Forces of Nature

For February we began a new reading unit for the month. My host teacher found a GLAD unit based on Forces of Nature. We thought that learning about natural disasters and reading adventure fiction stories is a nice companion to the learning we have been doing in our landforms unit.

Students have broken into four literature groups (we had five choices, but no one chose to read the Tornado fiction book). The groups are reading a fiction book that portrays children in a heroic light and a non-fiction text as a companion. We read the non-fiction text first to build our background knowledge so we have some great schema in place as we read the realistic fiction the rest of the month.

Here is what the literature groups are reading:

After students read the non-fiction text they made a 3-part "mural" where they drew a picture of a scene before the disaster they learned about, during, and after. Then they wrote and performed a news cast skit for the class.

Here are some of the murals:

Tsunami Before

During Tsunami

After Tsunami

During an Earthquake

During a Hurricane

 

Other Supplement Learning:

• Cognitive Content Dictionary: Preparation, Safety, Precipitation, Humanitarian Aide, Impact, Evacuation, Tectonic Plates, ...
• Poems and Songs about Natural Disasters
• Maps 
• Learning about Mt. St. Helens (local landform & disaster)
• Earthquake & Fire Drills
• Water Cycle
• Safety Preparation
• Creating Mental Images
• Character Traits that will help them be heroic 
• Making Inference, Predictions, and Observations
• Rebuilding Community

Writing

We finally have another brave student willing to try her hand at blog writing. E.L. would like to share with all of you what she has worked on lately in her favorite subject. Without further adieu here she is...

I love writing. It is my favorite subject. Right now we are learning about descriptive words. We did an activity where we made riddles about mystery bags. We also have written letters from our Colonial Boston characters back to family members in Britain.

My favorite thing is writing in Writer's Workshop!!! It allows us to free write. I'm working on a story about a girl who gets turned into a fairy. Well goodby for now and back to my teacher.

E.L. mentioned about our descriptive memory bags. I wanted to share more about that to our parents and teacher friends. I put six items in brown lunch sacks (green apple, blue mitten, yellow highlighter, red color pencil, blue rubber ducky, and a frog stuffed animal . Sitting a circle students had about 10 seconds to stick their hands in the back and guess the item without looking.Many guess correctly with things like the rubber ducky and apple. However, what is their mental image of those items. We discussed that our jobs as good writers is to help good readers make mental images. To do that we need to write descriptively. We need to put items into context, add details, and invoke the senses. We then brainstormed different sensory words we could use as writers. I had groups break off and write a paragraph or riddle to "show not tell" exactly what was in their bag. This was hard for students because they didn't want to have students guess what it was too easily. I had to keep reminding them that the whole point is that they will guess it. We want everyone who reads our papers to have a clear mental image. Then the groups read their paragraphs and the students guessed again. They all guessed exactly write, down to the color. It was a fabulous lesson!

Our before and after guesses

Sensory Word Anchor Chart

Kid-Directed Art & Free Time

We had science homework due last week. I would love to say that all our kiddos complete and turn in their homework. Unfortunately, that is far from true. For daily work that is unfinished we keep our students in during recess to complete it. This is true for weekly homework too. However, for our monthly calender and monthly science/math project the students miss out on some wonderful free time. Our science experiment write-up last week fell into the free time category.

During free time students had the choice to make foam snowmen, draw winter scenes on black paper with chalk, or play board games. Some free times we allow students to play computer games, board games, or draw on whiteboards. We try to limit the choices just for crowd control.

Normally for art projects I try to control the outcome by doing a focus and art lesson. Allowing kid-directed art goes against my natural inclination and it is something I am working on (especially with little ones at home). When the host teacher wanted to hand out black paper and chalk I was a little nervous. How would it turn out? Would they just write messages or letters to their friends? Would they think it is boring? I felt beyond foolish when I saw the art work they produced. It is simply beautiful. It was a shame some friends had to miss out and write about science instead.

Root of it All

Wow, I can't believe it's been a week since my last post! I wanted to share the Word Work we do daily. Most mornings I introduce a new prefix, root, or suffix to the students. Each student has a word work book that I made them. We fill it out together with me telling them the definition and two examples. They students tell me what word segment it is and we discuss as a group a picture to represent that word into our memory. Drawing words when it comes to vocabulary study has shown to help in the aid of recall.

Part of morning work the following morning students have a leaf on their desk. They are to write a word that has the word segment we had learned the previous day. The student's goal is to think of a word that wasn't an example I gave or a word a classmate would think of. At times this can be tricky because they need to make sure that a) the word matches the definition of the word we learned and b) they aren't making up words. The leafs get added to our interactive bulletin board. I got the idea of the bulletin board from the pin of Dandelion and Dragonflies blog. It has been great teaching these to my 5th graders, and tying it into our reading and writing!

It's a Snow Day

We don't get a lot of snow here in the Pacific Northwest, so when we do it is a BIG deal! Having lived in Alaska, and moving there later this year, it is laughable what we call a "snowstorm". I think my hubby said they have over 8 feet of snow this year and it is -5 degrees. Yikes! However, in in the Pacific Northwest I will get giddy over some snowflakes and get wrapped up in the excitement like the rest of us.

Today was a half day and since the district closed school I wonder if we will have to make up a full day or a half. Hmmm? It was starting to rain when we woke up so I got the boys dressed and we played in the snow before the sunrise. Last year I learned my lesson. I promised my son we would play later on in the morning (when I was properly awake), and then the snow melted. He was heartbroken! So now we have gotten snow fun out of our system and it is time to cuddle and get warm inside. Here are some pics of my snow day:

My baby enjoying the snow (for a short while at least)

My Boys

With the little one. Did I mention I wasn't fully awake yet and it was before sunrise!

