Wildcat Times
January 31, 2015
Volume 2, Issue 5
Elementary Newsletter
Featured Teacher
Special points of interest:

Sharon Morgan wins
Featured Teacher
Award

Literacy Strategies

Number Talks
Inside this issue:
Number Talks
2
Writing Corner
2
Non-fiction for K-2
3
Digital Literature Circles
3
Science & Social Studies
4
Fractions
4
This month’s Featured Teacher is Sharon Morgan, first grade
teacher at Piedmont Elementary. Ms. Morgan has been in education
for seventeen years and is a graduate of Oklahoma Christian
University. She is also a National Board
Certified Teacher. Ms. Morgan was
selected as the site Teacher of the Year
for her building and was also chosen as
the District Teacher of the Year. Ms.
Morgan has worked hard to establish
positive relationships in her classroom and create an
atmosphere that fosters collaboration and problem solving
among her students. She differentiates her instruction to meet a variety of learning styles.
Ms. Morgan includes many interactive strategies to engage students in learning experiences.
One of her students explains, “Ms. Morgan helps me do my work, and I like doing tub time
because it is fun and helps me learn.”
Ms. Morgan also serves as a leader for others in her building.
She is a member of the Science Textbook Adoption
Committee. She exhibits a willingness to learn new strategies
and embrace innovative tools to support learning across the
curriculum. Piedmont Elementary School principal, Christy
VonTungeln, states, “Ms.
Morgan is an exceptional
teacher. Each lesson she
plans, read aloud she chooses, and activity she creates is
always with her students' needs in mind. Her classroom is
full of positive energy and interactive learning. The students
inside this classroom feel love, acceptance and success. She
strives to push each child to their own ability level. Ms.
Morgan's love and dedication to her students is evident by all who Ms. Morgan works with students
on their 100th Day of School
know her and have had the privilege to be a part of her teaching.”
projects.
iPad Applications for Pre-Kindergarten
Monkey Pre-school Lunchbox: Students work with shapes, letters, puzzles, counting, colors,
and matching.
Brainzy: Students can learn the basics of the ABCs and numbers alongside a
cast of colorful characters from the land of Knowhere.
Fish School: Work on numbers and counting with the friendly fish.
Monkey Drum: Children beat the drum and the monkey copies the same
pattern.
Number Talks
A Number Talk is a short, ongoing daily
as they are not intended to replace
wants the students to realize are as
routine that provides students with
current curriculum or take up the
obvious as possible . However, Number
meaningful ongoing practice with
majority of the time spent on
Talks inspire each child to engage in their
computation. A Number Talk is a
mathematics. In fact, teachers need to
own sense making process about
powerful tool for helping students
spend only 5 to 15 minutes on Number
numbers and relationships. Variety is
develop computational fluency because
Talks. Number Talks are most effective
important, and all learners should be
the expectation is that they will use
when done every day.
challenged. The possibilities are endless,
number relationships and the structures
of numbers to add, subtract, multiply and
divide. Number Talks should be
structured as short sessions alongside
(but not necessarily directly related to
the ongoing math curriculum. It is
important to keep Number Talks short,
According to Kathy Richardson, the
difference between a lesson and a
number talk is important to consider. In
a lesson, there is usually a particular goal
that the teacher has in mind, and the
teacher sets up the lesson so that
and examples that can be used to begin a
number talk include, but are not limited
to, dot cards, pattern blocks, ten frames,
toothpick cards,
numerals, and
number sentences.
particular relationships that he or she
Writing Corner
Teaching elementary students to write involves a variety of different components.
One component is the organization of information and ideas into a coherent piece
of writing that is developed for a specific
purpose. Often, graphic organizers are
helpful in encouraging students to organize
their thoughts and ideas before they begin
writing. For example, this interactive Webbing Tool provides a free-form graphic
organizer for activities that ask students to
pursue hypertextual thinking and writing.
The tool provides a quick way for students
to trace out options and rearrange connections. Students can use the Webbing Tool
to analyze readings as well as a prewriting
activity and flowcharting tool. Students can
drag the circle or box shapes representing
their ideas to arrange any layout and relationship that they want. Each layer on the
chart will have a different color border for
the shapes that you choose. Customized
versions of the tool, which include additional instructions and more focused choices,
are included with some lessons.
Similarly, the 5Ws Organizer provides a
forum for students to gather key information from their reading before they begin
drafting their responses in written form.
Focusing on the 5Ws (Who, Where, What,
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When, and Why) utilizes a reporting format of a complex topic, helping the student to
to engage students in gathering specific
organize their thoughts in a simple, visual
information from text.
way. The use of color helps make a fishbone map clearer and easier to interpret.
The process of creating fishbone
diagram helps the student focus on the topic, requires the student to review what they
already know in order to organize that
knowledge, and helps the student to monitor their growing comprehension of the
topic. It also helps point out the areas
where the student must investigate more
(where the fishbone is difficult to fill out).
Examples of Fishbones: For example, a fishbone diagram can be used to prepare for a
writing assignment; the student must concentrate on the main topic, list the big ideas
concerning the topic, and think of the attributes/qualities/functions/effects associated with each of these
ideas.
Another graphic organizer that can be a
helpful tool is a fishbone map (sometimes
called a herringbone map). The fishbone
map is a type of graphic organizer that is
used to explore the many aspects or effects
Volume 2, Issue 5
Adventures in Non-Fiction
Engaging students in seeking information
and utilizing text for specific purposes
can support early literacy skills which will
be expanded upon in later grades. These
activities designed for grades K-2
provide a foundation for using
nonfiction resources for developing
and answering questions about
gathered information. Using a wide
variety of nonfiction literature,
students learn to sort and categorize
books to begin the informationgathering process. Then, working with
partners and groups, using pictures and
text, students are guided through the
process of gathering information, asking
clarifying questions, and then enhancing
the information with additional details.
Students complete the lesson by
collaboratively making “Question and
Answer” books for the classroom
library. This is a high-interest foundation
builder for using nonfiction literature in
research as well as for pleasure reading.
The following websites are good
resources for supporting reading skills
with non-fiction text:

