Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

This past summer I worked a reading program and I put together a week of creative bookmarks crafts for participants to complete. My favorite were these very easy Star Wars themed ones. I ran across them randomly from a library blog (which I am sad I did not bookmark to give credit 😢). The library site directed me to the YouTube Video  for instructions and the templates. The instructional video for these bookmarks is in Portuguese but since we were following what the child was doing versus what he was saying it was fine.  I downloaded the templates to my Google Drive so I could keep them even if the video or related site went down. Here are the links to each: Kylo Ren Chewbacca Yoda Princess Leia The were a lot of fun to put together. I thought they would make a good back-to-school activity, or project for a Star Wars themed school night, or to complete the week of May the 4th (as in May the 4th be with you...#scifinerd 🤣).  I wi...

I have done a series of training's on how to utilize ReadWorks Article-A-Day and Book of Knowledge in the classroom. I love this resource. In fact I love everything about ReadWorks! (huge FAN here) The general gist of an Article-A-Day is that it is a short 10-12 minute routine you do in the classroom during a transition time (not as part of your ELA block) that exposes students to more ideas, vocabulary, and reading. I work with 15 Title 1 schools and I know how important it is to expose students to more of everything...we just simply don't have enough time and the Article-A-Day idea is a brilliant way to sneak in more literacy (thus more ideas). As a teacher you would pick your dedicated classroom time for the routine. My recommendation is to be religious about it. If you don't take it seriously neither will your students. FYI - I feel the same way about notebooking in the classroom as well. For K-2 students you pick your grade and topic and simply pull up the ...