Class Antics – Inside Elementary Education

Reading Comprehension and Writing Nonfiction

Teachers, here are FREE Leap Year worksheets written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy them!

The first one is a reading comprehension worksheet about Leap Year.  It’s a good, basic introduction to the concept of Leap Year that is appropriate for third grade and up.

Next is a writing worksheet about how and why Julius Caesar created Leap Year and rearranged the calendar. To shake things up a little, this worksheet challenges students to write a newspaper article about the event. The article gives “notes” our fictitious reporter took at the press conference—in a handy who, what, where, when, why format.

Stay tuned for Free Leap Year Worksheets Part Two: Leap Year trivia reading comprehension and Leap Year math!

Read the Most from Coast to Coast!

Here is a neat idea for celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2.  Help set a record for Accelerated Reader quiz taking!

Renaissance Learning is sponsoring the program and offering free kits for teachers.  Click here to register your class and claim your planning kit which includes a poster, student bookmarks, and downloadable support materials.  Register by February 14th to ensure that you receive your materials on time. Get event information here.

For extra fun, all participants will be registered for daylong prize drawings.  You could win an iPad, a signed copy of a book from the popular “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series by Jeff Kinney, and more.

Teaching Tips

Get ready!  Have students set goals or make book recommendations to each other.  Check out stacks of books from the school library so kids have plenty to read.  If you teach at a school where students have home libraries, ask kids to bring in books to share.

Prepare for state testing!  If March 2 is near your state testing window, you might want to challenge your students to read NONFICTION on March 2^nd.  It’s excellent preparation for the test and corrects an imbalance since most students tend to read much more fiction than nonfiction.  If all day of nonfiction is too much for your gang, set a timeframe during which your class reads only nonfiction.  The students will get into it.

Make a day of it!  Set up blankets, have snacks, make forts, and read as much as you can!   It doesn’t all have to be silent reading.  The kids can read in pairs.  Parents can read to the class.  You can read to the class.

Fun data analysis!  Use AR’s reports to show your kids how much they accomplished.

> Print up a word count for your students the day before the event and compare it to their word count after the event.
> Compare class points earned before and after the event.
> See how much fiction versus nonfiction you read during the event.
> Break your class into teams on AR and see which team can read the most.
> Use the quizzes taken report to see which books were most popular that day.

An occasional series with sample pages from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

This tip comes straight from my Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!  The section on teaching 2 digit multiplication is very helpful for teachers looking to scaffold learning.  I break long multiplication into 3 sections—multiplying multidigit numbers by 1, 2 or 3 digits.  Within each section, a dozen or more lessons teach the process step by step.

Please use these two FREE sample pages with your class to introduce 2 digit multiplication.  This introductory lesson lets your students learn the Hugs and Kisses method to keep their numbers lined up when they have to put in that place holding O.  (The place holding O is the hug.  You put an X, or kiss, over a number to kiss it goodbye when you are through with it.)

The workbook lets students practice Hugs and Kisses by beginning with multiplying times 11.  This isolates the Hugs and Kisses skill, allowing students to focus on the procedure, not the math.

I wish I’d learned multiplication this way when I was a kid!  I hope this and other lessons from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! help your students.

January 18 is A.A. Milne’s birthday.  Celebrate with Winnie the Pooh Day!  You can adjust your activities to suit your students’ interests and reading levels.  Pooh is not just for little kids!  The books are actually quite challenging—AR levels Winnie-the-Pooh at 4.6. 

Disney has a great Winnie the Pooh site where your class can play games, watch episodes, and print pictures to color.  (Veteran teachers know to NEVER let students print without permission!  Print the pictures yourself ahead of time.)

Print Disney’s downloadable Winnie the Pooh activity book.  It’s excellent for students up to grade 3.

Extend your students’ learning by going beyond Disney’s Winnie the Pooh.  Visit the charming UK site for A.A. Milne.  You can teach your students about the author and delve more deeply into his life and books.  He wrote much more than Winnie the Pooh!  He wrote really charming poems, for instance.  They are excellent for your students to study.

I love “Halfway Down,” Milne’s poem about a place of one’s own.  It comes from his book When We Were Very Young.  http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/miscellaneous/mmilne-halfwaydown.htm   Check out this awesome Muppets video of Kermit’s nephew Robin singing the poem as a song.

Click here for the text of several of A.A. Milne’s poems.  You can use them for reading comprehension, reader’s theater, fluency practice, or just to color and decorate.  Whatever suits your class!

