"Today in our fifth grade Sunday school class, we used my iPad2 to shoot short finger puppet videos. Two students edited the six episodes into a single, three minute video using iMovie for iPad after class. "
"Humboldt Elementary made time for differentiated instruction and small-group work through a program called I Choose. This 30-minute block of time allows fourth, fifth and sixth grade students to rotate through various interventions within RTI or attend their choice of electives including peer tutoring, library, physical education, computers, or music. The program allows teachers the time for the differentiation they'd requested and gives the students a mix of valuable supports and enjoyable enrichments."
"For too many students, doing mathematics means just plugging numbers into a memorized formula to get an answer. And because they don't understand the formulas they're using, they often fail to use the right one.
Take a look at Isaac's work below, for example. He is a fifth grade student who tried to find the surface area of a rectangular prism by incorrectly adapting a previously memorized formula for calculating perimeter. He calculated two times the length plus two times the width (2L + 2W) and tried to account for the height by multiplying it by 4, then adding it to the previous sum. Unfortunately, Isaac is not alone in this type of approach. Students who use formulas by rote may never come to see mathematics as sense-making and may never understand the formulas they use. And there are so many formulas to memorize! Teachers who prematurely introduce students to formulas risk denying them opportunities to develop the necessary conceptual foundations for mathematical understanding."
"Here's a flashback to Back to School time! I never got to post all the activities we did at the beginning of the year. Colorful quotes is one of my favorites!
I had been on the search for motivational quote posters that were appropriate for my fifth graders. My second grade ones seemed too "little" for them and all I could find were ones that belonged in a high school classroom. Then I came across Doodle Art Alley. They have educational, motivational, and inspirational quotes "doodled" just waiting to be filled in. I found almost enough quotes for my entire class. I doubled up on my favorites."
"Games can be a great tool for teaching students about complex topics like digital citizenship, politics and even science. With about 47 percent of kids aged 4 to 13 playing digital games every day, game-based learning is poised to further engage children in the classroom.
One classroom in Tampa, Fla., has discovered that digital games can help some children with mathematics. Gregory Smith, a fifth-grade teacher in Hillsborough County, tells Education Week that after incorporating math-strategy games - think word problems with corresponding interactive elements - his students' math-skills scores went from an average of 49 percent to 83 percent. The students themselves also reported more enjoyment from math."
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