Point of View Eyeballs!

Happy Saturday everyone! I just wanted to quickly share another cross-curricular project I did in my classroom this past week! We have been studying the Revolutionary War in social studies and point of view in ELA. So why not mix the two, right?!

I got this idea from the fabulous blogger Sandy, over at Fearless in 5th! She has some AWESOME ideas for upper grades, and this has been one of my favorites!

One of my big focus lessons for our Revolutionary War unit is how the British viewed the events leading up to the war vs. how the colonists viewed the events leading up to the war.

To teach point of view this year, I added this fun point of view eyeball project to really drive the point home! After seeing Sandy's awesome eyeballs, I just had to try it! My students had so much fun completing them and they look amazing lining our walls! Some students sided with the colonists and some sided with the British.

The prompts I gave to the students were:

1.) Imagine that you are an American colonist. Draw an event leading up to the Revolutionary War from the perspective of an American colonist.  The drawing should demonstrate how you feel about Great Britain, how you feel about British soldiers being in the colonies, how you feel about your fellow colonists, or how you feel about a specific event leading up to the Revolutionary War.

OR......

2.) Imagine that you are a British soldier. Draw an event leading up to the Revolutionary War from the perspective of an American colonist. The drawing should demonstrate how you feel about the colonists or how you feel about a specific event leading up to the Revolutionary War. 

The Quartering Act- a British Red Coat knocking on a colonist's door to stay the night. So awesome!

Tax collectors knocking on colonist's doors to collect.

The Boston Tea Party!

Didn't these turn out so fun?! Head on over to Sandy's blog to check out her student's work! I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday and to the moms out there, an even better Mother's Day! :)

Teacher Appreciation Sale!

First and foremost, to all of my teacher friends out there...

I'm sorry, but I can't help it!!! Those EYES, the furrow of that brow! HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!!!! 

More importantly, Happy Teacher Appreciation SALE!!! It's that time of year again, when you can load your cart up with some goodies and go all types of purchasing crazy for your classroom! I will be participating in the site wide TpT sale BOTH Tuesday and Wednesday! 

Below are some of the items I have for sale in my store: 

Start your year off on a positive note next year with my Student Data Tracking Binders and Standards Based Assessments with Teaching Notes! 

I have them for grades 2-5, and ELA Assessments are coming soon! Click the pictures below to check them out! 

Here are my best selling, back to school products to start out your school year! Click HERE and HERE to check them out! 

AND since I can't share with you my WHOLE entire store, my last two products are my favorites right now!

They are my Analyzing Characters Pack: 

and my massive 5th Grade Common Core ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes *ALL STANDARDS*:

HAPPY SHOPPING!!! :)

Teaching and Assessing ELA in the Classroom using Social Studies Content!

Happy Saturday blog world! I imagine many of you are gearing up for the last few weeks of school.  We will be going strong until June 11th, therefore there is lots of learning left to be done here!

Does anyone else feel that crunch at the end of the year? As in OMG I have SO much left to teach and NO time to do it? Yeah...me too. That's when you have to get SUPER creative and start tying in subjects together. (Have I mentioned it's 80 degrees and sunny here? AND we have no air conditioning in our school, so you can imagine how fun it has been for us!)

So...creative we must be, right?

This week, we covered 5.RL.7, which reads: Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, or poem).  ***[Note:  The first time I read this, I was like, "ummm, what?!"]

Like...seriously?! Thank the heavens I put in the extra work to make these teaching notes because these standards STILL confuse me at times!

I had planned to read my students this fabulous poetry book about Paul Revere already for social studies...

...and I could use it to introduce this standard for ELA. Jackpot!

So, for a quick and easy lesson, I posted the standard on our anchor chart during social studies.

We did a quick lesson on the tone, mood, and beauty of a text. (side note: a great thing to say when teaching tone is to say, "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a happy tone, and "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a sarcastic tone. So simple and those two quick phrases spurred the lightbulbs and the oohhhh, I get it!!!) 

As we read The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, students kept track of words, phrases and/or picture clues that contributed to the text's tone and mood. 

We then shared together all of the elements we found and I posted them to our anchor chart: 

We practiced throughout the week using our own reading books and started talking about how multimedia elements (videos) use visual and sound elements to create a mood and tone as well. It was so fun hearing all of the wonderful conversations about such a high level concept in my student's book clubs! 

Finally, at the completion of the unit, I decided to assess my students by comparing a specific text to a multimedia presentation (video), and pictures. I wanted the video and pictures to go with the text in order for my students to understand how authors use visual elements to add tone, mood, and meaning. Many of the examples that were out there were of these videos that were hours long and I had such a hard time locating a matching text, that I decided to just create my own! 

I assessed my students as a whole group by playing the video on our projector.

I then pulled a few of my lower readers to view the video independently or in a small group using our laptops and my teacher computer.

Here a few excerpts of my student's assessments comparing a text to pictures and a video representation of the text:

All of the above assessments, video links, photos, teaching notes AND MORE can be found HERE in my 5th Grade ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes!

I would love to hear your ideas for teaching 5.RL.7! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

5th Grade English Language Arts Assessments are DONE!!!!!

FINALLLYYYYYYY!!!!!  8 months my friends. 8 months of laboring over this child and giving it my blood, sweat, and literally LOTS of tears to make it perfect for all of you (for those of you that have labored a real, live human being, my hats go off to you ALL, as I am not there yet and know that creating an ELA Assessment is not the same!).

This assessment has been through my engagement, multiple holidays and even survived a move! ;) It is classroom tested by a few different classroom teachers in order to make it even more perfect for you!

Without further ado... here she is in her 400+ page glory! CLICK HERE or the cover below to check out a closer and more detailed preview!

I've decided to create a 30+ page preview so that you can really see what is in this assessment. 

Below are a few snapshots of the preview pages so you can see what is included. Some of the pictures here may seem a bit blurry because of the transfer of "snapshot" to blog. Click HERE to see a closer view!

All standards are assessed, even the super tricky Speaking and Listening, which hopefully won't be as tricky with how I break them down: 

First up: 

Next up...Reading Informational: 

Next is writing. I have included assessments for both the main standards (think 5.W.1, 5.W.2, 5.W.3, and all substandards 5.W.1a, 5.W.1b, etc.).

Language standards:

Reading Foundational Skills: 

And last, Speaking and Listening. No more thought of in my book as the forgotten standards! Who can relate!??!

And there you have it! Please know that this is a snapshot of the preview in which you can download and see closer HERE. Also, please know that this is only a preview of the 400+ pages included! 

I will be blogging about these assessments in detail, since my students have been using them, in hopes that it helps many of you ease into assessing and tracking your students ELA data with my Student Data Tracking Binders: 

Here is the 5th grade ELA/Literacy Student Data Tracking Binder: 

Click HERE to check out my math Student Data Tracking Binders for other grades, and click HERE to check out my Math Assessments for other grades.

Hurry up and grab these assessments! They're 15% off just for tonight!!! :)