New Spin on Review Games

What is the challenge with review games? For me, one of the challenges I face is more often than not I have a group of students who dominate the game and another group who are not engaged. I have found that by using Kahoot (iPad friendly as well), I avoid this issue and many times my winner ends up being a student who would not have had the chance to show his/her true understanding in a verbal game.

What is Kahoot? 

-free

-game based

-website

-create your own kahoot game or choose from public games

Great website to use when you want to review for an upcoming test. 

The easiest way to explain Kahoot is to compare the game to your typical sports-bar, trivia game. If you have ever been to a "No Frills Grill" restaurant, they have the game I am talking about. You borrow a device from them, create a username, and answer trivia questions as fast as you can. Similar to this, when you play Kahoot, you earn points for not only answering the question correctly, but for answering it the fastest. I have found that all of my students are engaged in this hands-on, competitive game. 

https://getkahoot.com/

Flipped Classroom in the Elementary Setting

“Flipped Classroom” can be heard all across my campus on a daily basis. What is the flipped classroom? Is it possible to have a flipped classroom in an elementary setting? Where do I even begin? All questions that flooded my mind when I first heard about this new, innovative way to teach.

A flipped classroom:

-inverts traditional teaching methods by delivering instruction online at home and doing homework in the classroom

Why?

-spend more time on application and less on delivery

-more student-led exploration

Typical scenario in a math class:

The teacher uses class time to introduce a new topic, let’s say “how to find the area of a rectangle.” A few minutes are spent on practice and then we send a worksheet home for the students to complete. What happens next? The students spend time looking up how to solve the problems on the page they are struggling with or they ask an adult for help. Kids come back to school with a “check plus” for their homework and the teacher assumes, “Great! They understood that concept!” When in reality, a worksheet that should have taken 15 minutes to complete, has now taken 40 minutes after some intense googling and parental assistance.

Flipped Classroom Scenario:

For homework: Student watches a short video on how to find the area of a rectangle at home. (Video can either come from Khan Academy or a teacher made video. When I make videos for my students to watch, I use the apps “Show Me” or “Explain Everything.”) I record the video in the same manner that I would have taught the lesson in class. The great thing about using an app like “Show Me” is that is does not record you in the sense of a camera. Rather, it records your voice AND it allows you to either add pictures or draw on the screen. If you are like me, you don’t love seeing yourself on video! After the students watch the short video (key word= short. My videos are usually less than 5 minutes to keep their attention.):

Option 1: complete a few sample problems to bring to school the next day

Option 2: Have each student write a sample problem to bring to school the next day for a classmate to solve.

Option 3: Leave it open-ended. At the end of your video say, “Now it is your job to prove to me that you know how to find the area of a rectangle. You can make a video, write a problem on paper, create a Pic Collage… You choose!”

My first time to attempt the “flipped classroom” idea I definitely had some reservations. I will be honest and say that it takes more front-end time to teach in this manner but it was worth it! Plus, you can save the videos for the following years. When I did assign homework to watch a video, my kids came back the next day with the biggest smiles on their faces.

Student quotes:

“We felt like you were there with us!”

“I paid way better attention to last nights homework than normal because it was fun!”
“I loved being able to use my iPad for homework and I liked that I could create my own homework assignment.”

An Alternative to Homework

The situation: I want my students to read a section of their social studies textbook for homework.

Instead of: making students answer questions that prove that they have read the information

Try this: Ask students to list 2 important details they learned from the reading assignment AND post 2 questions they still have after reading the assignment.

For example, I had my 4^th grade students read Sections 3 - 8 in their social studies textbook for homework and wanted to have some sort of assessment to prove that they read the material. Instead of giving them a worksheet to complete either while they were reading or the next day in class, I posted the following on our class portal discussion board (you could use a blog if you do not have a portal) and had the students respond:

After reading Chapter 13 (Sections 3 - 8) on TCI, write 2 sentences describing what you learned from this reading AND 2 questions to ask another student.

Example (You may not use my example.)

1. After reading chapter 13, I learned that mercenaries are soldiers hired to fight for a foreign army.

2. I was surprised to learn that colonists refused to give the British soldiers food and supplies.

Questions:

1. Did loyalists fight for the British during the revolution?

2. After the war, were loyalists treated fairly?

Follow up assignment the next day in class: Review what the students posted and have them respond to at least one other person’s posts.

PicCollage App

What a fun, easy app to use with all age groups!  PicCollage allows users to choose a background and layout, add pictures, photos, stickers, frames and text. You can easily save the PicCollage to your photos, airdrop the photo, email, or even text the photo.

Ideas of how to use PicCollage in teaching world:

1. History/Social Studies: Before you teach a lesson, find a picture of a well-known historian and have students add  a speech bubble of what that person would have said while in that photo.  (Example: George Washington crossing the Delaware.) After you teach the lesson, have students go back to their picture and adjust their quote to meet facts that were taught.

2. All About Me: In the first few weeks of school have the students each create a PicCollage with their favorite things.

3. Spelling: Choose a word and add in a picture that represents that word, the definition of that word, the part of speech and a sentence with the word in the sentence.

4. Math Pre-lesson: (I used this with my class today and it was fantastic!) Old school teaching: Normally, I would introduce my lesson for the day with a 10-minute direct instruction lesson and then have the students explore problems on their own.

