...same if they are super confident and not showing progress.  More often than not, their rating matches their classroom performance, which was a fantastic sign.

Some teachers thought I was a bit batty for thinking my kiddos could graph their own data accurately.  We are in fourth grade, we were certainly able to do it with proper training.  I'm the first to admit, some students needed a lot more checking in from me than others, but by the end of the year we were doing pretty well.  But I'm a jump-in-with-both-feet kind of girl, so I tried to figure out the easiest way to incorporate our data collection into our math time.

I had one main goal: keep it simple and quick.  I decided to set up data folders for each student.  It would fit in their desk, easy to get out or turn in, and with a simple procedure that stayed the same each time I said "Get out your data folders!".

It took a little set up on my part at the beginning of the year.  I grabbed a bunch of folders with binding and made my copies (back to back, let's save paper!).  I did all my data grids on back to back pages, and then all my graphing pages back to back.

I wanted my data pages and graphing pages to be seperate and easy to flip to, so in order to do that, I trimmed and three-hole punched construction paper and to put in between.  It was perfect because it stuck out just enough to be a page separator.  (Don't look too carefully at this picture, it's actually my reading data collection folders, but it was the same organizational concept..)

After we took our pre-assessment (these varied throughout the year, but I do love these from YoungTeacherLove), I usually tried to grade them as students turned them in and hand them out right away.  This sometimes worked, and when it did I felt like SuperTeacher.  If I couldn't get them graded at that very moment, I handed them out the next day and we filled out our data.  

I give the cue ("GET OUT YOUR MATH DATA FOLDERS!!!")  and students would write the start date (day we took the pre-assessement) and write their score.  I would have them rate their personal level of understanding right then.  

Next, they would flip to their graphing section and graph their pre-assessment score.   I had them pick two colors at the beginning of the year and make a key to show me which color was their pre-assessment score and which was their post-assessment.

I had them color-code their pre and post assessments because we graphed our post assessment score on the same graph.  This way, students could see how much better they did the second time around.  Since I didn't take any pictures of what my student math data folders looked like last year (blogger fail), I made a nice-and-neat example myself...blue being the "pre-assessment" and green being the "post-assessment".  **Note: It's important to keep both pre and post assessments the same in order to get an accurate growth graph.  

Although having students do this data collection and graphing themselves was a perk in and of itself, my favorite part of having students do this themselves was that at conferences I just had students turn in their folders and I was set with all the information!  It was fantastic!

I only have this done for 4th grade... but if you'd be interested in having it done for your grade, let me know!  You can pop over to TpT and check it out if you're a 4th grade teacher.

Even if you aren't a 4th grade teacher, TpT is having one heck of a sale on August 4-5 (that's tomorrow, guys!), so get over there and fill your cart with some good stuff to purchase next week!  Everything in my store will be 20% off, plus the TpT discount.

            

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National Geographic Leveled Reading (no strings attached!)

I just love teaching science.  Never did I ever think I would hear those words come out of my mouth, but science and math are the highlight of my days.

Awhile ago I created {this post about Newsela}, which is great for leveling news text for students.  There's a lot of features, including reading levels for the latest articles, so you should check it out if you haven't already.  I'm trying to find good sources for current events since this past year the school cancelled our Time for Kids subscription (is it bad that I'm also disappointed that I don't get the free adult subscription now, too??).  All ideas for something new are welcome!!!

During my search I came across this...National Geographic for Kids.  I get the NG for Kids magazine for our classroom, but not the individual monthly Explorer student magazine.  But no worries, because...

THEY POST ALL THE BACK ISSUES.

What, what!?!  Not only that, but as my title hints at, the don't have any pesky strings hanging around.  I don't need a subscription or a password to access all this good stuff.  They don't even want me to sign up and create an account with a password I will never remember!  One of the best parts of this discovery was that they post every issue in a "projectable edition" for the Pathfinder Edition AND the Pioneer Edition, so I can grab both copies of the same article at two different reading levels.

 I can project them in all their full colored glory and go through together....or print them for each student to have or to work on in small groups.  Yesssss.

The great part is that both editions look exactly the same (picture-wise) and it's only the text that is leveled.  I love that because I can hand it out and it looks the same to everyone!  Here's a quick glance at the difference between the Pathfinder (4-5th Grades) and Pioneer (2-3rd Grades) Editions:

And for those of you with little(r) ones, they also post the "Young Explorers" (K-1st grade) editions as well (you have to use a different link though- I have it below).  

Now I want to adopt a baby penguin.  

I feel like I hit the non-fiction/leveled reading science jackpot!  

You can click on the pictures above for links, or click below to check it out!

{National Geographic For Kids Explorer Magazine}

{National Geographic for Kids Young Explorer Magazine} 

            

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In the News (Snow Day Edition)

Hi again!  Here's another edition of "In the News" because it's a snow day and I'm catching up on a bunch of articles that have been sent my way.  I feel like I could post an "In the News" post every week...but is that overkill?  I just posted one...last week, right?  As usual, these are articles I found educationally informative, interesting, or just plain amusing.

So first, this.  

Happy Snow Day! 

(sorry to those of you who had to go in to work today.  If if makes you feel better, I'm totally working from home...)

I'm so sad I didn't think of this first...

Now onto the latest news...

{The Things Teachers do that Can't be Evaluated}

Washington Post/Twitter #evaluatethat

Let's start with something heartwarming... All the things teachers do for students that can't possibly be evaluated or measured.  Good work, guys.

{Some States Rebrand Controversial Common Core Education Standards}

Washington Post

States are renaming the Common Core standards in hopes that it will calm the backlash from the public.  Kansas did!  We call them the College and Career Readiness Standards (or CCRS if you need another acronym).  Do we really think the people won't catch on to this? 

