Teaching The Author's Point Using Video Games (Plus a Giveaway)

As a literacy coach teaching persuasive reading and writing to elementary age students, I recently tried to find a topic that my students connected with and had an author’s point of view in which they might disagree.  Because let’s be honest, the ones on recycling and water are just…old.  I wanted fresh material.   

And any time teachers need fresh material, what do they do?  We steal, borrow, and take good ideas from real-life experiences - and sometimes our friends and colleagues. Well, I happened to have the real-life experience of strongly disagreeing with my teenager step-son on one particular point. (Most of us probably do with our teens)

You see, three years ago, I got a step-son who lives for fast internet and all-night playing of video games.  Since knowing Drew, I have slid in comments here and there about the negative effects of video games.  I assumed my comments would trigger his hormonal, irrational mind into thinking - Wow.  She is so smart.

This didn't happen.

But from conversations with Drew, I did realize that video games was a wonderful topic to engage my students.  And because I wanted to connect and relate to them, I decided to write a "letter" asking the principal to allow video games in school.  (You can find the letter here.)  I know!  You all thought I was going to go against it.  So did my students.

 At first, as I sat down to write my letter request and the reasons they should be in school, I literally thought “Nothing.  Nothing good comes from video games.”  

But I knew this wasn’t true.  Nor was that making an interesting letter.

So I fought to see it from Drew's perspective, and I was shocked with what I learned.  I not only discovered that kids could learn "soft skills" valued in the workplace, but I discovered how I could be a better parent to Drew and be a better teacher.

By putting myself in Drew’s (and my students’) shoes to make the point that video games should be allowed in school, I was pausing to consider what is important to them.  I looked for the things that they love about gaming that would also be considered a benefit to an adult.  

What I Learned

1. Video games challenge their brains. There is a lot of action going on in those games.  Gamers must think through decisions and problem solve.  They are trying to create, build, and conquer.  This takes problem-solving skills.  There are also other players moving in real time.  As the players are playing, they are being challenged to work as a team.
2. Video games engage children. Therefore, it cuts down on misbehavior in classrooms (and in homes).  Children & teens want to be engaged!  They want their brains to be focused and challenged.  When they are, they don’t think about snacks, water breaks, or how many students they can make laugh. Ever notice how in the middle of talking, a student will ask to go to the bathroom.  But the minute you hit play on a video, they no longer have to go?  Same thing.  Video games are engaging them because they’re focused on winning. 
3. Video games teach perseverance. They play.  They lose.  They play again.  The cycle continues as they get better and better and work towards winning.  It’s something we appreciate in athletes and mathletes.  We should appreciate it in gamers too.  This is literally the whole growth-mindset & grit theory that is trending now.  Students feel they are defeated for a millisecond when they lose, and then it’s back to another game to try again. 

How do these things make me a better teacher and/or parent?

The short answer is I realized the value of putting myself in my teen's shoes for a moment.  How often do we all need to pause in our own crusade and consider the perspective of the opposing argument?  This skill alone is something I want to teach all children to make a better world.

Specifically as a teacher, I reflected on the three things video games offer that captivate my students.  They want to be challenged.  They want to be engaged.  They want to persevere, get better, and win.

It’s my job as an educator to help facilitate these three things each day in the classroom. My instructional practices should include these things as much as possible.  Don't I want to be challenged, engaged, and grow myself?  I want to offer that to my students.

Misbehaving students aren’t always a result of my instruction, but when I have misbehaving students, I must stop and reflect.  Are the students engaged?  Are they feeling challenged, but not defeated?  Are they learning to persevere so they can win?

As a teacher and parent, I need to stop and reflect.  It’s so easy to think our kids are acting crazy/disrespectful/fill-in-the-blank and not see the situation from their perspective.

In the end, I wrote a letter "from Drew" with an author's point, reasons, and evidence that would convince a principal to allow video games.  (You can find the differentiated passages here.)  My students loved it so much, I then wrote one "from Mara" (my step-daughter), asking the principal not to allow video games in school!  These can be found here.

