Writing Genres - and IB concept keys

Hello friends,

As the end of Year 6 approaches for my students (and with it the end of their PYP), we reflected on the many genre of writing they they have read / written over these years. After they brainstormed all these, I asked each group to select a genre that they felt they knew the most about.

For this lesson I used the following resource (which our school supplied us with) but I traced back to this website where you too can download a set.
http://engagethereader.wordpress.com/

I laminated them in full size and half size for displays and group-work, as well as quarter size and grouped on a ring for individual use.

The students 'blind-drew' a concept key for their group. Using the concept that they had drawn, they discussed their genre of writing. First they came up with questions and discussed/solved these as a group
e.g. of questions for Narrative genre with the Connected key:

How are narratives connected to other writing genre (compare and contrast)?
What connections can I make between narratives I read and narratives I write?
How are the different parts of a narrative connected to each other?
How can you connect the orientation to the conclusion?
....and so on....

We had great fun sharing our ideas back to the class and it gave me great insight into the students' thinking / knowledge around writing genre / conceptual understanding.

We followed this up by allowing students freedom of choice for their final writing assessment piece, helping them to play to their writing strengths. Students could choose between Persuasive, Narrative, Explanation and Recount (personal) as these have scope to show a development of ideas. I really enjoyed marking the variety of writing that we got out of this model. One student wrote a particularly engaging piece about our calendar art lesson from the point of view of her art pencil.

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Maths - Wondering and Noticing

Hello friends,

Annie Fetter at NCTM Ignite

For all you fellow maths teachers, here is a  little video full of great ideas. Well worth a watch. These concepts are  transdisciplinary so apply to all areas of engaging learners. Take a look.

Have a great weekend :)

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Poetry - End of Year Reflections Poetry Writing lesson

Hello friends,
It is Term 4 down here in New Zealand and we are all winding up the end of our year with final assessments due soon, Term 4 reports to write and wrapping up our year in general. Two years ago I came across a poem in this School Journal.

This great reflection poem by Maria McMillan, jumped out straight away as a creative way to sum up our year.

And here is a close up of the words:

Aren't they great - you can just picture the year's learning events unfolding through the words. I decided to use it as a model text for my Year 4's and reflect on the year that was. Everyone published their poem digitally as I was teaching a 1:2 digital class at the time. Once we finished, I printed a copy of each poem for the kiddies to take home in their portfolios, and a copy for the wall too. This way, when my new class arrived at the start of the new year, they had these awesome poems from the previous class to read and think about what lay ahead for them.

Here are a few samples from my kiddies (Dec 2011).

These kiddies were all 9  at the time.

I didn't teach this poem again last year because I was changing levels and moving up to Y6 and my new Y6's wouldn't want to know what my Y4's learned about last year. But now that I am about to complete this year, I will do them again with my 10/11 year olds. Simply dying to see what they produce and hope to post samples for you.

If you would like to have a go at writing these great poems with your students, I have written a lesson for it which includes instructions, graphic organisers and teacher models. Student handouts are in both UK/US spelling, where needed. 

These lesson guides are available from both my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey HERE,

and from my website - Help Me Learn HERE

Thank you for visiting,

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Poetry - Write Colour Poems lesson plan

Hello friends,
This next poetry unit on Colour Poetry compliments this art unit I wrote for inquiring into the Element of Colour

This is part of a series on the elements of art which also includes Element of Line HERE and Element of Texture HERE

Colour Poetry is a fun way to explore metaphors and abstract thinking. By comparing colour to objects, actions and ideas, children extend their thinking to encompass poetic concepts.

This unit supports quality writing with graphic organisers in both US and UK spelling, that makes it easy to create quality imagery.

Each student will create a unique poem because they relate these images to their personal lives and experiences. For this reason, it can also work well when combined with portraiture art, like these lessons available HERE

 

Writing frameworks are provided and teacher models with a poem exemplar are all there to guide you through.