{Intuitive Number Games Improve Student Math Skills}

Science World Report

This latest study shows that students who used their "intuitive sense of numbers" gives them better math problem solving skills.  Brush up those estimating skills with your students!

{Coherent and Sequenced Curriculum Key to Implementing Common Core Standards}

EdSource

This article states that although Common Core is to be fully implemented at this time, many districts haven't completed a scope and sequence for their teachers or set out a complete plan to guide instruction in the classroom.  So does that mean that teachers are just making decisions based on what they think the standards mean?  Don't get me wrong, we are professionals and have been doing this job and we do have the skills to put this together...but doesn't this kind of defeat the point of having a common curriculum if not everyone has developed their system and explained the rules?  It's hard to play the game without knowing the rules.  Also, I have blogged about attacking these new standards and how to break them down into what is required by students in my blog post {Curriculum Planning is So...Fun?} from August.  It has been super helpful this year.

{What it Feels Like to be Autistic}

Video from CNN

I tried to embed this video and it won't work, so you'll have to follow the link!

{Pink, Princess-y, and Sexy Too Soon}
CNN

I just really believe this is big in our country today... I don't have children of my own, but it really bothers me when parents call their daughters princesses.  I have friends whose parents call them princess (we are thirty, for heavens sake), and girls do respond to this title differently than girls who are not taught that they are a princess.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all about pretend, and if you want to pretend to be a princess, then go for it.  Just remember that it is pretend.  I'll step off my soapbox now!  My favorite quote from this article is "Once you see it, you can't unsee it."  Parents (and teachers!) need to be aware of what their children are being exposed to and do our best to keep it filtered when we can.  

{Keep Boys, Girls in the Same Classroom}

CNN (again...)

I actually really liked reading this article after the previous article about redefining girly-ness.  The idea is thought provoking and I know there are many pros and cons to both educational settings.  Food for thought.

That's all for today. I'm busy working on our school's AdvancED accreditation.  We are in year four of a five year cycle and will be evaluated next school year.  It's so hard since our curriculum has changed- even testing is different- so evaluating the data and showing improvement is really tricky this cycle.  I'm one of the team leaders for Standard 3: Teaching and Assessing for Learning.  We are working through {this document} and self-assessing our school and where we think we sit right now.  Teachers are always hardest on ourselves.  So now my team is presenting our standard to the school with what we think we do really well, and what we think we really need to work on in the next year.  Back to work!

Happy Teaching!

...like a nail in the head

So I was breezing through my bloglovin' and education related emails and came across this post that made me think and laugh all at once.

While it's a bit of a plug for Sophia.org (which I don't mind, because I love the site), it did make me take a quick pause to think about it.

You can read the article entitled {I Need Common Core Like I Need a Nail in the Head} on Sophia's (it's not a person, by the way) School of Thought blog.  Then giggle, because yes... it is a bit like a nail in the head at times.

Here's the accompanying video that I appreciate in more than one way.  It made me laugh when applying it to education and everything going on right now.  I do feel this way sometimes.  Not just about the standards themselves- generally speaking, standards have been around for awhile- but about everything else that comes with the Common Core label.  As teachers, we're doing the best we can.  This is what I have, and this is what I'm working with.  Let's figure out how to make education the best we can and move forward.   I love my job.

It's not about the nail, guys.  Help a teacher out.

Snow day tomorrow!  Happy Teaching!

Place Value & Number Sense Again (Still?)

Oh place value and number sense.  I'm just calling it 4.NBT.2 from now on because I feel like we've spent so much time on it that I am going to officially call it and every other standard that I have by its Common Core number just so that I can feel important when I'm speaking in my teacher language to people.

We actually already covered this at the beginning of the year, but I have a few that are still struggling just a bit.  They can name the place value just fine, but they are still mixing up the value or meaning of the place value.  It's such an important concept to really understand, especially in fourth grade when we start 2x2 and 2x3 multiplication and long division.  We have to move past the "magic zeros" that we bring down and really understand what that really means.

I found a wonderful little flip chart over the summer at {Lakeshore Learning Resources} that I grabbed for guided math time.  It's small and easy to grab for guided math.  I like to have the kids make up numbers to use for place value and number forms, practice reading it, and then do some number work with the number they chose.  I like the beauty in the idea that you can pick whatever number you want and this will work.  Just a little bit of math ownership.  It also gives me an idea of how confident they are with the concept.  They sometimes struggle with coming up with a number, so this has been great.  Nothing earth shattering, but helpful all the same.

Awhile ago I blogged about how I conveniently lost my hundred thousands card for my bulletin board display so I took it upon myself to just create a new one.  You can find it {here} or click on the picture below.

I'm so glad I did this!  The kids refer to it all the time and my old one didn't have the ones, thousands, and millions period markers and we use a ton!  Whew.  Good call on my part.

Finally some of my struggling learners are getting this and we're starting to feel confident with it.  Yes!  Now we just need to work on capitalizing the letter I...

oh my goodness I love it!

I was also looking for center activities that would be challenging for those higher kids and I ran across this file from the {Virginia Department of Education on Numbers and Number Sense}.  I'm a bit of a scavenger when it comes to finding free materials for the classroom.  This was PERFECT!  I ran it off on colored paper, sliced and diced, and my centers and guided math activities are ready to go for now AND in the future when we hit decimal place values.   Check it out {here} or the link above.

Since we've already covered place value and number forms this year, I went ahead and made the above game into center activities during guided math time.  I also added my {spoons number sense game} and the kids are LOVING IT.  It took a few times to get into how to play quietly, but we got it and it has been fabulous.  They have requested a spoons game for prefixes and suffixes, so I'll be working on that soon!

            

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