It doesn't take a lot to get us excited. Sometimes it is the smallest strategies that make a big difference. Check out Pocket Mod. We found them from the great folks at Onion Mountain. The following info is from their site with tons of great ideas on how to use the Pocket Mods. You can create and print one (or many) for free! Learn how here.
One of the most popular uses of the PocketMod for the older student will be the base program on line or downloaded for organization. Students can maintain daily, weekly and/or monthly calendars as well as note-taking paper, to do lists, and reference materials. If they lose one organizer, they just print another. The contents of the organizer can be changed from week to week as needs change. Remember, students can write on PocketMods.
Here are some other ideas for individually created PocketMods for older students:
Here are some other ideas for individually created PocketMods for older students:
- Most frequently misspelled words
- Most frequently confused homonyms with meanings
- A glossary of terms with readability appropriate synonyms or definitions, especially
- valuable for new science units or difficult texts
- A rubric check list for note-taking or writing
- A translation aide for foreign language
- A summary of a chapter to be read
- One chapter question per page with room for the answer to be written or the page
- number on which the answer is found
- Important formulas that need to be remembered or could be used on tests
- Software quickstarts
- Dates for a given history chapter in divisions that cover the length of the chapter.
- Students take notes on events within the time period for each of the pages. The result is
- a chronology of events. This is particularly important when info is coming from different books.
- Data collection “journal” for fieldwork. For example, every page could be a different test or observation that the student needs to make.
PocketMods for Younger Students
PDF to PocketMod is an ideal tool for creating “little books” for children to carry and use
whenever they want. They make ideal books for social stories or daily living sequences. Create
these books by making an 8-page file in a word processing program like Word or an 8-slide
presentation in PowerPoint. Because the screen or page is going to be shrunk in the book to
1/8th of a piece of paper, be sure to use large enough fonts as well as fonts that match lettering
that the student is learning. (We use 24-36 point as a minimum.) When the book or
presentation is finished, save it and then turn it into a PDF file. The file is now ready to be made into a PocketMod. In addition to books,
here are some other ideas for K-6 student PocketMods:
- Activity choice books
- Frequently misspelled words
- Vocabulary words for a unit
- Picture/word dictionaries
- Number fact families – especially good for multiplication. Assume they know 1’s and 0’s.
- Use the eight pages for 2 – 9.
- Letters with common objects starting with that letter. Three books will do the entire alphabet.
- Regions of the US maps (maximum of 8 states can be a little tricky, but it can be done.
- Create with a data base program so that the same info appears on each page
- The eight planets (Thanks to the International Astronomers Society for getting rid of number 9, Pluto!)
- Weather journals. Each page is a day, or every page is for recording different weather info for a period of time (cloud type and cover, temperature, precipitation, etc.)
Sharing PocketMods
We have started a new section on our website at www.onionmountaintech.com. Email us your
pocketmod creation as an PDF attachment (jsweeney@onionmountaintech.com). We’ll double
check the PDF on both platforms. In your email, be sure to describe the PocketMod and let us
know who should get credit. Then look for the link on our homepage for Download PocketMods. With a single click you can download any PocketMod there and print it out.
Learn more about it:
http://www.onionmountaintech.com/files2/PocketMod%20handout%20CTG.pdf
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