Wednesday DEN Report

Happy Wednesday and welcome to the (almost) weekly DEN Report. For more information about what DEN is, click here for all my posts about Discovery Education.

Last week was CRAZY! Monday we dealt with the time change and sleepy, grouchy kindergarteners. Tuesday we had a field trip to Dauphin Island Sea Lab, which was fabulous, but you know how field trips stir them up. Not to mention it was my birthday and our classmate Annabelle's birthday! Wednesday our grade level had peer-to-peer meetings all day so there was a sub in my room AND it was picture day. Thursday we got 12 new iPads and the kids were so excited they "could not see straight". Friday we spent the entire morning making oceans and figuring out how to use QR codes. Needless to say I was so happy to see Monday get here knowing we would have a much more normal week this week – well as normal as it can be with my sweet kiddos!

 Our class on the beach at Dauphin Island - It was grey and cloudy but the rain stayed inland so we could play on the beach!

The Birthday Girls!

She told me all she wanted to do on her birthday was make a sandcastle so of course we sat right down and made the best dry sandcastle EVER!

I was so excited for Monday because we were starting a Discovery Education model lesson this week! This is the third DE model lesson I have done with my Kindergarteners and I love them. The DE model lessons are located in the Steaming Plus sections on Discovery Education. In this section you search by grade, ELA or Math, and then a specific common core strand. You can just keep “drilling” down until you find the standard you are looking for. ***Warning*** Not all standards have model lessons! In Kindergarten (ELA standards) there are six lessons that cover a variety of standards. However, all standards will have an explore tab with links to DE resources. You can also use the search function to find the model lessons by filtering down from your topic and grade level range to “media type”, “teach” and “lesson plan”.  

In October we did a lesson about opinion writing using the book Where the Wild Things Are and episodes of Reading Rainbow. As our ending project we wrote our own book reviews. Then in February we did another lesson using the poem “My Shadow”. In this lesson we talked about author’s craft and the science behind shadows. This week we are doing a lesson called “Imagination: It’s All in Your Head” with the book, Louis the Fish (we are doing our sea life unit right now). We are starting this lesson today. In the lesson, we will discuss what is an imagination, how author’s word choice helps us use our imagination, and use our imagination to write opinion papers about what animal we would like to turn into. I plan to post more notes about the actual lesson and some pictures on my Five for Friday blog post so be sure to check back then!

What I love about these lessons is how organized everything is on the lesson plan page. You have all of your standards that are being met (and there are a lot!!), you have a lesson summary and then you have the lessons. It breaks the lessons down into sessions (this week there are 3 sessions). These lessons have also helped me see new and exciting ways to utilize DE resources other than just playing videos! I now make sure that when searching a topic, I drill down under “K-2”, “media type” and “teach” to see if there is a model lesson to go with my topic. Even if the lesson is for 1^st or 2^nd grade, they are easily adaptable to Kindergarten without too much work!

I really encourage any DE member to take the time to search for these model lessons. I would love to hear if you have used model lessons from DE or if you have questions, please let me know. I would be happy to try and help!!

Wednesday Wild Things!

 HAPPY HUMP DAY!!! I LOVE that silly commercial!

It is Wednesday and I have been looking over my plans for next week. I am a little nervous because I am going to try to teach my kiddos about book reviews and how to write them. Luckily I have a lot of help from one of my favorite teacher tools, Discovery Education!



If you don't know about Discovery Education (DE), stop reading and go look at this site right now! Then come right back and continue reading :)! This is a subscription site paid for by our county school system and is an amazing resource. As part of my county's Digital Renaissance Leadership Team, I have been able to attend a lot of different workshops on how to use DE effectively in my classroom. At the last workshop I attended, we where shown different model lessons that have been created to align with common core and to integrate technology across the curriculum. You can find these lessons by looking under the Streaming Plus icon on your home screen and then search by grade level, subject, strand, cluster, standard. Not all standards have a model lesson. There are four model lessons in Kindergarten ELA though and they cover most of the ELA standards. 


Next week I am teaching Wild Things! During this week, we do a lot of work with the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. After 10 years of teaching this unit, I was ready for a change. This summer I started by looking on my favorite idea spot, Pinterest! (My Kindergarten Creepy & Spooky board is here.) I found a cute directed art activity and then when I found the model lesson on DE to go with the book, my week was practically planned for me! Here are the things that I have planned for next week.

Idea from ElementaryArtist (picture links to their lesson)

Monday: Book Introduction, Using Details in Writing and Illustrations to tell a story
We will read the book Where the Wild Things Are. We will discuss the characters in the story and talk about how each wild thing is different. We will talk about how illustrators use details from the story to add details to their illustrations. We will take a look at all the details used to create the different wild things. We will create our own wild thing using directed art for the main body parts and then each student will be allowed to go back and add their own details. We will use crayons to draw and water colors to paint our wild things.

Tuesday:(DE Lesson) Finding Your Voice: Sharing Opinions about Books - Part 1
First we will vote on what is better: hot dogs or hamburgers. We will use this vote to discuss what an opinion is and how someone's opinion is not right or wrong. We will then vote on if we like fiction books or non fiction books best. This time I will get some of them to tell my why they chose to vote the way they did. Next we will review the book Where the Wild Things Are. We will make a graph of who likes/dislikes the book. I will ask them what they did and did not like about the book. We will then view a video of the story  Where the Wild Things Are from DE. I will tell them to think of the reasons they like or dislike the story. After summarizing the story again, we will watch the video once more as I stop and ask questions about what is going on in the story. This way the students can really focus on the different parts and details of the story so when they write their book review later in the week, they can give good reasons for liking/disliking the story. We will wrap up with some of the students giving me their opinions of the story - hopefully adding more details in their reasoning.

Wednesday: Writing to a Prompt & How to Write a Book Review (2 different lessons/meetings)
We will use our story telling pieces to retell Where the Wild Things Are. We will then write to finish the the sentence..."When I feel Wild, I..."
Later more students will share their opinions of the story. I will introduce them to a book review. We will read and discuss a book review for Where the Wild Things Are. Next we will watch and discuss book reviews (from Reading Rainbow) of Where the Wild Things Are and two other books.

Thursday: Writing a Book Review
First we will review what a book review is and what it contains. We will review some of the books we have read recently. Students will be able to choose which book they want to review. (Here is my book review form.) The student will copy the title of the book onto their paper. Then they will write if they like or dislike the book. ("I like this book." "I do not like this book.") Then they will draw an illustration showing why they like or dislike the book and write a sentence (as best they can) describing their picture. Students will then work in small groups to video each other giving their book reviews using IPads.

Friday: Speaking and Listening - Sharing Our Book Reviews
Students will either share their book review in person or use the videos they prepared the previous day.

So these are my PLANS for next week. However, as you all know, with Kindergarten (or any group of kids) things may or may not go as planned. Fingers crossed for success. I know they will love doing this all the time if we can get the procedure down!

Have any of you tried doing book reviews with your kids? Any tips????