I truly believe RI 8 (Author's Point, Reasons, & Evidence) and W1 (Opinion writing) are two of the most important standards we can teach.  Persuasive skills, considering other people's point-of-view, and debating are skills they will use in almost every relationship, job, and stage in life.  We need to make sure we are equipping them for these life skills, and not just checking a box.

Teaching this standard made me a better teacher, and I hope it grows you as it grew me.

It also made me a better bonus mom. Truthfully, I may not ever fully get on "Team Video Games".  But I always want Drew to know I am on "Team Drew".

P.S. 
You can find my Author’s Point, Finding Logical Connections, and Differentiated Reading Passages & Activities “Video Games In School” at my TPT page.  The "No Video Games" will be FREE for the first week this is posted as a gift to the readers!

Follow me on TPT (Mrs. Wilson Wonders), Twitter @NatalieWilson43, Instagram @NatalieWilson2012, or at my own blog – Freshly Designed. 

Valentines for your Students

Do you know what profession receives the most Valentines? I'm sure you know, it is TEACHERS!! Each Valentine's Day teachers all over the country receive Valentines from their current students, former students, coworkers, administrators and any significant others they may have in their lives. It's so AWESOME! 

So, how about your students?  Do you give them a Valentine each year? Chances are if you are an Elementary grade teacher, you give your students a Valentine card and possibly a small gift on this day of love.

If this is what you do each year, I have a FREEBIE you might be interested in.

This packet contains free Valentines you can give your class. With three to choose from, you are sure to find one to fit your needs:

Quarter Page Size Card: This card can be printed on card stock and given to students.  You can even add a special treat such as a pencil, or lollipop if you want to. Just punch holes or use clear tape to attach.

Treat Bag Tag:  This card is sized so you can print on card stock, cut out and fold over a snack size zip lock bag.  Fill the bags with candy, Goldfish crackers, Teddy Grams or any other treat you would like.

Ruler Valentine: This last one is my favorite! I try to stock up on rulers in August when they are on sale at the beginning of school. Sometimes you can purchase them for as little as 50 cents each.  Then on Valentine's Day, you can use this card to give them to your students as a very special Valentine's gift. 

One year my daughter used these to give to her classmates cute colorful rulers as Valentines.  They loved it!

Activities:
This packet also has a couple of fun Valentine Activities you can do with your students on Valentine's Day:  a Graphing Activity (for which you will need a small box of Conversation Hearts Candy for each student.) and a word scramble:

If you would like to download this Valentine's Freebie   all you have to do is click on the picture below.

I hope you and your students have a great Valentine's Day.  Stop by and visit me at:

QUEEN of the JUNGLE

Until Next Time........

Winter Art That Teaches Color Value

Winter is not over yet so I got to teach my students the values of color with my FAVORITE art lesson!!!!

This art project teachers students patience because it is done in 3 stages with paint drying in between. I find that the waiting for each part helps build the anticipation of my little eager students!

All that is needed to complete this is a white piece of paper (I used card stock) and 3 colors of paint (blue, white, and black)! 

You can get easy, step-by-step instructions on how we completed this beautiful, eye-catching art work here.

Cheers,

 

Interesting CAFE Lessons

Well it finally feels like we are in the swing of things at school. CAFE is an excellent way to help your students become a better reader. Here are some of the lessons I do while we go through the CAFE strategies.

 

Tune in to Interesting Words with Dr. Seuss! Throughout the reading of Oh, The Places You'll Go! students put up their hands when they heard a word they found interesting. After each page we added the words to our anchor chart. This was a fabulous book for the lesson because in typical Dr. Seuss fashion there are a ton of "interesting" words.   

 

One of my favourite CAFE lessons is for Make a Picture With My Mind. I always use the fractured fairy tale Trust Me, Jack's Beanstalk Stinks! 

Students can relate to it because most of them have already heard about Jack and the Beanstalk. 

