An Assortment of Happenings!

Hope you are enjoying the weekend! I took a much needed nap this afternoon...isn't it nice to catch up on sleep?! Here is a picture walk with explanations of what's been happening in the classroom lately:

For Dr. Suess's birthday, the students made Thing 1 and 2 glyphs. I got the template from Kimberly Edgerton's TpT's shop. To introduce this activity, I created a Prezi on hieroglyphs. I asked the students if they had ever heard or seen the word 'hieroglyphs'. Then I showed them a picture of hieroglyphs, which turned a light bulb on in some of their brains...one student said, "Hey, I've seen those in Scooby-Doo!" I explained to the students a brief history of hieroglyphs (how 5,000 years ago people used pictures to communicate and tell stories, etc.). Then I explained how pictures are used to communicate information in our world today, typically in the form of graphs. I accompanied this explanation with an infographic. Then they created and shared their glyphs! If you click on the Prezi link above, you can see the pictures and glyph key I used. 

The students planted sunflower seeds! Some of their seeds have already begun sprouting! We did this activity while learning about George Washington Carver since he studied agriculture. I poked holes in the bottom of the cups and set them on plastic paper plates for them to drain excess water. The students love checking on their plants!

Compound cards! Before the students created their cards, we did the the Compound Boogie by Dr. Jean. They loved it and were singin' and dancin' right along! I love to get them up and moving!

I Spy time! I got this idea from Teacher Tipster. I placed ten mini Judy clocks around the classroom, and the students had to find all ten clocks and record the time in their math journal. 

We'd been having a issue with mixing up the tag pens with the wrong set of books (the tag pens only hold a certain amount of memory). I did have each pen in a bag with a set of books but that just wasn't working out even though I had modeled and modeled how to take care of them. So Dollar Tree to the rescue! I got these baskets from the Dollar Tree and they have solved our problem...the tag pens now stay with the right books!

Poem for the week that I created and the students wikki stikked: short oo. They always notice when there is a new poem up and are eager to read it!

I implemented Writer's Workshop this week! The students are writing stories about our Noun Town we created the other week. I have emphasized to the students that we become better writers by writing. Everyday I asked them, How do we become better writers?" and they respond, "Just keep writing!!" (the way they say it reminds me of Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.") On the first day, we brainstormed what they could write about. Then over the following three days they planned their stories with a story map and a beginning, middle, and ending map that I got from The Teacher Wife. I created my own planning maps and story too to serve as a model for them. Once they had their plans and checked them over with me, they began writing their stories. They're really getting into their stories! I just love reading about their ideas!

The Mystery Box (labels from Babbling Abby) is one of my favorite activities. I got the box at Hobby Lobby for $1. The students get so excited when I bring it out! I've been using the Mystery Box to introduce our themed story for the week. I give the students clues as to what might be in the box, and they have to use their inferencing skills to make an educated guess. Examples of what I have put in the Mystery Box are a toy red-eyed tree frog (for the story The Red-Eyed Tree Frog), friendship necklaces (for the story That Toad is Mine!), and a bear puppet (for the story Lost). 

If anyone has any suggestions on Writer's Workshop or would like to share how they implement Writer's Workshop, I would love to hear about it! 

Nouns!

I love grammar! Last week I focused on adjectives and this week I focused on nouns. To introduce nouns we watched a School House Rock video. Then the students did four noun stations: Noun Land Game (from The Teacher Wife), Super Hero Mad Lib (from The Teacher Wife), Picture Book Noun Hunt (free recording sheet from The Teacher Wife), and Describe Nouns. For Describe Nouns, the students took five or six noun cards and then took turns manipulating adjective cards to describe their nouns. You can get the noun cards for free from A Teeny Tiny Teacher. You could also have the students sort the cards into people, places, and things but I wanted to give the students an opportunity to apply describing words to nouns since we had learned about adjectives the previous week . The students seemed to enjoy the stations and got a kick out of their mad libs. We did the stations for two days since there is only 30 minutes for writing.

On the third day, the students were divided into four groups and each group received a piece of butcher paper with a category (people, places, things, and animals). Each group had four minutes to write as many nouns as they could according to their category. Students rotated the role of writer in their group. After the four minutes was up (I set a timer on the SMART Board), a designated messenger rotated the group's paper. This continued until each group had contributed to each category.

This is one of the four charts. I wrote one example on each paper. The students wrote in pencil but if you click the photo you may be able to read what they wrote more easily.

This cooperative learning activity was preparation for our next day's task...to create a Noun Town!! I have done a similar activity with other classes (Proper Noun Town and Symmetry City) so I was so excited for the students to create a Noun Town since it has been a successful project in the past. The students were so creative! AND I LOVED the sense of community that this activity brought to the classroom. Next week I am going to do a writer's workshop with the students with writing tasks based on our Noun Town. Students will have the option to write a news story (to inform) about Noun Town, a travel story about Noun Town (to persuade), or a story about Noun Town (to entertain). I have so many pictures to share of Noun Town because I LOVE it so much!! The students loved it too...they didn't want to stop but as you'll see below, our town doesn't have any more space for development.

Students working together!

Our finished Noun Town!

An angel- isn't this so cute?!

There is a circus in town!

I made the Pigeon but one of the students created me riding on him!

The start of a rainbow with a pot of gold!

Outer space with a superhero!

I guess I don't want to go to his house!

I'm for sale.This cracks me up. One of the students was telling me at recess that she was going to buy four of me for $1000.

How do you teach grammar?

A Pop Rockin' Experience

For writing this week, I implemented part of Babbling Abby's unit on descriptive writing. You probably already know (because Abby rocks!) but her blog is The Inspired Apple. I try to get most of my resources for free because I'm a poor graduate student; however, sometimes a few dollars is definitely worth the time, such as the case for this unit.

I don't want to give too much away because I want you to buy her unit! I will show you the final product though!

Aren't these so cute!? I did put glitter in their mouths for the Pop Rocks but I had taken these pictures prior to that.

The students loved the activities we did this week, and I was so impressed with their work!!