Let's Build a Castle Wall

ELLs need support to develop academic language, and practice using language to reason and work together in groups. Check out this short video featuring a fractions math lesson presented to K-3 teachers by math consultant Grace D. Coates. Her open-ended lesson loads up lots of math, language and writing practice as students work together to build a castle wall for the king. Students work in groups on a project which gives them lots of opportunities to participate in collaborative conversations and use tier one functional vocab words as well a tier 3 math words while designing and creating their castle wall. 

Coates shows how to differentiate this lesson - all the way from identifying and counting block shapes to make the wall to determining the total cost of shapes used and calculating 10% off for a last minute sale. 

Looks like a great opportunity for fun, collaborative learning with lots of language practice and a great model for teaching all students!

Check out the video: schools.nyc.gov/Academics/ELL/EducatorResources/deepeningmath.htm

Courtesy of the NYC Department of Education

Groundhog Day Countdown: Videos

Groundhog Day by MOnature Kids:

Cute, short, informational video for kids on the history of Groundhog Day. Just under 3 minutes.

Groundhog Day Music Video by Billy Grisack

Fun, country song about Groundhog day. About 3 minutes.

Groundhog Day (2014 HD) by Michael Evans:

Just want to observe a groundhog moving around in his natural habitat? This is a cute video of just that. About 3.5 minutes.

The Groundhog Day Song by Aceygee:

A funny song about Groundhog Day. About 1.5 minutes.

Groundhog Day Explained by CGP Grey:

A funny video explaining Groundhog day. About 2.5 minutes.

Storyline Online

Storyline Online is a great website where well known Screen Actor's Guild Foundation actors read children's books aloud in engaging videos that are easy to stream online. We have both used them in school with our students, sometimes to entertain the students during indoor recess in these cold months and sometimes to supplement our lessons.

So far, Anna's favorite is I Need My Monster  written by Amanda Noll and read by Rita Moreno. Rita does an incredible job with the voices. So fun!

Marti loves Harry the Dirty Dog written by Gene Zion and read by Betty White. It's an old classic that has some added animation. Enjoy!

Snow Day?

Hmmm... no that's not quite right. We didn't get any new snow. Cold day? That doesn't sound right either. Oh well. Either way it still adds up to the same thing. No School!!! Since we were stuck inside on this extremely bitterly cold day, we decided to get this blog up and running. So here goes...hope you enjoy!