Before the lesson, I chose 6 spots in the story to stop and have students sketch what image is in their head. At the start of the lesson we talk about what a sketch looks like (no colors, quick drawing, very little details) and I demonstrate on the board for them. I hand out the papers for the activity (see below for a free copy) and tell students they will only have 1 minute to draw each sketch and then we will move on. This is key. Don't give them too much time or they will get hung up on the details and be upset when you have to move on. 
It always amazes me how silent the student are while I am reading. They don't get to see the pictures in the book so they have to listen closely. When I give them the signal to start sketching, EVERY student quickly goes to work. Yup, EVERY student. When I signal all pencils down, that happens too because they don't want to miss out on the next part of the story.
Here are  a few examples of what I got from my students last year :) 

Last year's class was pretty excited about the wedding at the end, hence the kissing pictures. Most years I have had pictures of the giant looking through the clouds at Jack and his mother.

Click on the image here to get your free copy of the graphic organizer. 

I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine did.

Cheers,

 

Mining for Spelling Patterns

Happy Saturday!  I'm Pamela from Hedgehog Reader, and I am here to share a fun way that students can play with letters and words to discover, practice, and reinforce spelling patterns.

Have you ever played Word Mines?  Maybe you've called them something else...  Basically, here is how Word Mines go:

You are given a word (or sometimes a phrase).  To play, you form as many words as possible in the given time using only the letters presented.  (If there is one R, then R can be used only once in that word.  It can be used once again in another word, and so on.)

Call me a nerd (believe me, you won't be the first!), but this has been one of my favorite pastimes for as long as I can remember.  So it was a natural thing for me to develop Word Mines for my students, because I knew it would be a fun way to identify, discover, and play with spelling patterns!

How to Start:

Although it doesn't take long for students to learn Word Mining strategies and procedures, it does require at least one session of whole class instruction to ensure smooth sailing ahead:

• Students are ready for Word Mines when they have started to develop phonemic awareness, and have begun to identify common spelling patterns.  They should also have some sight words under their belts.
• Make sure that any word you give students to "mine" is one that holds plenty of words within it.  Not all words are suited to this activity, so my best advice is to try it yourself first.
• It's fun to use seasonal words or vocabulary pulled from content areas of current study.
• I find that controversy is avoided by declaring the following rules:  *No proper nouns   *No foreign words   *No contractions
• I begin by projecting the word to be mined.  (I've created cute seasonal Word Mines so that I could put them under the document camera, but you can also simply write it up on your board.)  Although traditional Word Mines are done with a word or phrase in its original form, I always scramble mine so that students get the bonus activity of solving the "secret word."
• Depending on the age of your students, it's often helpful to begin with letter tiles, one for each letter in the scrambled word.  This allows students to physically manipulate the letters (concrete reasoning), until they are ready to move into mentally manipulating the letters (abstract reasoning).  This also ensures that letters are only used as many times as they are found within the word.
• I model my thinking aloud as I "solve" the projected puzzle.  I make sure to demonstrate how patterns can help.  For instance, if I see the pattern ALE, I will play with each consonant and blend to see if it fits with the pattern to create a word.  Then I move from ALE to EAL and repeat the process.
• Normally after one such session, students are ready to mine for words on their own, with a buddy, or in a team.

Use Word Mines as a Whole Class:

Once students have a grasp of how to work with Word Mines, these make a great Morning Work activity or sponge activity, either individually, in buddies, or as teams:

• Students stay even more focused if they know they will have 3 minutes for team consultation to tally up total words once the time is up.  It only takes a moment or two to quickly go through how many words each team came up with  (I am not picky, and the students do a wonderful job holding one another accountable for following the rules), and points are awarded for order of most words found.  For instance - If you have 6 teams in your classroom, the team with the most words earns 6 points, and then work your way down to 1 point for the team with the fewest words - so everybody earns something!

Use Word Mines in a Literacy Center:

Word Mines make a great literacy center activity:

• Glue a puzzle to the front of a file folder or manilla envelope.  Hide an answer key inside.  Provide a set of laminated letter tiles.
• Students can record their answers on notebook paper or whiteboards, or on prepared worksheets.
• It’s best to use only one puzzle at a time to prevent confusion; puzzles can be changed out based on your students’ need.  

I've created this FREEBIE for you to try out a Word Mine with your students!  (I have various seasonal and thematic Word Mine resources in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, and I add to my collection often.)

