CNN Student News Freebie!

Do you use CNN Student News in your classroom?!  I LOVE it!  It's one of my most favorite memories of being a 5th grader!  My teacher used to record it nightly on the VCR and play the recording for us every morning before we started our day.  When I became a 5th grade teacher 3 years ago I knew I wanted my students to have the same memory!  Obviously in 2014 it's played online and no recordings or VCRs required! ;)  Sometimes I get flack from co-workers about spending 10 minutes of my day watching the news with my class; which inspired me to create an accountability component to the news.  

Each morning students grab their clipboards and news tracker and come to and around the carpet.  I show CNN Student News (previewed by me the night before to make sure the content is appropriate...sometimes not all of the news can be watched).  Students then watch the stories and choose one story to complete the chart for.  At the end of the week I collect them for an informal Social Studies grade.  Occasionally, our Time For Kids magazine aligns with CNN Students News and then we discuss how the stories are similar/different in presenting the information using a Double Bubble Thinking Map.  You can grad your free copy of the the news tracker by clicking the picture above!  If you download it, I would appreciate feedback on how you use it in your classroom.  Until next time...