 You can grab your very own copy of Colours Poetry over at my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey HERE

or on my website at Help Me Learn HERE

What other teachers have said about Metaphor Poems about Colour/Color!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "A high quality resource. Visually appealing with all related content displayed in an accessible way."

Thank you for visiting,

Poetry - This Is Me poems for back to school

Hello Friends,

My poetry unit called, This Is Me, works really well hand-in-hand with either of the following 2 art lessons.
One year, I tried the half portraits inspired by Kathy Barbro of Art Projects for Kids Here are some more of the portraits drawn by my Y4 kiddies at the start of the year.

I just love how these turned out !

The second one is my back to school portrait unit - This Is Me! inspired by the art of Eden Gosier. You can get this comprehensive lesson tutorial from my TPT store One Teacher's Journey - HERE.

It is also available from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

What other teachers have said about This Is Me!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Excellent, easy to follow instructions with beautiful examples to inspire."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "This was comprehensive and easy to use. Thank you!"

I also use by Biography poetry lesson early in the year as we all get to know each other. It's a great way to become familiar with our differences and to see how unique we all are. Also, to identify the things that we have in common.

This Is Me poems provides an extensive framework that students fill in easily, as its all about themselves. By extending their ideas and exploring synonyms, they edit and improve the images through a 1-3-6 conferencing model. Finally, they select and reject lines to form and publish their unique poems. I have used this model for several years now and always with great success, which is why I wanted to share this idea. Hope you enjoy using it too :)

This comprehensive poetry writing guide can be up shared on large screen with your students as you work through the steps to write great and personal poetry. A teacher model poem is included, one I wrote as a model about my daughter a few years ago, when I first taught this to my class. 

Find this lesson plan in  my TPT store One Teacher's Journey - HERE.

It is also available from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE 

These 2 items are now also available as a bundle from TPT - HERE

What other teachers have said about the Bio POEMS teaching guide

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 'Great for start of the year writing.'

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 'This was a great resource for our poetry unit. Students enjoyed it!'

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 'Awesome product, thanks.'

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Writing Feelings Poetry about Emotions with Elementary Students

Hello friends,

Poetry is one of my favourite writing genres to teach. But how can we support students to write quality poetry? And something that is new and different from the same old, same old.
My secret is this.
When you find a poem you like, analyse it. What has the author done? There is always a pattern that is identifiable.
Over the years I have had great success by using this method and I am always impressed by the strength and variety that my students deliver.

Poetry is a great way to start the year because it really looks closely at language choices. Also its a  fun way to close out the year as well.

I have started compiling my poetry strategies into units that make it easy-peasy for you too.

 

Emotion Poems is my first unit.  This is one type of poetry I have used when exploring feelings and emotions with my students. It's a great way to help children understand that we need to talk about our feelings, to own them and to understand them, when you address the topic through writing. 

To understand that we all have feelings and we may not feel the same about things or experiences as someone else, is helpful.

Emotion poems pair an emotion with a colour and then analyse it through the senses, using similes. All steps are clearly laid out and student graphic organisers have been created to make it easier for younger students. 

Of course UK and US spelling has been accommodated where needed on these. Share the presentation up on on your large screen, so that your students to follow easily .

Perhaps even model the process by writing your own poem, alongside your students. 

This 28 page unit is available from my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

and also from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

Many teachers have enjoyed using this resource and I hope your enjoy writing poetry with your students too :)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "I was amazed at the depth and quality of work that students produced when I used this. Amazing! The best result was the pride they had in what they achieved!"

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "After teaching my poetry unit, I felt that I need an assessment piece that would demonstrate what students had learnt. I explicitly taught each and step of the feeling poem template and all students produced a wonderful poem that I made into a class book. This is such a wonderful resource."

Thank you for visiting,

Timea

Art Lesson - Back to School Portraits Project for Upper Elementary

Hello friends,
I hope you have enjoyed following our Calendar Art unit, which I called 'This Is Me,' as it developed over last term.