National Geographic Explorer for
Kids

National Geographic Kids Magazine

World Almanac for Kids

The Virtual Body

Kratt's Creatures

Ask Kids
Including discussions during and after
read-alouds can encourage students to
learn to "think while reading.” Examples
of questions to ask during discussions
include the following:
What do we know so far?
What did we just learn?
What else do you wonder about this?
Digital Literature Circles
Engaging students in reading across all content areas requires innovative techniques and
strategies. Literature circles are commonly
used to provide students with specific responsibilities as they read a text. However,
the use of digital literature circles can take
this approach to a different level and is an
inviting strategy for students in a one-to-one
technology environment.
Digital literature circles require students to
use digital tools and extend the conversation
beyond the walls of the classroom. Students
are learning and thinking about reading outside as well as inside of school, playing a
variety of roles. Digital literature circles
roles may include: Discussion Manager, Summarizer, Illustrator, Passage Pointer, Connection Maker, among others. One tool that
enhances digital literature circles is Celly, a
social networking tool that can be used for
helping students organize, collaborate, and
discuss books outside of school.
Using their phones, students have the opportunity to participate in a reading group or
book club that lends to everyone participating and conversations where students are
thinking more critically. Previously, only the
same students would participate in each class
and the more introverted students kept to
themselves. In addition, the conversation was
more teacher driven. Now, with Celly, more
students are not only participating, but students are directing the conversations while
the teacher can observe and gently guide
them if needed. Furthermore, deeper discussions or more critical thinking is taking place
where students are talking beyond the text
Page 3
and making real world connections.
English teacher, Jeremy Hyler, explains,
“Celly is also available for for use with any
web browser, too. I also enjoy using Celly as
a way for my students to communicate about
questions with homework. It is completely
private and very user friendly.
When students are using Celly while participating in our digital literature circles, I encourage them to put their job title in their
post they send to their group. Also, I
ask them to use proper sentence structure
and to be grammatically correct in their responses or posts. Because this is a class assignment, I do want them to practice correct
writing skills, even if it is on a mobile device
or a social media service. For this audience,
purpose, and context, I don’t want them
using digital talk like they would on their
social networks or text messages.”
Hyler continues, “Teaching students to read
effectively while they are surrounded by
technology does not have to be difficult.
Challenging, yes, but with effort, student
feedback, and collaboration with other colleagues (all parts of digital literature circles),
we can meet the needs of our students and
welcome them into a wonderful world of
reading while using digital tools responsibly.
As one of my students remarked, ‘digital
literature circles has jobs for everyone and
we are allowed to have choices in what we
read. I like using our own cells to talk about
the book.’ What could be better than this?”
The Chromebook can provide a variety of
ways to extend learning for students, and in
particular, the use of literature circles. Liter-
ature circles can be used in different ways.
One teacher explains how Chromebooks
have taken his use of literature circles to a
whole new level. “I’ve created a simple
shared document that all of the students in a
group can access. (I've used folders to organize that, more on that on another post). The
students complete their assignment in the
digital graphic organizer instead of the reams
and reams of paper I used to use.” He further explains why this change has been so
positive in his classroom. “Before students
would do (or wouldn't do) their jobs and
come back and share. Nobody was terribly
interested in how anybody else did their
jobs. Now everybody cared what picture
