Ease on Down, Ease on Down the Road....

Well, I survived the Unit 1 Extended Text "The Wizard of Oz," part of the Common Core curriculum implemented this year. It was a bit daunting, but we are easing down the road to new things. It is funny how what is old is new again. My Blog Post Title is from a song in "The Whiz" a Quincy Jones led adaption of the Wizard of Oz that starred Diana Ross and the late Michael Jackson. I am getting ready to ease on down the road to a new text for the second half of the 1st nine weeks.

We are now reading "Me on the Map," and why I say what is old is new again is because this same story was actually in an older basal series that we used when I first started teaching. Now we are examining this text again! All the teachers at my school are wishing we could put our hands on those old basal readers now! This text is great to connect our geography lessons and expand our journal writing opportunities. I have also found some great unit activities online from other blogs and am looking at how I can incorporate Google Maps to explore the locations we will cover.

Talking about Google Maps leads me to a few techno kicks I am enjoying this year. I know I may be a little behind the curve, but in case I am not alone, I just want to tell you how GREAT planbook.com is. It is really changing the way I create my lesson plans. I also love parental involvement and keeping in contact with my school families and Remind101.com is a great new way to do that. I have to thank fellow teachers at my school for spreading the word about these two great sites.

I am looking forward to studying "Me on the Map," and getting students to expand their view of where they live. We will combine journal writing, foldables, and even a mobile to deepen our understanding.

I am also very grateful for another nifty gadget I was awarded as teacher of the year last year. It is called Quiz Whiz, and is an electronic game that you can customize with your own 10 questions and answer choices. I am going to use it to help with my grammar instruction. This week I will use it as part of my lesson on plural nouns. I got mine free, but I have seen them retail for about $45-$50. I am very excited to begin using it and it is very user friendly. I used clip art pictures to represent either single or plural nouns and then wrote the choices with either the (s) or no s. The slots on the game are about the size of an business card, so I used my Avery blank business cards for the game questions and answers. I am sure my first graders are going to be very excited to try this out. Right now I plan to use it once a week for grammar, because that is often a subject that needs as much diversified practice as possible.