Mind Mapping Environmental Changes of the Everglades

Yesterday, my students worked collaboratively to create mind maps about environmental changes to the Everglades.  Before starting I demonstrated how to create a mind map using the topic of bullying.  I gave each group a piece of manilla paper and two boxes of crayons.  I posted three questions to help prompt conversation and thinking: (1) What plants and animals did the storyteller describe? (2) In the story, what changes happened in the Everglades environment? (3) Think about our learning point, how did changes in the environment affect the organisms that live there?

I gave five minutes for conversations, then started our work music.  Some groups had decided their main ideas that would sprout off of the topic and immediately started to write and illustrate.  Others took turns and passed the paper to each member to make a contribution.  Some groups seemed to bicker or argue.  In both classes I had one group that had a very difficult time getting along because of leadership issues.  Too many chiefs and all that.  It was a pretty typical work period.  Most groups were able to lay aside their disagreements and move forward. 

My AM class seemed to really struggle with the mind map format since it was their first time ever doing one.  During my lunch, I found examples of mind maps to show my PM class.  My PM class seemed to understand the concept of mind mapping a little better because of it.

Here are the pictures of the bulletin board I made with some close ups of their mind maps:

This is the bulletin board of both of my classes mind maps.  You can see that while the format was similar, each groups product was unique.

This is an exemplary example for the format.  This is the only group that found connectivity to the main ideas off the topic.  They did not discuss changes like drainage or settlement, and how that would affect the animals and their habitat.

I wish the text on this was clearer.  Their four main ideas were pollution, Over-harvesting, colonization, Poachers.  Their sub-ideas were worded in a very mature way.  They lack the connectivity between main ideas but their main ideas are very well thought out and detailed.

This is a simpler mind map but This group wanted to use pictures.  In this group were several students who struggle with writing.  They opted for labels and pictures to illustrate.

We will be doing the next workshop day on Friday (Oct. 29).  The water quality lab.  I'm actually pretty nervous because there are lots of hand outs and steps.  I want them to be successful but there is one of me and 20 of them.  I'm sure it will be fine.  

Launching Environmental Changes

I launched the Environmental Changes workshop yesterday.  Students came to the carpet with their science journals and started this entry

Day 1: Everglades read aloud (10/25/10)
Learning Point: Impact of changes in the evironement to plants and animals.

I then had students do a 30 second jot of any animals or plants they thought lived in the Everglades.  I was surprised that in each class there were at least three students who said they didn't know what the Everglades were.  After I displayed a map of Florida highlighting the Everglades, they seemed to know what I was talking about.  They paired and shared this jot and we made a collaborative list.

Jot: Animals you think live in the Everglades
alligators, cranes, crabs, snakes, lots of different birds, etc.

I then had them make a triple T-chart with the headings: Animals, Environment, Changes.  I gave them directions to record any animals, environments (habitats), and changes they encountered in the read aloud.  After the read aloud, they did another pair share, and collaborative list.  I was hoping they would be more specific in this list and my hopes were met. 

Triple T-Chart:
Animals: panthers, racoons, alligators, herons, anihingas, lizards, various types of fish, water moccasins, etc.
Plants: orchids, sawgrass, sawgrass islands, mudflats, river, Lake Okeechobee, etc.
Changes: settlement by man, over hunting of animals, overharvest of orchids, pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, draining, etc.

They enjoyed the activity and seemed very engaged if not thinking critically.  Today, in our spare time because of several school functions planned for the day, they will create concept maps for what they know about how animals and plants are impacted by changes in their environment.  They will do this in groups.  They table teams are made by Gardner's multiple intelligence levels.  More later and pics to follow!

Survival Skills Unit...all done!

Holy cow!  We finally wrapped up the Survival Skills unit.  We had our celebration today.  The kids who wrote plays performed them, then the kids put their projects out and wandered the room looking at each others projects.  I love the buzz that hums in the room during these celebrations.  The kids who are on task get excited to see what their peers created.  I see a lot of shy but proud smiles when they receive praise.

There are still some kids who did not finish (even thought they were given three weeks to complete it).  During the next science choice board homework for the environmental changes unit, I will be sitting in a small group during the academic contract planning time with those students so we make sure they are organizing their time.

After we were done with the gallery walk, I had students place their compliment stickies in their science journals and respond to the following: Discuss how you feel about having a choice for project type and explain why you feel that way.  I encouraged students to consider writing, whether or not they like choices, are there too many/not enough.  I haven't read their journals yet but I'm eager to find out if their responses were similar to the reflection they did on the reading unit.

Speaking of the reading unit...today was day 3 of Unit 2.  I am really enjoying the unit.  My read alouds are off.  I should have started another character book by now.  We just finished Junebug by Alice Mead.  It's such a great character book but I need to start another.  I just can't seem to decide on one!  I realized that beyond the read aloud I choose, my classes had no shared reading.  So now, on Mondays, we read the story out of our reading adoption.  I then use that story and the skill lessons in my small groups.  It makes planning my small groups much simpler, gives us a shared text, and the kids get to hear a story that uses our vocabulary.

My inquiry this year has to do with vocabulary.  I noticed that my ESOL student's vocabularies are very limited.  My wondering question is: How will using American Sign Language (ASL)  in conjunction with Reading Instruction affect my ELL student’s use of fifth grade level vocabulary words?

I am using ASL to teach my vocabulary and during my reading lessons.  I created a pre-assessment for my five ESOL students to take.  I will meet with these students three days a week for small groups.  Two days a week we will focus on vocabulary.  I just got their FAIR data and these accomodations seem appropriate for their areas of weakness.  I will use this data and weekly vocab quizzes on Portal as my hard data.  I will give students a survey to find out if using ASL had an effect on their confidence using more complex words.