Your students would enjoy listening to you read aloud from the original Winnie-the-Pooh book.  Have fun comparing it to Disney’s movie and TV versions of the story.  Just-Pooh.com has a nice gallery that lets you compare original illustrator Ernest Shephard’s illustrations to the Disneyfied Pooh. 

 Happy Winnie the Pooh Day!

Students love to learn about Martin Luther King, Jr., but his achievements seem inaccessible to them. For kids, Dr. King was a fully-formed civil rights leader who always knew just what to do.

You can inspire children by teaching them about Dr. King’s school days. Then they will understand that he had to face obstacles, study, and learn. Kids feel so powerless sometimes—it’s good to show them that famous people were once children, and that everyone was a beginner at some point.

You and your class would enjoy taking Valerie Strauss’s MLK Quiz: His unorthodox education. Here are some no-context tidbits to get kids interested:

Did you know Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. …

> Was kicked out of school? (Okay, so it was kindergarten, and it was only because he was too young. Got your attention, though!)

> Was called an underachiever by his college professors?

> skipped two grades?

> thought about studying law or medicine?

In my book, Double Switched, the kids in Mr. Hoker’s class pick the subject of  African-American history for a group  project.  Connor and Tyler get their topics switched around when their presentation doesn’t go as planned: Connor talks about his dad’s experiences growing up during the desegregation years in the south, and Tyler talks about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a leader of the civil rights movement.   Their classmates are thoroughly confused about who did what.  I bet you will enjoy the double switch — I certainly could see it happening in a real classroom!

The elementary school librarian has a big job. In addition to managing thousands of books, the librarian teaches hundreds of children everything from how to select books to how to research any topic under the sun.

Instead of just dropping off your students, why not take a minute to help?

When I take my students to library, I facilitate the librarian’s task of checking in books by arranging all the books into several fanned-out piles with the barcodes easily accessible. This way, it’s a snap for the librarian to scan each book. If the librarian lets me, I then load the books onto the re-shelving cart. (Some librarians find it faster to do it themselves than explain their system.)

My students have caught on and take pride in laying out their books so that it’s easy for me to make the little piles.

Incidentally, this trick is also a good way to help another person we meet frequently—the store cashier. When clothes shopping, I even go so far as to fold my clothes after they’re scanned, which helps move the line along and leads to fewer wrinkles later.

There you have it—a teaching and shopping tip in one!

Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle can be a wonderful classroom tool, and it’s something parents can easily make available for their students at home.   The Kindle is so wonderful, in fact, that I can’t do the Kindle justice in just one blog post. Hence the Kids and Kindles series.

Part four: building a classroom Kindle library

1. Browse books by cost: when you browse Kindle children’s books, you can search by age group and cost.  You will find interesting Kindle books for under four dollars.  The Kindle books are offered on special every so often, so you might be able to find a famous title at a super-low price.  Low-cost Kindle books can be a good way to try new and independent authors.
2. Borrow from Amazon:  If you are a member of Amazon Prime, you can borrow many Kindle books for free.  (My books are available to Prime members to borrow for free!)  You join Amazon Prime for $79: the first month is a free trial—it’s an especially good deal because Amazon Prime includes free 2 day delivery and streaming movies and TV shows.  If you just have one or two Kindles in your classroom that you paid for, you can use your account to borrow books for them.
3. Borrow from the library:  Public libraries are now making e-books available for download to your Kindle.  You usually search through your library’s online catalogue, click the link, then follow directions to download to your Kindle.  This is a great way to stock classroom Kindles.
4. Read free books: Kindles let you read public domain books for free.  Through Amazon, you can reach a variety of websites with free classics.  This is excellent for high school students who are required to read these classics.  Many classics are hard for elementary students to read, but Beatrix Potter is accessible.  So are lesser-known books by A. A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh.
5. Read series books:  Series pull kids in because they don’t have to get bogged down in the exposition.  Download Kindle books of classic and new series.  I think the Boxcar Children are due for a renaissance.  They are longer (and a little cheaper) than Junie B. Jones or Magic Tree House, so you get more for your money.  Whatever series you research, be sure to sort by price so you buy the bargain installments first.

Bonus Tip: Don’t forget the Corey Green Kindle books!  I wrote them, so I know they’re good.  Check out the first three books in my Buckley School Books series.  The characters are just like kids in your class, and kids will love the action and comedy.

Corey Green Kindle books fit the tips for stocking your Kindle library: they’re good series books, they’re low-cost Kindle choices, and you can borrow them for free using Amazon Prime.

