[luvtulearn]

I have posted on Open Court room but have received no responses. For those of you that have been using Open Court or Imagine It is is there another web site or links that can share ideas (photos) on how to create the board.
Is the template on the OC web site one that you use to generate questions?
Do you use a power point to intro ?
I would truly welcome any input on Imagine It since our district just adopted it.

[Fitz_Reads]

I don't know if I will be much help since I have not yet done it myself but I am thinking of modifying the question/concept board to be more like a focus wall I used previously in 6th grade (Houghton Mifflin board). The board will have the specific strategies/skills, selection story title, author, illustrator, spelling and vocabulary words, and the theme. The board will change each week with the new story. I will open the unit similar to what is in the basal.

[mduarte1027]

I used the concept question board my first year...and then started doing more GLAD strategies and instead do a KWL like chart. With the concept question board I made my bulletin board look like a t-chart and cut out shapes that went with the unit..students came up with their own questions and concepts learned and we added them...I never really followed through with it, so I stopped doing it.

FYI...I have not seen the new Imagine It...our district will be adopting it soon..we are going to stick with OC for a few more years to save money, but the current OC we have right now for 2nd grade has poor comprehension lessons..I don't find them helpful at all, they are all about predicting.

[mickeyjo]

I love the new Imagine It program. It's very similar to Open Court. The only section I had to add to was the grammar/lan. sections. It moves to fast and doesn't give enough student practice before the test. The first story starts with common and proper nouns. So during the first 10 days of Getting Start I talk about what are nouns. They had it in first but forget over the summer.
Some stories are the same, but many also teach science and social studies. We do a concept board and focus wall together. Just the weekly focus sheets change till the end of the unit. On the concept board they draw pictures or find magazine pictures about the unit to add to the board.

[Jule]

opencourtresources. com has some information and many powerpoints you can use. Most of them are to introduce vocabulary. I have used them. They also have ideas for opening units. My current school is not adamant about the concept question board so I am using a focus board instead. I think it's from Ms. Bainbridge's website. I did use a concept question board for many years and must say I never loved it. I never could get them to buy into it so it usually ended up being what I created. I did make lists of concepts and questions (questions were never easy) and posted them. I always started a unit by giving them a short sentence strip and having them draw a picture and write a sentence or two about what they already knew about the subject. That went on the board the first day. What OCR web site are you referring to? After seven years of using OCR, I've never been able to find any teacher support online. Does Imagine It take the place of, or supplement OCR? We're still using OCR2002.

[anniebanannie]

Don't know if I can help but we are using Imagine It and have used it for 3 full years now. I teach first but taught 2nd 2 years ago which was the first yea we had Imagine It. I usually just follow the questioning that is in the teachers guide. I have found that first and second grade just do not get as involved as the teachers manual will lead you to believe. I usually ending up spoon feeding until I get them to say the questions I want them to ask. They don't usually bring in much to put on the board either so I usually keep doing it myself in the hopes that someone, sometime, might bring in something.

[luvtulearn]

I believe that Imagine It is a new and revised version of OC but without training I can't confirm this. Imagine It made the adoption list in California and from what I was told it was the only program that incorporated dual immersion Spanish along with a "newcomer" program.

[luvtulearn]

Thanx all for your input and ideas on question-concept boards. Since we will be required to practice "fidelity to the core" I am almost certain that flexibility won't be an option. I also want to use the HM focus wall. I was hoping that there would be a teacher support site like the Santa Maria Bonita site for HM. I guess we'll all be depending on the great sources here on PT for support!!! Maybe that's all we'll need.☺

[Jule]

So - does anyone have the open court website with teacher resources?

[mickeyjo]

http://www.opencourtresources.com/imagine_it/index.html