It has been a rainy spring, but rain didn't stop our sixth graders at Lowville Academy Middle School from closing their books and experiencing a day of outdoor recreation -- mountain biking at the Black River Outdoor Education Program Inc. in Boonville, New York. The educational field trip provided students with an appreciation for and understanding of our environment while engaging in outdoor aerobics. The BROEP generously provided appropriate-sized bikes and safety equipment for all the students. Before hitting the trails, the outdoor explorers reviewed safety guidelines and practiced how to shift bikes to maintain consistent peddling speed whether going up hill or down. Before long, they were tackling the woodsy trails. Teacher Brag Book One determined outdoor enthusiast didn't let a little thing like a broken leg stop her from enjoying the day. While on a nature walk, she photographed patterns in nature and is in the process of creating a video: Everything You Missed While Riding A Bike (coming soon).
Thank you Black River Outdoor Education Program Inc. for a great day!
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Revising Essays The student above is engaged in evaluating her essay. One of the best ways to revise and edit writing is listening to your writing, reading it aloud. It isn't easy when there are 20 or more students in the classroom working together in groups. It can get noisy, and not to mention, we want to be sensitive that some students are shy about reading an unfinished piece of writing aloud in front of their peers. Read & Write, a Google extension, solved that problem for us. In the photo above, Read & Write is reading the girl's essay to her, allowing her to hear what she wrote privately. She pauses the reading to revise and edit as needed. Grammar Check Those pesky punctuation marks like to take a vacation, so we found an app for that. Professional writers have editors, a fresh pair of eyes that provide great suggestions for improving sentence structure and grammar. The student above may not have a professional editor, but he does have GradeProof, a Google Docs extension, to help him polish up his grammar and spelling. Discussion Boards In Google Classroom, we have the ability to engage in online discussions. Lately, we have been reviewing grammar and discussing the rules and how to effectively break them. Who would have thought that grammar could inspire engaging discussions among preteens? Grammar discussion boards make a great sandbox for practicing online etiquette, so we don't unintentionally offend our classmates. Peer Review We also learned how to share online documents with our classmates, so they can provide constructive feedback, suggestions for improving a friend's writing. Vocabulary Retaining vocabulary words to use them later is a common struggle. Students often learn them for the moment, to pass a quiz, but the knowledge slips away if they don't review. Now, we engage in friendly online competitions. Students eagerly study vocabulary words using Quizlet, an online app. Periodically, we meet in class and work in teams to race to the finish line using Quizlet.Live, a component of Quizlet. Digital Literacy
Newslea is a library of newspaper articles, current and historical event, that integrate into all subject areas. We transfer our reading skills learned in class to digital reading. Students read online articles at their independent reading levels. We are fortunate to have this resource to meet the needs of all our students using this resource. The more informed our middle school students are of our world, the more motivated and engaged our classroom discussions become. |
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