Zapped!
Kyle creates a fake student named Stan to take the blame for a prank gone wrong.  Kyle and his friends learn that inventing Stan was easy, making him behave is impossible.  Stan takes on a life of his own, getting the kids into more trouble than they ever imagined.

Brainstorm
Brian is very smart—so why do his brainstorms backfire?  His homework help website was supposed to help kids and make Brian cool—but when it becomes famous, everyone is jealous.  Brian tries to distract his classmates with a mystery about a heist at the art museum—but then it turns out the heist is real!  Can the kids stop the robbers?

Double Switched
Connor knows he will be a baseball star—if he can just make it through sixth grade.  But life is so switched around!  Switched team position: now Connor’s not the star shortstop.  Switched class at school: how can Connor do the work if he can’t even read the directions?  Switched baseball field: what is that strange odor over where the workers are smoking?  The bases are loaded with problems for Connor.  Can he find a way to make things right?

Kids and Kindles, an occasional series at the Class Antics blog.

Don’t miss Part 1 about how the Kindle will read any book out loud to you, or Part 2 about how to use the Kindle to teach speed reading.

Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, can be a wonderful classroom tool, and it’s something parents can easily make available for their students at home.  The Kindle is so wonderful, in fact, that I can’t do it justice in just one blog post. Hence the Kids and Kindles series.

Part three: the no-budget Kindle

The Kindle is great for teaching reading, but it’s not cheap.  However, you can download a free Kindle reader to your classroom computer or computer lab workstations.  Then you can let your students use a no-budget Kindle.

Your no-budget Kindle doesn’t have bells and whistles, but it’s enough to get your class started.  You can teach speed reading.  You can motivate reluctant readers to read.  You can get some results and build a case for buying actual Kindles in the classroom.  (Document results, get some students to write testimonials, and submit to administration or charitable organizations that might give you a grant.)

For your no-budget Kindle startup, you’ll mostly stick to free classic books available through Amazon, Internet Archive, Open Library, Project Gutenberg, and other free e-book sites.  (They all have directions on how to download).  If you teach older students, many will be able to read classic stories like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  For younger students, there are still options, like classic Beatrix Potter stories.

If you are lucky enough to have a projector in the classroom, you can teach students about the Kindle app before you turn them loose in the computer lab.  Load a free e-book, then project your screen as you show students how to play with features that enhance readability.

Click on the Aa at the top of your screen to adjust the text display.  You can increase the font size, making any book seem easier.  Adjust the brightness so the background is gray rather than white.

What really helps speed-reading is to decrease the words per line (an option found by clicking the Aa).  This helps because students’ eyes don’t have to travel so far across the screen, so there is less opportunity for the eyes to lose their way, so to speak.  Check out my blog posts on Speed Reading and Kindle Speed Reading for more information.

Click on the blocks to format your Kindle text in columns.  Students will see how the narrow band of text enhances their ability to read quickly—just like in a newspaper.

Click here for Amazon’s free Kindle apps for a multitude of platforms: PC, Mac, iPod, and various smart phones.

Don’t miss Part 1 about how the Kindle will read any book out loud to you, or Part 2 about how to use the Kindle to teach speed reading.

Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, can be a wonderful classroom tool, and it’s something parents can easily make available for their students at home. So wonderful, in fact, that I can’t do the Kindle justice in just one blog post.  Hence the Kids and Kindles series.

Part two: how to use the Kindle to teach speed reading

For a full lesson on speed reading, read my blog entry on the topic.  Here are the Cliffs Notes:

1.  Speed read by tracking with your finger.  Yes, just like you did back in first grade.  Build up speed by sliding your finger more quickly under the text and challenging your eyes and mind to keep up.
2. This helps because it focuses your eye.  Without imposing focus, your eyes will just wander over the page, re-reading, skipping along, and generally wasting time.
3. It also teaches you not to read in your head.  You know how little kids read aloud?  Well, us older folks enunciate the words in our heads.  As you learn to track your finger faster and read faster, you will read much faster than you could talk.  Once you break the reading-aloud-in-your-head habit, you read much faster.

How does Kindle help kids with speed reading?