21^st Century Teaching: Today, I flipped the idea and actually had students explore the topic by creating a PicCollage. After they shared their photos with the class, I would clear up anything that was inaccurate.

What I did in class today: I told them they had 10 minutes to create a PicCollage that included the word perimeter, its definition, how to find the perimeter of a shape and an example. I loved seeing how each student’s PicCollage was very different and many were waiting for me to tell them exactly what to do, but I never did. I said they could use their imagination and own brain to decide the layout and information that was necessary. After the 10 minutes were up, I allowed a few students to share their PicCollage with the rest of the class via Apple TV. Many realized they had a few mistakes and fixed their PicCollages.
Step 2: Each student made a keynote titled “Math Unit 8” and on the second slide they added the Perimeter PicCollage. My plan is to have them create a PicCollage throughout the unit for each new vocabulary term and then add the photo to the Keynote. (To add the PicCollage to Keynote, you have them save the PicCollage to Photos and then add the picture to the Keynote slide.) This is an ongoing study guide that can be used at home. Their homework tonight is perimeter practice so this Pic Collage will be very helpful if they need extra assistance.

5. Reading Character Analysis: (See example below.) Old school teaching: Have students write a paragraph describing the characters in the novel you are reading.

21^st Century Teaching Idea: Have students create a PicCollage divided into sections. Each section they add a picture of that character and a sentence or two describing the character.

Socrative- Summative Assessment

I feel very fortunate that we are a 1:1 4^th grade classroom where each of my students have an iPad mini. With that said, I am always looking for innovative and engaging ways to use the iPad in the classroom. However, sometimes I create these amazing lessons in my head only to then write on paper and realize it will take me a week or two to accomplish this task. (A week or two extra, might I add, that I don’t have.) Enter Socrative! Socrative is an app (or a website, for that matter) that visualizes student understanding as a response system. But, it is so much more than that! The website/app allows teachers to set-up their own account and it will provide a classroom number. As the teacher, you can either release a pre-written assessment OR (my favorite aspect to Socrative) you can use the “quick question” feature to ask an intro question (think the K in KWL), a mid-lesson question to see if students are understanding the concepts, or use as an exit slip.

When I was first introduced to Socrative, I liked it but I didn’t love it. Once I realized there was the “quick question” my love for this site grew much deeper. With the quick question feature you do not have to create anything before class. I find myself many days not even intending to use Socrative and then mid-class decide to pull out the iPads and review concepts. Socrative is such an easy, summative assessment tool and after using it once, I had my kids coming in day in and day out saying, “Are we using Socrative today?!” Any time I find something that excites them that much, I know it must be a great tool!

To use:

1. Either download Socrative Teacher App or go to www.socrative.com and create a teacher log-in. Socrative will then give you a classroom number.

2. Either create a pre-made quiz (can be multiple choice, short answer, true false…) or select quick question which is where you would say the question verbally. At this point you can decide whether you want the students to provide their names or not as well.

3. Students can either go to socrative.com or download the Socrative Student App.

4. Students select “Student Log-in” and type in room number. The pre-made assessment or quick question will appear.

If you choose to make a pre-made test, you can even print, email or download your results.

My Mission for Blogging

I ran across this quote on Kidblog’s website as I was setting up my students on kidblog and it truly resonates my goal and mission in creating a personal blog.

“If you were presented with a template from a person of authority, in the same manner every day, each year, then one day asked how you’d like to express yourself, without a template, in all likelihood you’d chose to do it the same way you always have, and have always been told. Now add to that an element of assessment- how well will you do with your own choices? It’s no wonder students balk at first when told to choose whatever form of writing or topic they’d like. We all like what’s comfortable, we like what’s expected, and we like to know the results of our actions. As a student, if I know my teacher likes narratives, then I will choose a narrative in order to increase my chances of being successful with him or her.” –Kidblog.org

Too often we give our students exact directions, expectations, and sample products to help them begin a project. What is the problem with that? Creativity is lost! Where do we allow room for our students to create, collaborate and think critically if we always give them direct guidelines? My goal with this blog is present different ideas, apps, websites and so forth of how to allow our kids to do just that. Create, collaborate, communicate, think critically and connect with the outside world. 

I am nervous, yet excited to join the blogging world and look forward to connecting with other passionate teachers. 

Who Am I?

A mom. A wife. A teacher. A learner. A food lover. A Dr. Pepper addict. A reality TV junkie. (To name a few) And now I can add, "a blogger," to my list!

After almost 6, wonderful years of teaching, a marriage, a baby, and a master’s degree later, I have decided to join the rest of the teaching world in blogging.  Why blog now? Simple. I find many of my teaching ideas via the internet, blogs, Teachers Pay Teachers, pinterest, or other teachers at my school so it is time to share my teaching adventures with the world.

A little personal background: My blog name, “Rise and Read,” is a play off of my last name, Read. I teach 4^th grade at a private school in Arlington, Texas. It just so happens that I, too, was a student at this very same school starting at the age of four AND I met my husband here AND he proposed during my first year of teaching on the school campus. Do you have a small tear in your eye after reading that sweet, love story? J So, needless to say, this place is truly my second home, my family and my life. Teaching is my happy place.

You can also connect with me via twitter @MrsReadClass4th