Keys in Burlington

Top Down Webs

By: Treacy Janis

FW, grade 4

Students read the core book “The One and Only Ivan.”  Students shared character traits of each main character in the story and evidence to support the trait.  Students shared their traits and evidence and posted it under the correct character throughout the novel.  At the end of the novel, students selected 1 character and wrote about the character’s trait using the evidence in their writing.

Main Idea Activity

Students were given a photo copied National Geographic article about pollinators.  The headings of each section were cut off and the article was cut up too; even the pictures.  The students worked in small groups reading each section, They had to decide which of the cut up headings matched each section.  Once they did that, students had to recreate the article from beginning, middle and end and glue them on construction paper with the pictures that matched each section.

After the “Pollinator Parade,”  Students sorted notecards to create the Top Down Topic Web.  This can be used as an assessment. Facts about pollinators were written on notecards,  Students worked in groups to create the TDTW.

Students used an ice cream parlor menu to create Bloom’s Taxonomy questions about the menu.  They used a “Cheat sheet” to help familiarize them with the correct vocabulary for each question.  Once each group wrote a question for each level, they were dispersed among the groups so each group had 6 new questions.  Once everyone is done, the group would read aloud their question and share what level the question is and the vocabulary they used to make them decide what level Blooms the question is.  I shared the Bloom’s questions with another teacher to introduce Bloom’s to her class.

Students read an article in National Geographic about different kinds of giraffes.  We did this activity as a whole group. We discussed how we could organize the information and facts we read in a TDTW.  The class decided the heading is giraffes because that’s what the article is about. Then they discussed what the next level should be and they decided the types of giraffes.  Then students worked in small groups to find details about each type of giraffe and they shared the details on the rug and I wrote the details down. We also discussed the different shapes and colors to use in the TDTW.

Sentence Sort

Each student wrote 4 sentences (one of each kind of sentences) without an end mark.  The sentences were then put into a pile. Each student got 4 new sentences. They had to read each of their sentences aloud and then they had to add the correct punctuation and place it under the correct heading, either exclamatory, declarative, interrogative or imperative.