1. Our focus skill this week in both reading and writing was possessive nouns. In the past this has always been a challenge to teach and not something that I looked forward to. This year, however, was very different. Not only was it a lot of fun to teach, but my students all quickly and easily caught on to how to use apostrophes to make nouns plural. I firmly believe that this was mainly due to the WBT way of introducing possessive nouns: splitters and jammers.
A splitter is the WBT name for an apostrophe "s" that is used with a singular noun or an irregular plural noun, such as children. I explained to the class that the splitter (the apostrophe) splits the owner from the "s". I called the "s" the "badge of ownership" and used the gesture of pointing a thumb on each hand to the front of my shirt. I would box the noun to show the owner and then talk about how the splitter split the owner and the badge of ownership. During writing we played the complexor Game. (More information on the Complexor game can be found in other blog posts or on the WBT website under free downloads/The Writing Game.)This gave students many opportunities to orally write sentences with apostrophe s's. They then wrote the sentences that they had created in their writing notebooks.
A jammer is an apostrophe that follows a plural noun which ends in "s". I explained to my students that the jammer jams the "s" into the noun, making it plural. The jammer becomes the "badge of ownership". The concept of the "badge of ownership really helped my kids to remember to write the apostrophe after the "s". The kids simply learned that there is always an apostrophe after a jammer, because that is how you show ownership. We also played the Complexor game with plural possessives and wrote the sentences created in our writing notebooks.
After studying splitters and jammers separately, we combined them together and students had to determine when to use a splitter and when to use a jammer. This is what the board looked like for that lesson:
You will notice the apostrophe Brainie at the top of the board. We obviously focused on this Brainie for the entire week. Under that you will see two anchor charts that I created, one for singular possessives and one for plural possessives. On the day of this lesson I added the list of owners and possessions, as well as the sentence frames. Using Teach Okay and High Five Switch, students took turns sharing with their partners whether or not the owner was singular or plural and whether they needed to use a splitter or a jammer. They then had to create a sentence using the owner and the possession, in which they used the apostrophe Brainie. After students had time to work on this with their partners, they shared with the class using High Five Teach. I was amazed at how well they had caught on. Even my lowest students were able to explain when to use a splitter and when to use a jammer. I will never teach possessive nouns any other way,
2. Our phonics skill for the week was creating plurals with nouns that end in "s". In the past I have always taught this in the form of a year. This fit perfectly with WBT. Students still learned the cheer, but they learned it using Mirror Words and Practiced it using Teach Okay. We call it the "Five Finger Rule" cheer. The cheer goes like this: If a word ends in s, x, z, sh, ch (hold up one finger for each), you gotta (bend left arm in front of chest with had in a fist.) add (Do the same with right arm.) "es" (Very slightly raise fists on both hands.), yes! (Jump in the air and bring bent arms out straight.) The kids have so much fun doing this cheer, and by the end of the week everyone knows when to use an "es" to make a word plural.
3. We did two Genius Ladders last week that were both very challenging, but the students did a great job on them. They both focused on possessive nouns, but on one there was an apostrophe "s", and on the other there was an "s" apostrophe. On both I included a dependent clause telling when. This is our newest extender. We have been working on it for about three weeks. Both ladders were very challenging. The sentences were quite long and there were a lot of Brainies in them, but the kids did a great job! I was very proud of them.
4. For red/green writing I asked the students to write a five paragraph essay on what they did over spring break. I am happy to report that fifteen out of my seventeen students can now successfully write a five paragraph essay. My biggest celebration is that one of my two lowest students, a special ed. child who began the year as a non-reader, was able to write for the very first time (with a little assistance) his very first five paragraph essay. The class celebrated with him as he earned a Super Improver Star. I also had a number of students use possessive nouns correctly in their writing. They were all quick to point this out to me, because they were all looking for a Super Improver Star. I am happy to say that they each earned one.
5. This week I introduced students to the Brain Tree. If you are unfamiliar with the Brain Tree, that is because it is the newest WBT technique, hot off the presses just a few weeks ago. The concept is simple. Students score themselves from a 1-5 on different WBT techniques that they are using in the classroom. An analogy is made to an Oak tree. A one is an acorn, all the way up to a five, which is a mighty towering oak tree with many acorns. Points are considered leaves, and each week scores are added together to get a total number of leaves for the week. The goal is for students to beat their previous week's score. At our school we are having a little friendly competition among participating classes. Everyone who is doing the Brain Tree has placed one on their door, with their scores. This will allow other classes to see these scores and try to beat them.
This was our first week using the Brain Tree, so I wasn't sure how my students would respond to it or how they would do with scoring themselves. I was very pleasantly surprised. They caught on to the concept very quickly, and when it came time to give themselves a score, I was amazed at how honest and accurate they were. The Brain Tree is definitely a great tool to motivate students. I am excited to see how they progress each week. They have set a goal for themselves to have a perfect score (a five in each area) by the end of the year. That sounds like teacher heaven to me. We'll see how it goes.
If you are interested in using the Brain Tree in your room, I have inserted a link with directions and the chart. I blew my chart up using the poster maker and added pictures of the five different stages in an Oak Tree's development. Here is the link:
6. One of my students came up with an idea that we tried, and it has really worked well. Whenever I ask my students to share with each other using either High Five Teach or Uh/Oh Switch, the student who is sharing stands. This works really well when the students are at their seats, but when they are seated on the floor in the meeting area, I have told my students not to stand. One day during the week we were in the meeting area about to use High Five Teach, when one of my students raised her hand and suggested that the student sharing do so while on his/her knees. I wasn't sure how this would work, but I said that we would give it a try. It has been great. The students love it, and it allows them to move a little, even if it is just a change of position, while they are on the floor.
7. We have been working really hard in reading on two things: paraphrasing and remembering detail adders. I have spoken to my students about the need to stick the detail adders in their minds and have used the analogy of velcro to help students get that visual image. We have also talked about the importance of sticking the first and the last detail adder because if we do that, the ones in the middle are easier for our brains to remember. This lends itself to paraphrasing because if students are able to stick the details in their brains, they will easily be able to paraphrase what they are reading. We have been practicing this in reading groups, but I decided to see how it would work as part of the Crazy Professor Game. (This is another WBT game that can be found on the WBT website under free downloads.) I gave students a fiction passage entitled The Difficult Assignment. We read the first paragraph using Mirror Words. I then asked the students to read the paragraph on their own using their Brainies and their gestures, but I also gave them the goal of making sure that they stuck the first and the last detail adders in their minds, to help them with the middle ones. We even started calling this a detail adder sandwich. Students then used Uh Oh Switch to paraphrase that first paragraph with their partners. We repeated this process with each paragraph. I am happy to report that even my lowest students were able to paraphrase. Next time we are going to try this with a non-fiction text.
So, there you have it. Those are the highlights of the week. I hope that the ideas and experiences that I have shared in this blog will inspire you. Here's to more week's just like this one!
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