1.  It focuses the mind.  With the Kindle, you are looking at a single page at a time, not a double-page spread.  It feels like you are cutting your distractions in half.
2. The eye doesn’t have to slide so far.  With a traditional Kindle—the ones that are about 6” wide, the text is a little narrower than in many books.  Your eye doesn’t have to slide so far, and you take in many words at once, naturally scooping them into phrases.  This makes a huge difference in how quickly you read.  Think about a newspaper, and how those 3” columns are built for speed reading.  Your eye takes in several words at once.
3. Kids get a feeling of accomplishment as they click through the pages.  You know how kids who are just learning to read chapter books stop constantly to brag about how many pages they have read or what chapter they’re on?  Kindle brings back that exhilarating feeling of accomplishment.  For some reason, it really is fun to click through pages.  This encourages kids to read faster—faster—faster!  (My advice to you: allow some time for goof-off clicking through pages to let kids get it out of their systems.)
4. You can enlarge the font size.  This addresses many problems facing kids.  For example, a poor child might wait forever for new glasses while you and the school nurse try to secure a pair.  With a Kindle, you can enlarge the font size so the child can read without headaches.  Enlarging the font size also makes any book seem easier.  This can decrease the intimidation factor for struggling readers.  Click here to read comments about Kindle and kids on Amazon—there are some persuasive testimonials.
5. Kindle is new.  Like any skill, you get better at reading—and speed reading—through practice.  Although it’s been around a while, Kindle is still a novelty.  Kids who don’t like to read will want to use the Kindle.  They’ll practice more than they would have otherwise.

Don’t miss Part 1 about how the Kindle will read any book out loud to you.  Important: you don’t get text-to-speech with the cheapest Kindle, the $79 one.  You have to buy a Kindle with audio features.  If you need text-to-speech, get a Kindle Touch or a Kindle Keyboard.

Kids and Kindles, an occasional series at the Class Antics blog.

Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle can be a wonderful classroom tool.  So wonderful, in fact, that I can’t do it justice in just one blog post.  Hence the Kids and Kindles series.

Part one: harnessing the text-to-speech feature

The short version: the Kindle will read any book out loud to you.

The long version:

Kindle parents taught me this tip.  Over and over, parents say that Kindle has not only encouraged children with learning disabilities to read, it has practically taught them to read.  Click to read about how the text-to-speech feature has helped many Kindle users who have learning disabilities!

Important: you don’t get text-to-speech with the cheapest Kindle, the $79 one.  You have to buy a Kindle with audio features.  If you need text-to-speech, get a Kindle Touch or a Kindle Keyboard.

The text-to-speech feature will read any English language content to you.  This is extremely helpful for kids with dyslexia or a learning disability.  The kids can follow along as Kindle reads aloud—or not.  Either way, they are building their vocabulary though exposure to the richer variety of words found on the printed page compared to everyday conversation.

I think the read-along-while-I-read-aloud aspect of the Kindle is really valuable.  It hearkens back to Teddy Ruxpin and his books on tape I loved as a child.

Audiobooks, while higher quality than Kindle’s text-to-speech because they’re read by actors and not machines, are expensive.  If you want to follow along with an audiobook, you have to own the actual book, too.  That can get really expensive.

With Kindle, you can listen to any book read aloud.  The deal is especially great when you consider how many free books are available.  Kindle has an extensive collection of public domain books you can download for free.  Many classics are written at quite a high reading level, so even kids without learning disabilities might like the text-to-speech feature.  How nice for new technology to expose kids to classics like the Oz books, Beatrix Potter’s collection, or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!

I always thought I was a fast reader—until I met my mentor teacher.  She puts me to shame!   I thought it must be some natural talent of hers, not something that I could learn.  True teacher that she is, my mentor wouldn’t let me off so easily.  Speed reading is a skill you can acquire.  My mentor learned it as a child from a teacher who had a speed reading machine.

It was years before I figured out what a speed reading machine was—more on that later.  But that summer, I took a course in speed reading through my local university.  On the first night, we learned to track our reading with our fingers, just like a first grader.  Then we practiced all summer.

And I consider it $350 well spent.

Yes, sliding your finger under the words like a first grader really will make you a faster reader.  Our eyes wander all over the page, slowing down our reading.  We reread sections and don’t even realize it.  Tracking with your finger combats this human frailty.

People tend to vocalize the words we read.  Little kids actually read everything out loud.  Most older kids (and adults) tend to read silently, but we pronounce the words in our heads.  By tracking with your finger, you can move faster than your mind can pronounce the words.  With a little practice, you’ll get to the point where you feel like you’re reading with lightning speed—because you’re flashing past the words, absorbing their meaning but not pronouncing every phoneme.

In addition to just getting faster, there are unexpected uses for speed reading:

• It keeps you focused (and awake).  Speed reading will help you pull an all-nighter.
• It gets you through boring text.  Focus on the skill of speed reading, not the dull text you are required to read.  College kids and those working on master’s programs, take note!