Have a wonderful year with your students, and thanks for reading!

Effective Ways to Teach Greek and Latin Roots AND Vocabulary

Did you know that students should encounter a word up to 70 times before is is mastered?  NO LIE!  That is why teachers need to provide practice, practice, practice for words they want students to learn!  Here is what a week of word study should look like in an upper elementary classroom.

Day 1-  Introduce the words by having students look them up in the dictionary.  They will remember the word more with this activity than simply giving them the definitions.  I like to give students a matching sheet where they still need to look it up, but the definition I want them to learn is a choice.  There are so many multiple meaning words that simply looking the word up could get a variety of answers.  Then you have to explain that it isn't the right one.  So make it simple for yourself while giving them the practice!

Next,  add the words to a word wall in your classroom.  This is extremely important so they can see it throughout the week!  Whether they are getting in line, going to the restroom, or sharpening a pencil, they have that chance of seeing it!  Below is an example of a Greek and Latin display I created in my classroom towards the beginning of last school year.  Each unit is either Greek or Latin.  I place the Greek words on the left and the Latin words on the right.  I also mount them on different colors.  Prefixes are placed in the clouds, root words are placed by the trunk of the tree and on the roots, and suffixes are placed below the roots.  (I attempted to make a burrow of some sort.)  No laughing please!

For Homework:   On a separate piece of paper, students need to create a sentence for each of the words.  What I like to do is have students leave a blank for where the root or vocabulary word belongs- like a fill-in-the-blank question.  I tell them that the sentence needs to have enough detail in it so another classmate can guess the word.  I give them examples the first couple weeks.

Ex.  She placed her telescope on a _____________ to look at the stars in the sky.  (tripod)

 I also give them flashcards to use to study each night!!!


Day Two-  Everyone gets out their homework.  If someone comes in with simple sentences, (I use a ______.)  I bring them back to my table and help them write good sentences while others exchange their papers and fill in the blanks.  I also hold them accountable for the following week.  Then we play a game.  My favorite is Headbandz!  I'm sure you've seen this game in stores.  Use it with vocabulary words!  It is the greatest and the kids have a blast!  Below is a picture of my daughter and good friend as we play the real Headbandz at home.  At school, I replace the game cards with our vocabulary cards.  With this game, students give the person with the Headband on clues to their word until they guess it correctly.  Here is a pic of a student when we played it for a Social Studies review!  ( I love the student in the background.)

For Homework:  Students have a worksheet to complete- preferably one that has fill-in-the blanks.  I like to provide a story with hints in the sentences to help them guess the correct word.  They sometimes get silly!  Here is an example of a story from a Greek and Latin Unit.   Also study flashcards.

Shelly was having trouble sleeping.  It has been a whole decade since she was able to saw wood!  She tried many outrageous attempts to try to catch a wink.  First, she participated in all ten events of a decathlon.  The exhausting competition did not help her sleep so she rode her unicycle around the outside of the Pentagon in Washington, DC for 5 days.  She decided to go home and get some cheese for a snack.  She trisected the cheese so she could have it again for two more nights.  When Shelly tucked herself in bed that night, her eyes remained wide open!  Since she was still awake, she put her telescope onto a tripod and glanced up at the pentacle in the night sky.  The room was so quiet that she heard crickets singing in a hexameter verse.  They were all in unison too!  What finally put Shelly to sleep?  She started counting sheep on her hexagon-shaped ceiling.  Why didn't she think of that earlier?   She was now snoring.  Zzzzzzzzzzzz!

Day 3-  In groups, for Greek and Latin words- students brainstorm/research words that have the same root or affix.  They also create a nonsense word.  For vocabulary, they choose a word and do a word web.  Of course they can do this for Greek and Latin study too-use it with the words created from the roots or affixes!

For Homework:   Draw a picture depicting each word.  I have my students write the answers on a separate piece of paper so we can exchange them the next day in class!  Also study flashcards.

Day 4- Students exchange their pictures and guess the correct word from homework.  Then we play the game I Have Who Has.  These are easy to make for your word list.

