Dear Educator Friends,
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you do for your students and school community!
This month, we want to help you finish strong with ideas for helping your students solidify skills, strategies, and concepts in fun, thought-provoking ways. We hope you can use these activities to wrap up a great year and keep your students learning over the summer!
Happy Teaching!
Kelly and Randi
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Summer Writing Ideas
1. Start a Summer Blog
Have students respond to and write blog posts. This could also be a social media page (Facebook) where students can respond to posts and keep in touch with their teacher or school.
2. Summer Writing Contest
Have students write and submit summer poems with illustrations.
3. Post Card Collection
Have students mail a post card from their summer vacation to the school with a short description of where they are. Have the post cards posted on a bulletin board when students arrive at the beginning of the year.
4. School Trip Advisor
Have students write reviews of the places they are visiting this summer. It can be restaurants, hotels, parks, etc.
5. Favorite Things Log
Have students keep a favorite things log through the summer. Check in biweekly to see what students are adding to their list. At the beginning of the school year, have students look over their list. This can also be the student's "writing ideas" list to start off the school year!
6. Virtual Writing Forum
Each week host a virtual writing club through a Skype or Zoom platform. Each meeting can have a different theme such as poetry, script writing, comics, or podcasts. Have students brainstorm together ideas to write about and then have them share their writing the following week.
Summer Readers Theater Club
Getting Started
Invite students to come for a summer morning or evening each month (or every other week) to participate in a reader's theater club.
1. Provide students with several choices of scripts to choose from. Do a short book talk or advertisement for each script. Then have students vote on their favorite option. (You can have several groups going off of different scripts or everyone using the same script).
2. Give students time to practice (reread) with their groups. Encourage students to use body movements, facial expressions, and tone instead of props.
3. Showtime! Have students perform for their peers, parents, and the community.
4. Challenge students to write a few comprehension questions to ask the audience after their performance. (Have these questions ready BEFORE performance day).
5. Change out the scripts each week or biweekly. Also, do not be afraid to change it up and use poems or songs.
6. Another FUN option is to have Summer Drama Writing Club. Have students write their own scripts and cast peers to perform in their plays. They are playwrights in the making!
Benefits
This is a great opportunity to combat that summer reading loss that we see every fall. Dr. Chase Young piloted reader's theater in his second grade class room and his findings were astonishing. Dr. Chase found that leading 10 weeks of reader's theater for 10-15 minutes per day gave his students 1.3 years of fluency and comprehension gains!
For FREE scripts, visit our favorite RT website.
Mrs. Taplin's Math Blog
A few weeks ago I spent the day with a group of secondary leaders, including Mrs. Ashley Taplin, a district math specialist from San Antonio, TX. She has a passion for creating and coaching student-centered math classrooms where students take ownership of their learning.
During our classroom visits, we noticed that when students were given learning targets at the analysis level or above, classroom engagement was up to 100%. Together we explored ways to lift the retrieval and comprehension targets up to the analysis level, especially in math classrooms. She's written about the day in her latest blog. I think you'll love her insight and the ideas she shares in her monthly blog. Be sure to visit Mrs. Taplin's Math Blog!
Reading, Writing, & Rigor: Starting the Year with a Literacy Rich Classroom
June 24 & 25, 2019 / 8:30am to 3:30pm
Two-Day Event
San Antonio, TX
K-6
Wanting to start the year off with a balanced literacy approach? Want to implement rigorous instruction from day one? Join Kelly Harmon & Randi Anderson in San Antonio, TX for a two-day event focused on balanced literacy instruction in grades K-8. Explore class routines, schedules, homework assignments, genre mapping, and much more! This seminar will give you an overview of an entire year of intentional planning to create engaging instruction. Discuss comprehension strategies, literature circles, guided reading, writer's workshops, fluency strategies, word work activities, and assessment ideas. This seminar is great for new and expert teachers alike! Seats are limited, register today. For more information, visit the official flyer.
Guided Math: Setting the Stage for Success
June 26 & 27, 2019
Two-Day eventSan Antonio, TX
K-6
In this interactive training Kelly Harmon will share a variety of Guided Math strategies, techniques, and ideas for addressing all students' math needs. Walk away with resources and ideas for strengthening your math instruction immediately! You will learn the best research-based instructional strategies to help your students develop conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, mathematical fluency, as well as how to help them transfer those skills to math problem solving. Also discuss the math time block and how to incorporate writing into your daily math instruction. Seats are limited, register today! For more information, visit the official flyer.
