Cooperative Learning #9 & Little Bus Flash Freebie

Today is my last day of summer break. I am going into my new classroom tomorrow to organize and put things where I need to. Next week is teacher planning week, and I have so much to do!

Storyboard is a cooperative learning structure that I have introduced earlier on my blog. For the Throwback Thursday part I'm focusing only on the Storyboard part of my post. Click HERE to see that full post.



Not sure if she is having this today? She joined others in a big giveaway for August 1-5th.

----- Below part was originally posted on April 5, 2013. -----

3. Last month, I went to a Kagan workshop, and learned a new strategy called Storyboards. I created my own Storyboard (not Kagan endorsed) for my Australia unit, G'day Mates. The week before spring break, we learned about Australia animals. We also talked about nouns and verbs. This song was on a pocket chart as we changed the nouns and verbs using Australian animals. This week, we continued learning about Australia with the Great Barrier Reef. This time, we used a Kagan Storyboard strategy. Each group got a storyboard, cards, and a pointer. One student from each group passes out the cards. As a whole group, we sang the song and put down the cards as we sang the words. This group didn't quite get it, as they missed putting two of the pictures down.

 

This activity came from my G'day Mates unit.

We continued throughout the week with this activity, and they got better with working together in placing down the word cards as they were sung.

This activity came from my G'day Mates unit.

 

Now back to the present...

 

After the first week of school, we will be following the new Reading Street Series in my county. I made a thematic unit to go along with the first story, The Little School Bus.

 

Link to TPT store will be added once it's there!

 

In it, I have included a storyboard structure with using the letters. I will first introduce this on a pocket chart during whole group activities. After a few days, I will give each group their parts to review one letter. We will do this activity in small groups, but still whole group. When they are ready, I will add more letters. After they are familiar with this structure, I will put the storyboards at a literacy center for students to practice their letter recognition and sounds. Here is a preview.

 



 



 This unit also includes:

 

1. Who Rides This Bus?- A letter and beginning sound sort for small groups or independent work. There are 4 different variations included: color or black and white in either Basic Print or D'Nealian.

 

 

 2. Letters on the Bus Pocket Chart & Storyboards- in Basic Print or D'Nealian.

 

3. Road Rally- Even though there is a free set of road letters at Making Learning Fun, I used Charlotte's Clips to create a learning center for my students.

 

 

4. Bus Stop: Write the Room- Just a simple write-the-room activity for copying words onto paper.

 

 

5. Bus & Letter Webs- These are to be printed out and used on class charts.

 



 

6. How Do We Go Home Graph- Parts to make a graph on how students go home. Use bulletin board paper to glue parts onto. Students write name and draw picture on sticky note to place on graph. Then collect data and write about it on the bulletin board paper. See example below:

 

 

 

7. Five on the Bus- Use counters, beans, or children pictures to make 0-5 on the bus mats.

 

 

 

8. Ordinal Numbers- Pocket Chart pieces to tell story of The Little School Bus (Reading Street story) and practice ordinal numbers.

 

 

 

9. Putting the Buses in Order- Students put buses in order and find number matches.

 

 

 

10. Shape Bus Craftivity- Students use shapes (rectangle, circle, square, octagon) to make a bus.

 

11. Little Yellow Bus Snack- Students make a little yellow bus out of a graham cracker, yellow icing, Oreos, and Chex cereal.

 

If you are interested in this packet, I am offering it as a FREEBIE to my followers until Sunday evening 6PM Eastern time. I am almost done with it, so Saturday I will start sending it out to you. Just leave me a comment to this post or email me at learningwithmrsbrinn@gmail.com to let me know how you follow me and your follower name: Google Friend Connect or Bloglovin. Make sure you leave an email address too, so I can email you my newest digital packet.

 

If you would like to link up a post about cooperative learning, please do. I would love to hear how others are using these strategies in their classrooms. If you ever get a chance to go to a Kagan workshop, I highly recommend it. It has helped me to better manage my classroom, and get my students to interact and be engaged more often. I am not being paid for this statement. It is my opinion, and definitely worth an educator's time. I was fortunate to have my workshops paid for through school funds. :0) This is the last cooperative learning linky of this summer.