Overall, things continue to go well.  The afternoon class continues to be a challenge.  The kids came up with a strategie to help some of my student monitor their distractive behavior.  Four of the students put a peice of masking tape on their desks.  Everytime they disrupt the class they get a tally.  If they have fewer than five tallies, they get a Parker Pay ticket for the day.  If they have five or more tallies, they have to move their conduct stick to Rookie (or Cadet...depending).  Our goal is that they become more aware of how often they are being disruptive so they can adjust it.  One of them really struggled and got frustrated with me when I kept "catching" him off being disruptive (as if you could miss it).  However, two of my students were less disruptive than they have been in a long time and earned their Parker Pay.  The fourth student had exactly five and didn't get his pay.  I'm hoping after a while we can lower the tallies to under three or >3.  Then...eventually we wont need it.  I hope.  What's really nice is their classmates came up with this...not me. 

Reading Units of Study #1 Celebration!

This past week (since last Monday, Oct. 4th), my students have been working on their Unit 1 Choice Board Celebration Projects. They had to plan out their week and try to stay on schedule, they had to do homework when they didn’t meet personal deadlines, they had to assess a peer’s project and give them specific feedback. Today, we celebrated all our hard work. We did a gallery walk of the projects. Students set up their games and put computers out with headphones for the video interviews. They set out their flip books and setting pictures with explanations. Students walked around and wrote compliments on stickies to give specific praise to their peers. Everyone was on task and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Colson popped to see our hard work and they seemed impressed with the quality of work displayed. I’m so proud of my kids! There were more challenges in the PM class because of the behavior issues that exist in that room. But most were able to stay on task for the most of the celebration in that class.



It was hard to let go of controlling their every moment and letting them decide how to spend their time. It was especially hard to watch as some students struggled and others soared. It’s the goal to keep them all on track and in the same place…right? I don’t really think so. All kids work at different paces. I noticed that one female student, who knows she needs more time to work on projects, scheduled nights of homework during the week even though it wasn’t required because she knew she’d need the time to create a quality project. One boy wrote that he was going to finish his project by Friday so he could take it home and have a parent review it and he could make adjustments. The majority of the students set realistic goals and made adjustments as they worked to ensure they met the deadline. I found that the students who did not fill out their contract schedule were the only ones who did not meet deadlines or who struggled to meet them.


I will launch Unit 2 tomorrow. Unit 2 is all about character study. I have most of my MiniLesson teaching points prepared thanks to the Reading Units of Study planning calendar but I have to create charts, make ASL follow-alongs, etc. I will also create out next Choice Board Celebrations. It will be a challenge to continue to create project ideas that challenge students and are unique.


On another subject, the kids are taking their Survival Skills Quiz today on the computer. It is two essay questions. One is about physical adaptations of animals from the African plains, the other is about animals in the arctic. I am optimistic after all the work we did that they will do well. I am looking forward to moving on though. I am very far behind in Science. We are going into Environmental Changes. I wrote a differentiated instruction lesson plan for this workshop in my DI class over the summer. This unit will be for a portfolio artifact so I need to make sure to document every step of the way.


I have done so much better this year with journaling. I am taking lot of pictures of their work to put in my portfolio. This is an exciting year and I’m so thrilled to find that many of my fifth graders are extremely capable at product creation.

Choice Board Creations

Today was the third day of Choice Board Activity work period.  AND for the third day in a row ALL my kids were on task for the entire 40 minutes.  I love watching them make decisions.  About three of my kids had done really nice sketches of the most important setting.  The kids who chose this project are visual/spatial learners.  They found some watercolors in my cabinet and want to create a more detailed painting.  They are coming right along.  I'm surprised by the level of quality from most of my kids.    They are taking their deadlines seriously.

I am concerned for about five kids across both of my classes.  I see them working and researching.  However, I have see little progress.  I plan on sitting with those kids in a small group tomorrow during our work period to help keep them focused and spark some convesations about product creation.  Monday we will be doing peer assessments.  This is what I am very excited about working on.

I started meeting with my small groups today during independent reading.  I met with my highest readers to work on roots, suffixes, and prefixes.  We will study the meaning for prefixes the next time we meet.  The goal is to help them deal with the more complex words they encounter in their books during independent reading.

I am hoping to get some help from the reading coach at my school.  Small group work has always been my weakness when it comes to ability groups.  I love doing table conferences and one on one conferring.  Just pulling up to a table and teaching/reviewing a skill on the spot is simple for me.  It's the planned skill groups that I am struggling with. 

Hopefully I will get stronger in this area so that it will make a difference in reading scores for FAIR and FCAT but also in their ability to deal with more complex texts.

Choice Boards

This year I am using Choice Boards as a way to differentiate my instruction.  The first time I introduced this, it was for a survival skills workshop within Life Science.  I designed six choice activities with several learning styles in mind.  Once student understand each of the activities, they are to reflect on which one best suits their mode of learning.  Students then fill out an Academic Contract to plan their time and make them accountable.  These science choice board activities are homework with one or two days of classtime to check in with me and make sure everyone is where they need to be.

The other choice boards we are doing as a celebration to our first reading unit of study.  This is done completely in class but still uses an academic contract.  

I'm apprehensive that students will produce top quality products the first times we do this work.  This will be messy the first few times.  What I am excited about is the peer assessment part of these boards.  Getting kids to become more reflective about projects they just did will hopefully help them become better planners for the next set of choice board activities.