I have now compiled all the photographs and instructions into my latest, comprehensive, step-by-step teacher support resource. 
Are you looking for the perfect back to school self-portrait art project to create with your students in the first weeks of school? Your students will love working on this engaging Portrait Art lesson as they include personal ideas in their artwork and make unique self-portraits to share with the class. Also included is an introduction to US contemporary artist, Eden Gasior - who inspired and endorsement this comprehensive teaching guide.

I have sent all our orders off to the calendar company and look forward to seeing the final products.

✅ This resource is great way to create self-portraits at the start of the year, for getting to know each other, or end of the year to summarise student's growth over the year.
In creating this art project, your students will explore how to use the art elements of LINE and SHAPES when composing artwork and creating patterns or TEXTURE. You will also learn about the innovative ideas and artwork of Eden Gasior.

✅ This lesson has tons of built in choice for differentiation, while keeping the skills taught consistent across the class, to save your sanity.
But you don't need to take my word for it, see what teachers say about the added value they gained from this product.

PRAISE for the SELF-PORTRAITS teacher resource from other teachers

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Excellent, easy to follow instructions with beautiful examples to inspire."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "This was comprehensive and easy to use. Thank you!"

I hope you give it a try and create beautiful artwork with your students too :)

Thank you for visiting,

Timea

Calendar Art Lesson - Back to School Portraits Project for Upper Elementary (6)

Hi everyone,

Calendar Art Post #6. I haven't forgotten about our calendar art but it has been a very interesting week in my little corner of the world. Apart from a very busy time preparing my students for their IB Learning Exhibition, I have had a mammoth task of catching up on mountains of writing conferences after being away ill last week. 

A lot of it is done late into the night with the use of student Google Drives. While technology might make work flow easier and clearer, and open up the walls of the classroom, it can also make for greater work load leading to longer hours, late into the night for both students and teachers.

We spent a little bit of our time on our calendars, just to have a change from editing, conferencing and publishing, so here are a couple of progress photos for you to enjoy :)

I love how each kiddie's personality is coming through :)

Learn more about this art lesson HERE


Thank you for visiting,

Timea

Out of this world Art

School Art Shows
Recently I had the pleasure of being invited back to my previous school to view their biannual student art exhibit.

One class display stood out particularly as it was work from a Y4 class of 8-9 year old. I can't post any images out of respect for that teacher but suffice to say - it stopped people in their tracks. A2 sized spray painted galaxies.

However  I have found the motivation on Youtube and linked them in here for you. Simply too good not to share. I wish my year group were looking at the solar system so that I could try this. However that unit belongs to the year group below me so will see if they're brave enough to attempt it.
Otherwise it will be definitely on the agenda next year :) Enjoy the videos

Wow - right!?


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Portrait Art - School Calendar (5) and Photography lessons for elementary students

Digital fun with photos

Oh dear the dreaded flu bug has struck and the doctor has booked me off til next week. I am itching to get back to our awesome artwork but that will simply have to wait now until Monday.

In the meantime I wanted to share a digital option for playing around with photo images. This was something we did for calendar art, 2 years ago. Here is a sample:

 The kiddies (Y4) went out and about the school and took photos of each other during one of our photography units (see links below). They were require to meet certain criteria and this resulted in great variety and creativity. The students uploaded their favourite image to a site called PICNIC which  no longer exists, for modification, finally saving to their desktop. They then overlaid this modified photo on a scan of tessellating patterns that they had created in Maths.

But luckily there are many other free sites for photo editing and this year I had a play with beFunky to achieve the washed-out look for the portraits. Click the image for the link.

Here are my samples with 3 different options.

 

Charcoal option

 

Cartoonizer option

 

Sketcher option

As you can see, they all remove the detail and you can control the extent of that too. For kiddies who find it difficult to ignore the detail and only select the main elements from their photo, this option may help them even more that the photocopier option.
The new image can be saved to your desktop for printing.

In the meantime I have continued with the patterns on my teacher model. Here is a peek:

If you are in need of a photography lesson guide for a Digital Photography Teaching Unit in Upper elementary, like the one I referred to in this post, I have 3 options available now.

