I made this simple poster to keep my little writers writing. I taught the kids what the diligent means. When they are being "Diligent Writers" I ask them to sign the poster. Easy and 1,2,3....and it works!
Little Love for Tomie dePaola
Tomie dePaola is one of my favorite authors. To start out mini-unit, I chose to use the old stand by---the KWL. I had previously read Oliver Button is a Sissy, which I adore!!
Next, I asked the kiddos how could we find new information about Tomie. Of course, they directed me to google.com and we ended up on Tomie's website--tomie.com This is a terrific website and we learned lots of information about Tomie dePaola. The children were also able to make connections between Tomie's real life experiences and his books. For instance, Oliver is a tap dancer and tap dancing was one of Tomie's biggest passions. The kids inferred that Tomie is the real Oliver Button.
We also enjoyed watching an interview with Tomie where the children discovered that he had twin cousins, Fuffy and Fanny, that were artist just like him. Here is the link to the interview: http://bcove.me/vvtn3s85
I gave each child six post it notes and the children took research notes about what they learned. Below are some of the interesting things that the children learned.
My school district has also organized our curriculum around specific themes for each six weeks. This six weeks was all about "relationships" and the concepts on the chart were were highlighted. These were prevalant themes through out The Art Lesson too. So , I thought "Let's give it a try!" Now, I always get nervous when trying to teach theme to little kiddos, because I think that it is too complex of a skill for them to master. But guess what? They come through everytime!!!! They are such smarties. As you can see from the chart below, I wrote the three big ideas. Now we had discussed these ideas a few previous times too, so they were familiar with them. I asked the kids to give me text evidence that yes, these were themes throughout the book.
Sometimes, theme and main idea can be confusing. What's is the difference? Well, fiction literature has a theme and informational text has a main idea. Once I heard that it made complete sense. "OHHHHHHH!"
David Gets in Trouble
Today I taught one of my favorite lessons, Making Inferences using David Gets in Trouble by David Shannon. I even have a letter from David Shannon. Jealous aren't you? This is one of my favorite lessons. Oh and BTW, David is actually in my class this year! I wish that I could post his photo but that is probably a bad idea.
The first thing I did was ask the kids what was going on in the picture. Oh course they said that David ate some of the cake. I asked them how they knew that. The kids said that David has cake on his face and there are finger marks in the cake. Also, he's says "No, it wasn't me!"
Next I taught/discussed this chart with the kids. Focusing on
schema + (text)clues = inference
So, here we go and give it a try.
I find it easier to start on the right side of this chart and work backwards. Here is the first picture and ideas that we wrote down. Boy, do they have some schema about bad words. Before we got into this, I inferred that David was in the bathroom. The kiddos backed my up. They said that there was a pipe coming out of the wall and there was also a towel on the wall.
Great job 2B! What a bunch of smarties!
Okay, on to picture number two. I love that one students said that one of the clues is that there are no bite marks in the eggs. I never even thought of that. I also love that one student said that parents put the food in plastic, so if you refuse to eat it, they will give it to you later! Haha! Wonder what that's all about?
Alright, continuing on. This time I showed the kiddos a picture and sent them back to their desk with three post it notes. They labeled them schema, clues, and inference. Again, I suggested that they work backwards and fill in each post it like we had done together. Then I had the kids bring their post it to the carpet. They each shared what they wrote and then we put them on this chart. Now there were a few kids that missed the mark, but for the most part they all did a great job.
Here is one student's awesome thinking. Check out the big BRAIN on H.B.!!!!!
I hope that you give this lesson a try....one of my three followers :(
Let's Have an Oustanding Day
I thought a lot about my discipline plan over the summer. Last year I had the kiddos walk laps at recess. Personally, I don't really like it. I think that all kids should have a chance to play. My thinking is that playing may prevent futher behavior issues from arising. Also, our recess is early in the morning, so sometimes they walked laps for things that they did the previous day, which doesn't really make sense to me. I asked my friend Shawna, who is an AP, and she suggested that I give the kids that have been "good" a five minute talk time at the end of the day. I loved the idea, so that's what I went with. They absolutely love visiting with each other at the end of the day. I hear all sorts of conversations happening. The kids are also in charge of filling out their own behavior chart. They have to pack everything up and get ready to go home before we can have out talk time. This has really sped up our packing up time. Which has in the past been my least favorite part of the day. When they are ready, they wait behind thier desk for everyone else. AND guess, what I don't have to be the one to nag. They do that for me! If a child has changed their color to yellow or red, they have to sit with me at my table. Our talk time is about their behavior. BOO! Who wants to do that?!?!
Everyone starts out the day on blue.
Blue is a good day.
Green: Warning
Yellow: 1st offense, talk time with the teacher
Red: Second offense, talk time with the teacher, note or phone call home
Purple: The kiddos did something outstanding--especially kind to a friend, be responsible etc....
Fluency
Each students has a fluency notebook. I find poems, mostly online, for us to practice throughout the week. I like to use http://www.poetry4kids.com/ They have lots of different topics and they are funny too. Each day we do something different with the poems.
Monday: I introduce the poem to the kids. I read it to them a couple of times and then they echo read the poem.
Tuesday: Kids listen to poem, echo read poem a few times. Then I give each child a copy of the poem and they cut it out and glue it in their poetry notebook. Then they draw their mental image of the poem in the journal.
Wednesday, Read the poem all together and then we read in a variety of ways. This week I had the girls line up on one side of the room and the boys on the other facing each other. The girls read one line and then the boys read the next. Other ideas are each table reads a line, teacher reads a line and students read the next, each person reads a line etc....
Thursday: We all read together. Then, they have to read to three different class makes and get their signature on the poem.
Friday: comprehension quiz over the poem.
BTW, I talked to them about what good fluency sounds like, reading at just the right speed, using expression, using the punctuation etc...
Here is a copy of the quiz that I gave. I left out a few of the words and they had to fill them in. No one had any trouble with this. I was anxious to see how successful they would be answering question #2. Everyone understood what I was asking. They referred to the chart posted in the room.
Okay, it looks like there are some typos when I uploaded to Scribd.com, but you get the idea.
Little Stools for Little Peeps
I made these cute little, fold-up stools, with some help from both my parents. To be honest, I didn't do any of the work. I was there for support and supervison. The kiddos seem to really like them and I've only gotten one complaint that they wobbled. Oh well! Can't win them all! They fold up nicely so they can be put away when we are not using them. If I had to do it over, I would probably make the seats a little wider. Here is the link with the directions.
http://simplesimonandco.blogspot.com/2011/06/summer-camp-chair-tutorial-that-you-can.html
Tomorrow's Science Lab
The children will be doing a science lab on observing specimens and using a microscope. This is a very simple lab. My team and I set up all the microscopes that our school has(4). We found some pre-made slides and put those on the microscopes for the kiddos to view. We added a couple of other activites so that our groups are not so large. I made a powerpoint to teach the kids the expectations for the lab. I think it will be very helpful in eliminating any problems that could possibly arise. The kids LOVE to go to the lab. We have only been once this year, but they ask aLab 1 lmost everyday when we are going back. Hope all goes well.
