Name That Theme ...

Theme is a huge skill for our young readers in today's standards, yet it is so puzzling to their little minds. In December, I began racking my brain of what innovative way could I hook my learners.

That is when Name That Theme was born. Kids love music and can easily relate to music. The hardest part of planning the lesson was finding music with school appropriate lyrics. I projected a copy of the lyrics and the kids had a copy of the lyrics to highlight and find textual evidence. The kids loved it!!! Student engagement was at it's best! It is still difficult, but they have a strong reference point.

Songs I used:

*Happy by Pharrell Williams

*Roar by Katy Perry

*Am I Wrong by Nico and Vinz

*Let It Go By Frozen (Disney)

What other songs can you think of to teach theme that kids would love? I would love to hear what others are using.

We also used some task cards to practice in partners. You can check out them out here.

Character Traits in Kindergarten and a FREEBIE

Today, I had the opportunity to introduce Character Traits to a Kindergarten class. I think one of the keys to character traits is helping the students start a vocabulary bank of character trait words and to think about what is "inside" the character. One of the students said it best--- "What is inside their heart".

We started with a very plain anchor chart with the definition and began to brainstorm character trait words.

Then, we began by talking about character traits focusing on the most important person to them -- their teacher. We used a graphic organizer. My goal was to get 3 strong character words with evidence. Evidence is hard but they did so GREAT!! They stole my heart as they described their sweet teacher.

We reread The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett and worked on character traits some more. Our focus was on Teeka the main character. I was so proud of the kids and their "academic talk" as we tackled a very difficult story. They were using details and did an excellent job discussing the problem and solution in the story as well as making inferences about Teeka. We created another character trait map about Teeka with textual evidence. I thought they did really well for their first time.

Here is a free template to use for an independent activity.

Thank you for letting me visit in Kindergarten (crossing my fingers that I can visit again really soon)!!!

How Are You Anchoring Learning For Students?

We all know students do best when they have a touchstone or link to material especially when the content is abstract or difficult. We all know the standards are high and the content is tough but how are we helping children have an anchor to learning.

Anchor charts and word walls are very powerful if:

*Students help create them.

*Students and teachers use them regularly.

*They are meaningful to the students.

This leads me to thinking....

*Do I use signals or gestures to help embed the content?

Do I have portable academic word walls?

*Are kids referencing these anchors?

*Do I hear academic talk about these anchors?

*Are my tools kid friendly -- from organization to content as well as visually?

I saw some great examples last week in a Science class where her word wall was broken into subjects. There were also reference tools for the students desks. They were a really useful tool.

Leaves me to thinking.... Am I anchoring learning enough to support my students?