Tech Tuesday --The Walking Classroom

This is a really cool tool for 4th and 5th grade classrooms.  It's called The Walking Classroom.  The materials are aligned with the 4th and 5th grade Common Core Standards for Language Arts.  

This is how the program is described on their website:

The Walking Classroom Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health and education of all students.  The Walking Classroom program is an in-school obesity intervention that promotes health literacy and develops and supports lifelong fitness habits for all students while addressing different learning styles.  The method combines standards-aligned academic content and exercise during the regular school day.  Using WalkKits pre-loaded with a year's worth of standards-aligned audio content students walk, listen, and learn.

It is a bit pricey, $3,000 for a class set, but they do have scholarships available to apply for on their website.  It would be cool to purchase and perhaps share with the other classes in your building.  And the teacher blogs I have seen this mentioned on tell about how their students just LOVE it.  After you get things set up, the podcasts are only about 15-20 minutes.  Perfect for those inclement recesses or an afternoon break from the walls of the classroom and their desks.

Day 61 Teaching Fourth

Kelly teaches 4th in Alabama.  In her About Me section of her blog she says she teaches Reading, Writing and Language Arts.  This is the second 4th grade teacher that I've come across this week that doesn't have to teach all the subjects. Just the other day I posted about Elizabeth and her blog Fun in Room 4B.  She teaches just math to the 4th graders in her school.

I think that's neat because you can get really good at something and you can work with more students.   Lesson planning would be so much easier.  The down side is that you would want that person to be an awesome teacher if they are going to teach ALL your 4th graders to read.  At the school I was at last year the 6th grade teachers tried that.  There were three of them.  Unfortunately, there was a weak link on the team, and the other teachers had to make up for the deficits from that room.  (this meant more work for them in the long run and lots of unhappy parents - never a good thing!)

But what I am finding is...for the most part...the quality of what teachers are blogging is amazing.  I'm not sure if it's the chicken or the egg.  Good teachers blog...or blogging makes teachers better teachers. Maybe it's a combination of both.  I know I learn so much from all the bloggers I find.  I am inspired and it gets my creative juices flowing to see what other teachers are doing and creating and what their students are producing and learning.  That's what collaboration is about!  {Don't get me started on district collaboration - but perhaps some time cruising the internet for strategies and ideas would be a better use of our time!}

Sorry Kelly, back to your blog...Teaching Fourth.  Kelly has some great freebies.  

One is her Pirate Homophone: Their, There, They're activity.

She also has a wonderful informational text graphic organizer packet for sale on her TpT store.  But she has a freebie for you to check out from it.

It's always hard to just pick out one of two things to share.  Kelly is so creative in so many ways that it makes it hard to choose.  This past week our principal showed us a video about school climates.  How to keep your school from looking institutional.  One of the things she showed a lot of was PAINT on the walls!  Something that wasn't that institutional beige or cream!  If only they would let us paint our rooms!  I should show them some of the work that Kelly has done to her room!  It's so warm and comforting...

even with those ancient desks!  Goodness...what century are they from?

Those owls are sooo stinkin' cute aren't they?

Kelly also has some cute bulletin board ideas too...

Makes the wheels turning for what I want to do this coming summer in my classroom!!

1st I'm purging...then I'm painting.

If they won't let me do the walls, at least I can do my bookshelves!

Thanks for hopping by my blog...hope you were inspired to do something wonderful!

Martin Luther King Day Ideas

Here are some links to ideas to use when studying about Martin Luther King...

You have to start with a good book.  Here are a couple good ones I've used:

Martin's Big Words

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr

My First Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr

Then after you've read a good book or two to build schema...then you can move on to planning and plotting and writing and interpreting.

Here is a freebie I made...this is a sample of what the finished product could look like.  It is on my TpT store with the writing template.  Feel free to use it :)  Click HERE to download.

Here are some other teachers with some fun and clever ideas...plus some other sites too:

Classroom Freebies

Free coloring page on TeacherVision

Kinder Alphabet 

Flying into First Grade

This is a good video on Brain Pop (I had never found this site before.  It's cool!)

Crazy for First Grade

Check out this Fingerprint Peace Dove art project.  It's amazing!

Free Kids Crafts.com

Poem Freebie

Word Search

This site has a historical narrative for you to read if you are rusty on the details of Martin Luther King Jr's life.  

Well, that should get just about anybody started.  If you still haven't found what you need, then pop over to TpT and search for free Martin Luther King stuff.  There is quite a bit more on the site.