Special Student Services

Citing Textual Evidence

Some of the Common Core ELA standards require students to "cite strong textual evidence". Just a reminder that graphics/pictures that have text connected can be used to "cite textual evidence". So a student can "cite textual evidence" by selecting a picture (be sure there is "text" with the picture). Here is a possible activity from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that may allow students to cite textual evidence and address portions of the following standards:

ELACC.11-12.RL.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

Download Textual evidence

After the student reads the adapted version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, they can complete activties such as this one to "cite evidence from the text"

Posted at 03:05 PM | Permalink

Supports/ideas for The Very Hungry Caterpillar

If you are a Georgia teacher you can request a CD from the DOE with an adapted book and support materials for The Very Hungry Caterpillar which is appropriate for grades K-2. There are a lot of fun activities that support this book. HEre are a few that were shared by teachers:

**we are using "dot letters" (i found them here http://totschool.shannons.org/?p=2112 ) and doing their names, then turning each letter into a caterpillar.

**Since many of our students can't make handprints, we used paint on their toes - the big toe was red and the rest green to make a caterpillar.

If you are not familiar with Pinterest, you might want to check it out for educational ideas. Type Hungry Caterpillar in the search box and you'll find hundreds of fun ideas for art, food, writing, etc. to support this book. www.pinterest.com

Posted at 09:05 AM | Permalink

Top Ten Mistakes in Planning for GAA

The GAA (Georgia Alternate Assessment) materials for Cobb County Schools have been moved to the Blackboard environment. However, we will continue to post materials that are appropriate for teachers in other systems on this blog. The attached powerpoint has a collection of the Top 10 Mistakes teachers make in doing GAA. If you are new to GAA or struggling with your plans, this may be a good place to start the planning process.

Download Top 10 mistakes in GAA

Posted at 11:14 AM in Classroom Materials, Resources, Visual Supports | Permalink

Back to School Again

These are items formerly posted for Back to School -

http://pickettsmill.typepad.com/pritchard/2011/08/back-to-school-revisited.html

Posted at 02:20 PM | Permalink

Summer vacation - planning for next year

While it's summer vacation for students, teachers are always planning ahead and looking for ideas to make next year a more engaging year for their students. Here are a few sites that have free ideas and materials that can give you materials, ideas and sometimes free tools for creating materials. I'm not endorsing any of these sites or companies - just offering some options for you to investigate. Each teacher has to judge the appropriateness of the material for their students and their curriculum needs. Cobb County teachers will receive an updated curriculum guide in August that will incorporate the new Common Core GPS for ELA & Math. In the meantime, enjoy these sites. I'm building a list of additional resources for teachers. If you have favorites you'd like to share, please complete this form and return to juanita.pritchard@cobbk12.org

www.teacherplanet.com You can sign up for newsletter updates. They offer Lesson Plans, Thematic Units, Worksheets & Printables, Teacher tools: some freebies, reference tools, calendar maker, puzzle makers. Some have a fee or subscription but most are free.

www.teacherspayteachers.com

Materials made by teachers for really low prices. You can sign up for 10 free downloads a week to try the materials. A great cheap way to find out what gen ed teachers are doing. Lots of common core material now too.

Discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/index.cfm

Can browse by grade level or subject area or search particular topics.

www.learningexpress.com

Sign up for the free newsletter which will include a complimentary thematic unit each week along with extra activities such as work search, mazes, crossword puzzles & more. Some of the activities are free and some require a subscription, but there are enough free to make it worth investigating.

Posted at 10:49 AM in Classroom Materials, Resources | Permalink

Template for teaching character, plot and setting.

This powerpoint was shared by Erika Greene from Clark County GA.

She created a power point using the materials on the DOE resource board related to Alice & Wonderland to teach about characters, plot, and setting. Here is her description:

"There are three books, all in one power point. You could easily delete all the Alice stuff and add new pictures from a different story."

This is a great idea and her powerpoint does make a wonderful template for any literature you may wish to study in your classroom. Thanks Erika.

Download Parts of a Story rev

Posted at 08:43 AM | Permalink

New web links

The following links have been passsed on by teachers -

This one is a science site - lots of interactive things and powerpoints - be careful though - it's a UK site and the vocabulary and math are often different - still some good things to check out

http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/staff/boldtkatherine/ScienceFun_K-3.htm

Worksheet website - specifically good maps for GAA level students: This site is free right now but will soon have a subscription - look at it and save your resources now.
http://www.worksheetworks.com/

Free site right now - in BETA - will have fee soon - check it out now while it's free:

http://www.helpkidzlearn.com/

Another site for Frozen Waters or biomes (tundra) : http://beyondpenguins.ehe.osu.edu/stories-for-students#dinosaurs Has different reading levels

Posted at 11:32 AM in Classroom Materials, Language Arts, Math, Resources, Science, Social Studies | Permalink

More Hands-On Science Ideas

These links were shared on Pinterest - if you haven't discovered this site yet, you may want to check it out. Many educational ideas shared - as well as recipes, fashion, etc. Select Browse Education or search particular topics. www.pinterest.com

http://fumblingthroughparenthood.blogspot.com/2011/07/space-lapbook-making-it.html

The direct link to this activity was lost - but it was located on pinterest and this seemed like a great activity to do with our students. I've also seen this done with oreo cookies.

Desert Biomes: http://www.2teachingmommies.com/search/label/Desert

A nice interactive site for smartboard science activities: Thanks to Sandra Powell for sharing this site.

http://www.plattscsd.org/oak/smartboard/sciencealpha.htm

Another one for Layers of the Earth - Good hands-on activity!

http://www.meetthedubiens.com/2011/04/playdoh-planet-earth-and-some-babbling.html

Posted at 08:57 AM in Science | Permalink

Christmas/Holiday Goodies

As the Holiday season fast approaches, there are many sites and activities to involve our students in reading, writing, math, science and social studies activities as they learn about or create holiday fun. Today teachers are expected to tie holiday activities to standards and academics - gone are the days where December was a month of fun arts & crafts activties.

I am posting a few items to help you incorporate the holiday fun into your academic day. If you have holiday activities that you would like to share please send them to me.

Note - all photos used in powerpoints or other teacher created materials have to be credited for copyright - goolge images on items taken from websites that may or may not allow their images to be used on a public site - some of those images are copyright protected.

Created by Diana Aviles

Download Applesauce%20&%20Spice%20Christmas%20Ornament%20Dough[1]

Don't forget these other links on this blog for ideas:

http://pickettsmill.typepad.com/pritchard/2008/12/winter-holiday-goodies-in-boardmaker.html

http://pickettsmill.typepad.com/pritchard/2009/01/winter-fun.html

HS standard of traditions in Canada & US

Other links to activities: Please be age respectful

Bah-Humbug - winter celebrations around the world

Teacher Planet Has many links to lesson plans related to December, winter, holidays and many other subjects Here are a few: December (includes holidays) Winter

This site has integrated lessons for the holidays that include all content areas at a variety of grade levels:Hot Chalk Lesson Plans

A math site with holiday activities - some are higher level, but many are adaptable: Math Wire

Teacher Vision also has quite a number of links to holiday activities.

Posted at 08:39 AM | Permalink

Thematic Unit Links

Here is a link that has some good ideas and resources for Thematic Units. Integrated Unit Instruction is a research based approach to learning that allows teachers to integrate instructional standards, functional skills, and IEP goals/objectives into meaningful units of instruction instead of isolated skill activities.