Gifts to the ROE Library!

View this clip to find out about the beautiful new books donated to the ROE Library!

Professional Reading

http://www.fluency21.com/handouts_smallbytes.cfm

Blogging & Digital Storytelling:

Blogging in the Classroom: How to Write a Quality Comment

10  Tools for Digital Storytelling in Class (The Whiteboard Blog)

Learning Tools:
 Digital Diet: Downloadable Guides (21^st Century Fluency Project) 
Global Classroom:
 Guide to Globally Connected Learning (Langwitches)
Interesting:
What if the next Steve Jobs is sitting in your classroom right now? (Wanderings)
Become a Gmail Jedi Webinar & Outline (Cory Pavicich)

Online Learning Resources

5th grade students are exploring alternative energies by inquiring into renewable and non-renewable natural resources, sources of energy, and sustainability of energy systems.

Searchasaurus (EBSCO) is proving to be an excellent source of kid-friendly magazine articles for their ongoing portfolio project that documents their readings, discoveries and reflections. As part of the embedded research components, students are required to locate and analyze relevant, current, and readable sources of information.

Click to view 5th Grade-Sharing the Planet + Searchasaurus

Searchasaurus has the capability of easily narrowing searches by format type. Lexile levels for readability are listed next to each article. 5th graders are able to determine immediately whether an article is within a 750-950 range that is typical for grade-level text, or will offer a greater or lesser challenge to them. They can sort by 'Date Descending' (pull-down option at top right of screen) and view articles with most current ones now at top. They are also easily creating citations with the source information readily listed at the top of each article, as well as using Bibme to create citations independently. 

  

Searchasaurus is just one of many excellent online resources available to our students as part of HISD subscriptions. Download or print the brochure above and visit the ROE Library site  for additional options to access high-quality learning resources for students' projects and assignments! (A printed brochure including necessary unpublished passwords will be coming home with students this week).

BrainPOP Educators

BrainPop, BrainPop Jr. and Brainpop Español are excellent resources for introducing new concepts to students. With these short clips, complex ideas are illustrated and made easier for kids to understand. Teachers can create a free BrainPOP Educators Account to access excellent community resources. There are lots of graphic organizers that are downloadable and adaptable for a range of subject areas. There are diverse types of note-taking forms and templates for foldables & flash cards too. ( I adapted and used one called Pause Points for lessons on Online Safety and Digital Citizenship in 3rd-5th grade earlier this year). Find BrainPOP blog updates on upcoming webinars and useful instructional ideas there too. It is well worth registering for an account! You can follow @BrainPop and  BrainPOP edu on Twitter too.

News & Current Events Sites for Kids

DOGO News - Kids news articles!  via kwout

Concise high-interest informational articles are not only excellent to use in building students' non-fiction reading comprehension strategies, but also as models of expository writing.  They help students to connect with their local, state, national and global communities and can be useful for classroom inquiry & research too.

Here are a few great sources:

• DOGO News: is a safe friendly environment for young kids to stay informed about current events. 'Dogo' means small or young in Swahili. Articles are short and focused with interactive videos and an integrated dictionary. (Sample  Article: If the World Were a Village of 100 People...)

• Wonderopolis offers terrific inquiry-based models of this genre. Browse 'wonder' categories along the right-hand side of each page or explore their awesome archive of past wonders.  Notice the structure that kids could adapt and draw upon to inspire both their research and writing organization. Questions grab the reader's attention and are always followed by an explanation and some how-to advice. 'Words to know and use' help to build understanding and increase vocabulary. (Sample  Article: Why Do Airplanes Leave Tracks in the Sky?)
• KidsPost is a kid-friendly extension of the Washington Post. (Sample  Article: Ever Wonder...How Animals Clean Themselves?)

• Tween Tribune is updated daily with articles on high-interest topics for upper elementary and middle schoolers. All comments are screened in this interactive community. (Sample  Article: Do we need Cursive Handwriting anymore?)

• A Smart Exchange keyword search for expository writing is another great source. There are many notebook files to download & adapt that will build student's conceptual understanding.

• Find more resources on the ROE Tech. Toolbox and ROE Library Magazines pages. Also, do a keyword search of the Searchasaurus database. Many articles from kid's magazines are available in both PDF and HTML formats.

Resources for Teachers: 

> 25 Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events
> 10 Ways to Use Current Events in the Classroom (Big Universe)
> Article of Week with Middle Schoolers (adaptable for elementary students)

September 17, 2011: Constitution Day

Constitution Day and Freedom Week are here! Constitution Day commemorates the signing of the September 17, 1787 signing of the United States Constitution. The purpose of Freedom Week is to educate students about the sacrifices made for freedom in the founding of our country and the values on which it was founded. There are many excellent online resources to support learning about this document. Here are just a few:

Try SMART Exchange Search: Constitution  or...

• BrainPop: Constitution
• Constitution Day Wiki
• Congress for Kids: Constitution
• Infographic: 10 Minute Guide to the Constitution
• Road Map to the Constitution
• Scholastic Constitution Resources
• School House Rock Preamble (linked at top)
• White House Kids: Constitution

Digital Communicators: Wednesday Morning Elective Class

We will be creating and publishing digital images, stories and informational writing across the year using a variety of technology tools.  Our individual and collaborative products will be published online in an anthology format full of informative articles, creative images, and fiction writing. We will use tools such as Storybird, Zooburst, and and Wikispaces, to name just a few. Student investigators will also interview, survey, and take photographs to gather facts about happenings around our school, and publish articles on our class site to share with our school community. We will also focus on meeting project deadlines, giving/receiving feedback on our work, choosing graphics for message impact, and digital citizenship.