First, the guide to using the small n' point shoot cameras that many schools had when I wrote this first guide. I borrowed all the teacher issued cameras in the school for teaching these lessons to my students.

You can find it in my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

or on my Website - Help Me Learn - HERE

This was my most popular resource for many years and here is why:

PRAISE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY  with CAMERAS

(already enjoyed by over 700 educators in 2023)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Great instructions for all ages and abilities"

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Excellent resource! I loved the layout and info, and my students loved the challenges. Thank you!"

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Perfect resource for incorporating the digital end of the medium into my photography unit. Thank you bunches!"

More recently I have also created a similar resource for Digital Photography using devices (like the iPad) This has proven so popular over the last 5 years that I wrote a follow up resource and they are now also available in a BUNDLE to save teachers $$

You can find PHOTOGRAPHY USING IPADS PART 1 in my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

or on my Website - Help Me Learn - HERE

You can find PHOTOGRAPHY USING IPADS PART 2 in my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

and 

You can find PHOTOGRAPHY USING IPADS PART 1 & 2 BUNDLE in my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

Read about what teachers are loving about these resources:

PRAISE FOR iPAD PHOTOGRAPHY PART 1 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "My students are begging for more photography time! They are LOVING it.

Simple, well laid out and easy to use. A great resource."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "My students are absolutely loving this! So easy to use and student friendly."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "I used this with my 4th and 5th grade gifted students. We have a 1 hour a week workshop and I decided to do photography. Students used iPads as their camera and we worked through the activities. Thank you!"

PRAISE FOR iPAD PHOTOGRAPHY PART 2

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Excellent Resource! The layout is easy to use. The pictures used to teach the concept are clear and effective. My students were excited for the challenge when it was introduced. We really enjoyed 'evaluating' the exemplar photos before we shared our work. Thanks for all of your work putting this together."

Have a great week everybody :)

Thank you for visiting,

Timea

Portrait Art Lesson for School Calendar Time (4)

After years of creating School Calendar Art with my classes, a few years ago I switched to creating the art on A3 paper as opposed to the smaller paper provided by the company (approx. - A4) This was because the calendar is something that parents pay money to buy and sometimes they buy several copies for grandparents etc. Then they hang this up on display for a year, so I felt the artwork needed to be of good quality. Working on A3 also meant that students then had the artwork to keep and frame as well.

I scan the finished work in on our school copier and email the folder to the company. It sure saved them a lot of time too. But you need to carefully label each PDF/image so that there is no confusion on the other end. And of course only email the ordered artwork, not the whole class. As I already scan the work to share with parents on line before they order, this is not a big deal.

Now moving on to day #4.
With the students, we viewed examples of Eden's work and then began testing and experimenting with these pattern ideas on the back of the photocopy print, in pencil.

Kids never cease to amaze me with their risk taking and creativity. I felt they really did a great job.

Next I asked them to start exploring colour schemes independently, while I called them to the dye table to add the liquid water colour to parts of their paintings. This is to cover large sections with an under-colour. We started with painting the skin tones first.

Here are some photos of dye work on my Teacher Model:

I think you'll agree - they look promising so far :) The students were also asked to locate a motto or quote that they strongly related to. I asked them to research up font styles and explore variations of how they would represent their motto on their picture. They have really come up with some gems.
On the other hand I am still waiting for my daughter to give me her quote to insert into my teacher model. Ha ha - teacher's kids hey :)

As the students resolved their patterns on their draft (photo print) they transfer these over to their good copy. We also talked about how they could show the 'magic' or 'energy' that exudes from their prop.

Hopefully we can move onto the marker patterns next.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you are getting lots of ideas for teaching art within your classes too.

You can read about our next steps in our process HERE.

You can find my back to school portrait unit - This Is Me! inspired by the art of Eden Gosier, in my TPT store One Teacher's Journey - HERE.
It is also available from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

Thank you for visiting,

Timea