Content Choices
Give students a choice about the content they are to research and learn. Studying ecosystems leaves room for a student to explore a particular ecosystem they are more interested in all the while still learning the key concepts of community, population, habitat, interdependence, etc...
1. Book Resources:
- Laurie Westphal's books of menus provide many varied activities around the same standard for your classroom. There are varied types of menus with the rubrics and student resource pages as well. This is a great way to get started or also to provide as a center, compactors, or differentiated assignments for a whole group.
- Susan Winebrenner's book, "Teaching Gifted Kids in Today's classrooms," isn't just for gifted students. This book provides simple and easy resources and reproducibles to help you begin to offer compacting and differentiation to all students. Check out "Most Difficult First!!!"
- Carolyn Coil's book "Differentiated Activities and Assessments Using the Common Core Standards has a plethora of options, formats, and lessons to look
2. Articles:
- HERE is a great article and resource on the responsive classroom. We are not adding something to the day but replacing a part of the day.
4. Learning Centers for Independent Study:
- Ciphers (see below for masters)
- Recreational Mathematics (see below for masters)
- Code.org (Absolutely awesome at bringing students through the concepts of coding in a fun way before learning the actual language of coding)
- ChessKid
- Khan Academy
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5. Challenging Math Activities by Standard (ALSDE)
- Here are the skeleton lessons without all the student pages. If you need the student pages, please contact the math specialist. These are great for an advanced center, whole group, small group, and/or contract work for compactors.
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6. Advanced ELA Activities (Coming Soon from ALSDE)
7. Novel Guides
- Below are many novel guides that focus on literacy skills as well as affective topics.
- Think about this: What if you did a 1st meeting to introduce the book and do an introductory exercise with them. Then give them a time to read (1 week...2 weeks?). Come back together and ALL subjects are taught in response to the novel. For two or three days...their entire curriculum revolved around the novel. Each novel guide below has cross curricular connections. Check them out!!
Novel Guide: Teacher Process | |
File Size: | 11 kb |
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8. Passion Projects:
Passion Projects are student driven and teacher guided projects in which the student decides on the topic and how they want to present it or accomplish it.
See the PDF below for instructions on how to create a passion project. It includes brainstorming strategies, decision making strategies, an implementation guide, rubric, and a reflection piece. Thank you Ms. Glass for the reproducibles!
Passion Projects are student driven and teacher guided projects in which the student decides on the topic and how they want to present it or accomplish it.
See the PDF below for instructions on how to create a passion project. It includes brainstorming strategies, decision making strategies, an implementation guide, rubric, and a reflection piece. Thank you Ms. Glass for the reproducibles!
PassionProject | |
File Size: | 173 kb |
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9. Daily Compacting:
Coming Soon
Coming Soon
10. Scholastic Scope:
This is a paid subscription to a literary magazine. The magazine is loaded with articles on current topics and always has a debate component as well.
This is a paid subscription to a literary magazine. The magazine is loaded with articles on current topics and always has a debate component as well.