somebody else drew. Now everybody already knows what Billy wrote, and wants to
talk a little about it. And if they are that excited about it, they've already had a conversation about it in the comments. They come
back totally excited to share something that
their whole group has already seen. Also,
because their group is going to see what they
type, they do their best work. I've been
amazed at how excited they've gotten over
this activity. I can look at the folder and
know exactly where each group is. When
their group is done, they change the title to
tell me if they're ready or not. This can be
an ongoing use of the Chromebooks. When
students are finished, they look through their
peers' work and leave meaningful comments,
or at least... comments. This is a use of the
Chromebooks that isn't just one neat flashy
activity. This can be something that is done
regularly.”
Wildcat Times
Upcoming Dates
February 19- District Collaboration Afternoon (Early Release)
February 24- 3rd Grade Meeting
Piedmont Public Schools
Elementary Newsletter
Dr. Courtney Lockridge
Curriculum Director
[email protected]
February 24 and 25- 5th and 8th Grade Writing Tests
March 4-Second Grade Meeting/First Grade Meeting
March 5- District Collaboration Afternoon (Early Release)
March 31-Kindergarten Meeting
Social Studies Resource
“Education is the most powerful
weapon which you can use to change
the world.”
Nelson Mandela
Fraction Games
This interactive game helps students
practice working with fractions on a
The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development
to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital
collections in their teaching. For example, there are a variety of resources for
Constitution Day. In addition, Student Discovery Sets bring together historical
artifacts and one-of-a-kind documents on a wide range
of topics, from history to science to literature.
Interactive tools let students zoom in, draw to
highlight details, and conduct open-ended primary
source analysis. Full teaching resources are available
for each set.
number line.
Fraction Bars provide a visual tool for
students to explore a variety of
operations with fractions.
In this interactive game, students
create equivalent fractions by dividing
and shading squares or circles and
matching each fraction to its location
on the number line.
Science Resources
When selecting resources, it is important to consider the standards and learning goals of the lesson, as
well as the type of source and credibility of the information within the source. Below are some sites for
elementary grades which are recommended by North Carolina State University:
Sci4Kids
The science behind agriculture is presented as a series of interactive stories based on research projects
featured in Agricultural Research. Web site also contains photos, graphics, trivia, and classroom
connections.
Electronic Zoo
This "Electronic Zoo" has a vast amount of resources and various links to the study of the animal
kingdom as well the environments in which some they live. For example, the link to whales has lesson
plans developed by both educators and students to be interactive and interdisciplinary.
Carolina Coastal Science
This web site contains a Carolina Coastal Photojournal with QuickTime movies. Students can use this
Web site to explore similarities and differences in the amount of sand, visible waves, and plant cover
between the ocean side and marsh side of the same barrier island, and identify similarities and
differences among the three regions of the Carolina Coast.
For Kids Only- Earth Science Enterprise
This site has many interesting activities for young students to learn about various earth science concepts.
An interactive online coloring book is a unique feature of this web site.
National Geographic Kids
The web site for kids to explore the fascinating world of National Geographic. Interactive games and
explorations make this Web site very engaging for young students.
NASA Observatorium
In addition to many awesome space pictures, this web site contains a variety of interactive games with
space themes which will engage young students.
WhaleNet
This web site has many classroom activities for teachers to use in the classroom for students to learn
about whales and their habitat.