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Writing Transformed! July 15, 2019 / 9am to 11am ONLINE Looking for ways to motivate and transform the writers in your classroom this coming year? Join Randi Anderson for a 2 hour seminar packed with ideas for engaging students in authentic writing activities. Learn about the power of discussions and daily quick writes, learn how to use Youtube to spark interests, and so much more! This seminar will be get you excited about teaching writing in new ways. Register today, space is limited. | Digging Deeper into Revising & Editing July 15, 2019 / 1pm to 3pm ONLINE Think revising and editing is boring to learn and to teach? Join Randi Anderson for a 2 hour seminar that will transform how you view, and in turn how you teach, revising and editing skills. Walk away with quick and easy strategies for making grammar and mechanics stick. Use real life examples in your instruction that will scaffold students to success. | Building Proficient Readers K-8 July 16, 2019 / 9am to 11am Online K-8 Proficient readers are readers who use comprehension strategies with automaticity. Explore ways to start your students' year by using critical metacognitive reading strategies. Discuss ways to model proficient reading for your students with read alouds, responses to texts, and building genre knowledge. Walk away with ideas for planning rigorous and intentional instruction during your reading block. |
Writing Transformed!
ONLINE
Looking for ways to motivate and transform the writers in your classroom this coming year? Join Randi Anderson for a 2 hour seminar packed with ideas for engaging students in authentic writing activities. Learn about the power of discussions and daily quick writes, learn how to use Youtube to spark interests, and so much more! This seminar will be get you excited about teaching writing in new ways. Register today, space is limited.
Digging Deeper into Revising & Editing
ONLINE
Think revising and editing is boring to learn and to teach? Join Randi Anderson for a 2 hour seminar that will transform how you view, and in turn how you teach, revising and editing skills. Walk away with quick and easy strategies for making grammar and mechanics stick. Use real life examples in your instruction that will scaffold students to success.
Building Proficient Readers K-8
Online
K-8
Proficient readers are readers who use comprehension strategies with automaticity. Explore ways to start your students' year by using critical metacognitive reading strategies. Discuss ways to model proficient reading for your students with read alouds, responses to texts, and building genre knowledge. Walk away with ideas for planning rigorous and intentional instruction during your reading block.
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Guided Reading From the Start K-4 July 16, 2019 / 1pm to 3pm ONLINE K-4 Set the stage for success by implementing guided reading in your classroom. Build confident and proficient readers through the use of guided reading. See how to structure groups, incorporate fluency, build lessons that focus on comprehension, and much more! Also, see videos of actual guided reading groups in action. | Supporting Language & Literacy PK-2 July 18, 2019 / 9am to 11am ONLINE Scaffold the youngest learners through intentional activities and strategies that promote language development and early literacy skills. Learn how to cultivate a culture of thriving readers in your classroom. In this 2 hour seminar, discuss ideas for using music, movement, and modeling to scaffold your youngest learners to reading proficiency. In addition, see vocabulary building strategies to help our ESL learners. Bring strategies to life through modeling and singing every day! | From Good to Great: Literacy Centers July 18, 2019/ 1pm to 3pm CST ONLINE In this 2 hour seminar, participants will explore literacy centers that are focused on students getting intentional practice opportunities that will allow them to become proficient readers & writers. We will show you how to reduce prep time while increasing your students' achievement. Kelly Harmon will share examples and resources that will help you plan for meaningful literacy centers in the new school year. Also learn how to incorporate fluency practice in authentic ways. |
Guided Reading From the Start K-4
ONLINE
K-4
Set the stage for success by implementing guided reading in your classroom. Build confident and proficient readers through the use of guided reading. See how to structure groups, incorporate fluency, build lessons that focus on comprehension, and much more! Also, see videos of actual guided reading groups in action.
Supporting Language & Literacy PK-2
ONLINE
Scaffold the youngest learners through intentional activities and strategies that promote language development and early literacy skills. Learn how to cultivate a culture of thriving readers in your classroom. In this 2 hour seminar, discuss ideas for using music, movement, and modeling to scaffold your youngest learners to reading proficiency. In addition, see vocabulary building strategies to help our ESL learners. Bring strategies to life through modeling and singing every day!
From Good to Great: Literacy Centers
ONLINE
In this 2 hour seminar, participants will explore literacy centers that are focused on students getting intentional practice opportunities that will allow them to become proficient readers & writers. We will show you how to reduce prep time while increasing your students' achievement. Kelly Harmon will share examples and resources that will help you plan for meaningful literacy centers in the new school year. Also learn how to incorporate fluency practice in authentic ways.
Guided Math
July 17, 2019 / 9am to 12pm
ONLINE
K-6
In this interactive virtual seminar, Kelly Harmon will share a variety of Guided Math activities and ideas to promote problem solving during your small groups. Gain ideas for how to use word problems and manipulatives and discover how to group students effectively. Spark engagement in your math groups by using real world problems, photos, and videos!
Engage with Math Games!
July 17, 2019 / 1pm to 3pm
ONLINE
K-6
Ignite a passion for math through the use of games in your daily math instruction! In this 2 hour seminar, Kelly Harmon will share ideas for creating and using math games that your students will love. Discuss how games can be used for guided practice and math centers. See real classroom pictures of the use of games and how they move students to mastery. These games will help build their numeracy skills and conceptual knowledge.