Homework:  I like to incorporate some sort of technology throughout the week.  Since most of my students had computer access this past year, I had them either create a crossword puzzle in Puzzlemaker or one of my students will make a Quizlet for me to assign.  (If you teach upper elementary, they are completely capable and willing to create it for you!  I usually offer a coupon for my treasure chest for those who offer to make one.  Sometimes I have too many people who want to do it and I have to assign it to someone!)  They love to compete against each other on Quizlet to see who can get the best time.  If a student doesn't have internet access, I tell them to create flashcards to play Concentration.  (Their flashcards from Day 1 won't work because they are printed on front and back.

Day 5-  Before the quiz, we have one last review.  I might have students act out a word or even have them create a jingle with some or all of the words for first work and share it before the quiz.  Quiz-  This also includes a spiraling review.  I include 5 questions at the end of each test where students have to remember past words studied in class.  For each word list of the year, students get a hard copy and add them to a metal ring.  That way they have all the words to study for the spiraling review.  You will be surprised at how much they retain by the end of the year!

If you would like a free unit of Greek and Latin prefixes, click on the picture below!

 

Visit ROCKIN RESOURCES store!  They offer a variety of free and paid products ranging from grades 2-6.  Pam specializes in LANGUAGE ARTS and SOCIAL STUDIES.  She is well-known for her BTS (BOOST TEST SCORES) WRITING PROGRAMS that have been best sellers and boost writing scores!  

Thanks again Hilary for the opportunity to post on this amazing blog!  The content on here is incredible and there are so many talented teachers offering their expertise!

Reflecting on this Year's Learning

Hi there, it's Roisin from Little Learner Toolbox, and I am very happy to be here on 'Who's Who and Who's New'! It’s that time of year when the final countdown has begun, with students starting to get into the summer mood, while teachers are in the midst of juggling the learning in their classroom with the many end of year demands. All in all the end of year can be a busy time. With everything moving towards the end of year, this can also be a great time to take time to reflect upon the year with your class.  Providing students with the opportunity to reflect upon how they have grown through the year, the challenges they may have faced, the goals they achieved and the strategies they developed through the year, is a great way to bring the year to a conclusion and celebrate with your class.

One fun way to do this is by encouraging you students to write a letter, create an information booklet or design a poster for the new incoming class. This is something that many classes already do, but taking time to really think about the year with your class is a great opportunity to encourage conversation and reflection. There are so many possibilities for this activity including: 1) write individual letters to be placed on the desks of the new students at the beginning of the new school year, 2) bind individual letters together to make a handy reference booklet for the incoming class or 3) students could create posters to decorate the classroom for the start of the school year, full of information for the incoming class. Providing students with the opportunity for writing for the incoming class, is a fun way to engage your students. Next year’s students will enjoy it too!

“We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” (John Dewey)

 While the final product will be for the incoming class, so much of the learning and conversation will happen along the way. By giving your students the opportunity to reflect upon the year, you give them the chance to consolidate their ideas, reflect upon their experiences and share their ideas with their classmates. 

To start with, introduce the idea to your whole class and ask them to remember back to what it was like at the start of the year. Ask students about how they felt and where there any big questions or concerns that they had? If so that would be good information to include for the new class. What sort of information and tips would be useful for incoming students to know; what to do, not to do, fieldtrips, handy information to know? Are there any fun projects or activities for the students to look forward to? 

Ideas to brainstorm with your class could include:

Class / Grades routines that you had during the year

Favorite projects that you did or fun facts that you learned during the year

Books that you read as a class

Favorite field trips

Helpful tips for the year

Useful strategies that you learned

What your new teacher is like

Another nice thing to do with students before they write their letter is to encourage them to think of some of their own personal achievements and highlights from the year:

One thing I really enjoyed was…..

One thing I learned was…..

One thing I am proud of is…..

Finally when your students begin to plan for writing their letters or designing their posters, encourage them to think about their achievements they have listed, and what they learned and enjoyed throughout the year. What do they think that the incoming students would like to know? What would they have liked to have known coming into the class? The final posters or letters will be a wonderful collection of student memories and achievements, and a great welcome to the new class at the start of next year!

For more end of year activities check out: