these are a few of my favorite things!
Finally feeling a little like autumn here in southern NC. The high was 58 Friday! It’s been in the upper 80s-90s all week! It was wonderful. So good in fact, I wore my Uggs! Too early, maybe…but my feet sure felt good! I’ve been sporting cardigans and Converse tennies all week and it’s been nice.
I have come to the conclusion I won’t be posting more than weekly these days. I don’t know how I thought I could still post everyday. I really need to write posts and set dates for later…but…oh well! My class is still working out the expectations kinks and I’m feeling like a big ole meanie everyday, but we are getting there. I try to keep in mind that I am remembering my kiddos at the END of 2nd grade, not the BEGINNING!
What We’ve Been Up To:
I’ll start with 9/11. My kiddos had never even heard about the tragedy and I teetered on not even getting in to it for fear they’d have nightmares, but it is a huge part of our national history and completely changed how our country operates. I am SOOOOO glad I did. I have not had a better day yet with these dears. I started by just asking for a show of hands who had ever heard the term “9-11” and when only 1 kid had, I read a news article aloud. It really led to a wonderful discussion. I told them exactly where I was, what I was doing, how there was nothing televised but NYC for at least a week, and how American flags flew everywhere and everyone had a flag magnet on their car. I felt so proud to be an American. Then, my friend across the hall brought her kids over, told them her story, and we all watched the Brain Pop video. {I love those things…}. We also checked out the interactive timeline and the time lapse video of the memorial going up. You must use this site, it is ah-maz-ing
Bookmark these for next year!
http://www.911memorial.org/ - great lessons and videos, etc.
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/september11th/ - free Brain Pop video
Natalie and Rachelle with some good resources - http://whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com/
Next we made a mosaic of the Twin Towers and added the questions from What the Teacher Wants blog to it. It really turned out beautiful and created a wonderful atmosphere of teamwork in my room {really the first I’ve seen of it}. Like I said, I am so glad I shared this time with them…
We read some wonderful books too:
Nonfiction Writing
Have you seen this news story? http://news.yahoo.com/filipinos-hunt-2nd-killer-croc-1-ton-catch-052749439.html INSANE! I though sharing this story would be a great intro to writing workshop this year and capture their attention for sure. I am admittedly very weak in this area. I have still not figured out the plan for writing to fit my teaching style yet, but we are simply starting with sentence writing. I modeled a sentence about myself capturing a croc roaming our school’s track, then sketched a little doodle. The kiddos thought it was hilarious-the sketch too! I asked them to imagine what they’d want to capture {humanely of course} and sketch a picture and write a sentence that matched. It was a good indication of what they could already do. We have been working from here writing lots of sentences and using complete sentences to answer questions orally and written.
A great strategy I learned from a teammie is called “Flip the Question”. I ask the students what the question words are, then we cross those off and use what’s left to start the answer. I pretty genius if you ask me! I will be posting more about our sentence writing skills soon!
Q: How much does the average croc weigh?
A: The average croc weighs 500 pounds.
Constitution Day…how did it slip by me!? I swear we were still in single digit dates! And I guess the daily emails about being required to teach it slipped by me too?? So, since I had not seen the wonderful posts by Amanda, Rachelle and Natalie, and the SOS ladies yet…Sooo, I slipped over to my teammie’s room and we watched The Preamble from School House Rock {this DVD is probably the best money I’ve spent!}. My teammie really cracks me up! Her kids had been writing a PROBE {more about these gems later} about the Constitution and she kept referencing the hotties in wigs! I did have to remind them they wore leggings too-wow-za! Next week we will be working on Family Constitutions home projects. Cannot wait to see these and share!
Hey Rachel,
ReplyDeleteLoved the book Fireboat, I used that too. I loved you Book in the Spotlight area so much, had to do one in my classroom. I changed the title a little. Blogged about it and gave you credit (And One Extra Degree too, don't know who's original idea it was so credited both:) Saw yours on Pinterest) Thanks for the inspiration!!
4th Grade Frolics