Attempts at snowman building

With the oldest warming up with hot chocolate!

Students-if you happen to check the blog today. I would love to read a comment of what you did on your snow day! I will see you all tomorrow at school as we try to get rid of our snow madness!!!

Weathering

We have been plugging away with our large landform unit. As we wait for the Foss Kits to show up I have been busy teaching weathering. As we move away from weathering onto erosion I wanted to show what we have done so far. Here is what we have done in science in the past two weeks (not including the GLAD component which I will make a separate post on later):


Weathering Experiment: I took some different rocks from my yard (pebbles and decorative rocks bought at Home Depot) and placed them in a glass baby food jar. Then I had the students fill the jars with water and shake at 15 second intervals. Over time the decorative rock broke away and what looked like sand sediment appeared. We were able to weather our own rocks!

The murky water is actually weathered sediment

A student's experiment write up

Sand Observation: My son has a sand collection from different beaches around the world. We have sand from Japan, Thailand, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, and local beaches as well. You would be amazed how all sand looks different! In pairs students got two samples to compare. Then I had students infer why the two samples would look so differently. They had more difficulty with this than I expected. However, after some discussion we realized that different rocks could be one reason for the difference in appearance, and also the how long they had been weathered may also be a factor.

Looking at differences

Sand Samples

Students comparison notes and inferences

Chemical/Physical Weathering Picture Sort: After watching my PowerPoint on the different types of both physical and chemical weathering, that highlight some characteristics to watch for, we inferred from pictures what type of weathering each image was.  For example, honeycomb appearance tells us salt-wedging has occurred. It was fun to guess which type of weathering each image was. To take it a step further, if a student could tell me the EXACT name of weathering that was happening they got a Super Scientist award (more on that in another post).

A Day in My Shoes

Over at Adventures of a 6th Grade Teacher she is having a Linky Party. That is where other blogs do a similar post or idea and they link it to the blog hosting the party. That way you have one area full of ideas! This was a look at the life of a teacher, and I thought it would be fun...so here it goes~

 

5:50- I ask my 5 year old why he is waking up so early. Then begrudgingly crawl out of bed. I make the boy get dressed immediately because he tends to dawdle! L Check Facebook & let the dogs out.

6:00- The movement has woken up the toddler so we are all up. Change Diaper. Kiddos are crying for food. I make the boys breakfast (premade and frozen mini pancakes, 1/2 banana and Gogurt).


6:15- My alarm goes off. While the baby is secure in his chair I run to take a 5 minute shower. This 5 minutes of alone time is only if I am super lucky!

6:30- Get little one dressed because he most likely got breakfast all over himself. Change another diaper.

7:15- Grab packed lunch, work bag, tot's diaper back (checked to make sure I didn't forget wipes or diapers), and tell the oldest to grab his backpack and coat

7:20-Wondering why oldest hasn't gotten ready to walk out the door

7:32- Finally in the car and driving to in-laws,who watch the boys. They live two minutes away.

7:45-Arrive at school. Begin putting morning work papers on student desks, write daily schedule and learning targets on the board, check that I have everything ready for today's lessons.

8:20-Open the door for students. They begin morning work.

8:40 Specialist (PE/Music/Library). I make copies. Prep experiment materials for the week. Cut paper. Make Bulletin boards. Have a Diet Dr. Pepper (early I know-but it's my morning cup of coffee)

9:10-Check morning work. Work Word (Introduce new Root Word) Students read about Amazing Americans (their choice of book). They record it in their log and write a reader's response. May have a guided reading group during this time.

10:20-Colonial Boston Storypath or Writer's Workshop

11:20-Students have 30 min. recess and I get lunch. Except students are in to complete work so I discreetly eat a peanut butter banana sandwich and drink a diet soda. Students leave 5 minutes before my lunch is over. I try to fit a restroom break in.

11:50- I pick up the students from outside the cafeteria. We walk back to the classroom with lunch in hand. They need to eat lunch in the classroom since we don't have space at our school. This is instructional time so I normally do a read-aloud (science or math based) or the GLAD Big Book for whatever unit we are on at the moment (Landforms currently)

12:10 Students do daily math work (like morning work but math related since morning was literacy focused)

12:30 Science (observation, chants, experiments weekly, etc) Yes, I teach it most days!

1:05-Math

2:05 Recess. Which I go to the computer lab to help students with IXL math work.

2:35 Students come back and we do end-of-day routine (partner read) or compliment ball.

2:50 Dismissal. After watching students leave on the bus I walk back to room. Adjust plan-book for what ever surprises the day has brought. Grade work and get supplies ready for the next day.


4:00 Leave the school (if lucky). Go and pick up my boys. Lots of hugs and hear all about Kindergartners day.


 5:00 Dinner (normally slow cooker or something prepped on the weekend).

6:00 Tuesday-parenting class, Wednesday-College Class, All other days I play with the boys, check my email, work on son's homework, put dishes away from dishwasher, clean up the multitude of toys and pots and pans strewn around the house, let the dogs go out about a twenty times,  keep the baby from climbing on the table or eating the dog food, change diapers, take garbage out, etc.


7:00  Skype with hubs/daddy since he is in Alaska working. Give boys quick bath. Read books with oldest- I read two and he reads one) Hugs and Kisses and lights out!

8:00 Watch a TV show. Feel guilty so plan and prep for students as I watch TV (cutting, pasting, creating quizzes or worksheets, do my own homework, blog, check Facebook and Pinterest, and clean the straggling toys on the floor.

9:45 Fall asleep in my chair.

11:00 Wake up in my chair. If I have second wind work on school prep until midnight. Normally the second wind never appears so I crawl into bed and fall asleep the second the head hits the pillow!