I found an online speed reading machine that teaches you how to focus your eyes.  You can let your students use it individually in the computer lab.  I like to project the online speed reading machine using our classroom computer-projector hookup.  Then the whole class can practice together.  The strong readers pull everyone else along.

You have to input your own text into the online speed reading machine.  Use free books from Project Gutenberg or just pull text from online encyclopedias and articles for kids.  My class and I had the best time doing that.  I let the kids suggest topics for study.  In this manner, we learned about everything from sea turtles to Justin Bieber.  The kids had so much fun learning about a variety of topics that they forgot they were improving their reading fluency.

Want to learn more about speed reading?  Click here for an article about speed reading from the Four Hour Workweek Guy.

I always try to take care of my students’ basic needs: hungry, cold kids can’t learn. Add to that list a wintertime problem—kids with chapped lips can’t concentrate.

I solve this problem with the class Vaseline jar. It’s not gross, I promise! 

 I buy a big jar of Vaseline (or generic petroleum jelly) and Q-tips (or the cheapo knockoffs.) When kids have chapped lips, I supervise them as they dip the Q-tip in the Vaseline. No double dipping allowed!

The students swipe their lips with Vaseline and feel much better. The kids are really grateful for the class Vaseline jar.

…until I pronounce them “all better” and put them back to work!

Many schools have a giant plastic “lunch bucket” for each class. After eating, students place their lunch boxes in the bucket before going outside to play. Two students are charged with transporting the lunch bucket back to class.

It’s not a pretty sight to watch students transport this bucket. They drag it down the halls and scuff up the linoleum. Lunch boxes fall out—and not all are retrieved. For the youngest students, moving the bucket is pretty much an impossible task.

…the lunch bucket system is just okay. Here’s how to make it great!

Get a lunch wagon! Ask your students’ families for a used wagon. You want a classic Red Flyer type wagon. It’s nice and strong and will last for the rest of your teaching career.

I was incredibly fortunate — one of my class families had a wagon, and when I sent out a call, they responded immediately. Then they took generosity to a new level and painted the Lunch Wagon green, in honor of our G3 classsroom brand.  We have an alcove just outside the door to our classroom where the G3 Lunch Wagon lives when it’s not in use.  We use a pretty green vinyl tablecloth to line the Lunch Wagon bed, so it’s always attractive (and easy to clean!).

I hope you and your class like the Lunch Wagon system. The Lunch Wagon is loads of fun and very useful!

Accessing information you’ve already memorized is
as easy as Z-Y-X!

That’s a catchy way to introduce this tip: teach kids to access memorized information by showing them where to look for it, so to speak. All you need is a backwards alphabet and a buddy!

Here are the Z-Y-X steps:

Z: Ask the child to stand right in front of you and recite the alphabet—backwards.

Y: Watch the child’s eyes as he attempts this task. Note where the child looks.

X: Tell the student that when attempting the task, he looked to his top left (or top right, or whatever you noticed.)

For THIS STUDENT, that is where to look when trying to access memorized information. Everyone is different, so you will need to help each student individually or buddy kids up so the buddy can identify where the partner should look for answers.

Got a test coming up? Try it yourself and you’ll know where to find all the answers!

It’s much more effective than staring into space.

Once I developed this tip, my students quickly mastered how to read long numbers.

Take the example 165,247,873

I showed my students that within each comma, the numbers follow the standard hundreds-tens-ones protocol. The comma simply indicates whether you are dealing with millions, thousands or plain old units (the name some people give the hundreds-tens-ones group.)

Each three-digit group can be read as if it were just a hundred. Referring to our example number, you first say “One hundred sixty-five.” The comma signifies millions since you are in the third comma group from the right. Thus, you begin reading the number by saying “one hundred sixty-five MILLION.” (Capital letters added for emphasis—they’re very helpful for students.)

Then, you read the next three-digit group as if it were a hundred: “two hundred forty-seven” and then add the THOUSAND. (I point to the comma as I loudly say “THOUSAND.”

Last, read the last three-digit group as a regular number: “eight hundred seventy-three.”

Thus, your number is “one hundred sixty-five MILLION, two hundred forty-seven THOUSAND, eight hundred seventy-three.”

Once I taught my students this, they understood why each place is important. They had less trouble reading and writing numbers with a zero as a placeholder, such as 207,800. After all, you just read each three-digit group as a regular old hundred: “two hundred seven THOUSAND, eight hundred.”

Ironically, our math book teaches place value only to the ten thousands. I think that’s to save children from that horrifying extra place value that would take them to the hundred thousands. But when I taught to the hundred thousands and even hundred millions using this method, the confusion (for the most part) went away.