Using Wikis

We're in the midst of tying up some work in our 5th grade reading text. We're using the opening theme to practice some of the reading skills we'll be using throughout our literacy workshop, and to further engage in non-fiction (outside the Amer. Revolution). The theme is Nature's Fury, with the big picture takeaway being that nature can be really destructive. We've read a snippet of realistic fiction involving earthquakes. We've also read about storm chasers, particularly of tornadoes.

The final piece is about volcanoes. As a whole, the text is really high interest. Kids go "whoa" when they see black funnel clouds or volcanic eruptions, which helps kids keep going when the vocabulary gets a big dense. Part of today's extension was to find the Ten Largest Volcanic Eruptions (leaving it open ended), and to classify (or categorize?) by continent (skills we are using- organizing information in category/classes). About a quarter got to the research, and I put one group in charge of getting the information onto the wiki.

I left their task pretty open ended, even leaving off the classifying part. Above is a snippet of what they found, with the link being of their own doing. While it isn't ground breaking, it is a step in the right direction. We can do some research, post it, and link it. Eventually we'll do full fledged projects on here, posting arguments about things like the Stamp Act, Tea Act, and the revolution as a whole. That is #'s 2, 3, and 4 from the 50 Ways to Use Wikis link. There are a variety of other ideas in there, but the top 30 have some good nuggets to cull through. The overall hope being that we can share what we learned in a different format (and cut out some of the paper!).

Where social studies and literacy meet

This week we are making a transition from the social studies text to the basal reader. The goal is to intentionally integrate the basal into our social studies block, and primarily focus on reading comprehension skills. While I think I can integrate those skills into the social studies text, I've struggled getting that going. Why? Largely because of the content we've been reading. The first section was laden with vocabulary, setting the stage for the chapters to come. Instead of thinking about reasons for migration, or tensions between colonies (etc), we were developing geography skills.

You might wonder where we're going next... We are going to launch the reader with the theme "Nature's Fury." The focus is on nature's impact on humans, using realistic fiction as the vehicle moving kids along. How I will mesh geography into this is through adding some articles on earthquakes (the first selection), and using our knowledge of maps to identify where earthquake faults are and how that relates to where people are located (we have started using population density maps a bit). We'll be working on predicting/inferring, as well as sequencing. I have high hopes...

On another note, I'm still in the beginning stages of getting a blog up and running for the classroom. But I do have designs on some wiki work- collaborative research, as well as some podcasting. It will all come together... hopefully sooner rather than later.