Finishing Up Character Changes!

Today we finished up our character changes activities and BOY are they pros at it now! I pulled this lesson from a 5th grade blog so it was a little challenging for my kids but we LOVE challenges! They all did a wonderful job and their work came out better than I ever imagined. We have been reading the book 'Mrs. Mack' by the same author as 'Thank You, Mr. Falker'- Patricia Polacco. It was awesome because the kids were able to make connections between books. Both books almost made me cry! We analyzed how the main character Patricia changed throughout the story and the reasons why. Here's some of their awesome work they did on their foldable! Tomorrow and Friday will be full days of math and social studies to catch up! I like to really go in depth with my kids an have them thinking at high levels before we move on to another skill. Looking at their reading tests yesterday, these kids are doing so awesome! 75% of them scored 100's and the rest were 90's! Go kids! So proud. :)

Zoooooom Books!

Oh how these books are so awesome! Earlier in the year we read the picture book 'Zoom' where we discussed how when reading, you can read pictures that tell a story also. In the book, it 'zoomed' out in each picture and we tried to figure out what the next page was going to have on it. These books tied into this book and the "Me On The Map"  and gave the students a perspective on where we actually are in relation to the world! Here are some example that were amazing!

 

 

 

 

Our Mission Statement

Today we created a bubble thinking map to brainstorm for our mission statement. We viewed a PowerPoint on what a mission statement was, then we talked about words we thought described things that were the most important to us in our classroom. Then we narrowed it down to the top 5 words we thought we should include in our mission statement and put a box around them. We will finish (or at least come up with a rough draft) of our mission statement tomorrow!

Inferences & Character Changes

Yesterday we had an awesome lesson in inferencing and character changes! I have to say, this is probably the best lesson we have had all year! We read the story 'Thank you, Mr. Falker' and filled out this chart while reading. The kids put post it notes on the chart during the beginning, middle, and end. They worked with a partner and inferred how the character was feeling and why they thought that based on what the author was SHOWING them and not TELLING them. Their inferences were amazing! This will lead us into making a summary using a beginning, middle and end for next week. :)

Compass and Map Skills

Today was a crazy day with finishing testing, getting sub plans done, and getting everything organized for our first Eaglettes practice. BUT I did it and we got through it! Today I introduced map skills with reading the book 'Map On My Lap' by Dr Seuss (which is awesome for a map skills introduction!) We also read 'Me on the Map' which will lead us into making our 'Zoom' books next week! After the book, the students made a giant compass rose and practiced map coordinate skills on our SmartBoard. We practiced how to read a grid on a map and how to enter coordinates of objects on a grid.

Amber Brown Pizza and Prefix Bouquets!

Today we finished up our Amber Brown character changes pizza. They came out so cute! We also made prefix bouquets. We have been studying prefixes all week and this was our fun prefix activity to close our prefix lesson. The kids did a great job! I encouraged them to use prefixes that weren't as common such as the 'pre, re, and mis' we see a lot when we read. Next, we will learn about suffixes!

Story Elements & Character Changes

This week we are learning about story elements and character changes. Here is an anchor chart (messed up in the word 'characters' so we need to fix that :)) we did as a class and I found the cutest posters with visuals for the kids.You can get these story elements posters here. We are also learning about character changes and how relationships with other characters affect their changes. We just finished the book 'Amber Brown is Not A Crayon'. This book was a great book that showed how characters go through several personality changes based on relationship changes. After finishing the book, we made a character traits pizza (because Amber Brown loved pizza!). The students wrote down her different personality traits and had to justify that trait with supporting evidence.

 

Cheap whiteboards turned FABULOUS!

Cheap whiteboards from Lowes. I had them cut a 4ft by 8ft board into rectangles about a foot by 16in. The board was $12 and I ended getting over 30 boards. The problem was the edges were jagged and ugly! I put black duct tape on the edges (my awesome kids helped!) to make them look and last longer. I would've liked to use more colorful colors but the expo markers would've turned the tape different dingy colors over time. The girl decided we should add bling! So we did :) The pictures are what they looked like at first, and then the fabulous whiteboards after! All for under $30!

The jagged edges...



 

After the duct tape...

 

Fabulous bling!

Quiet Critters

These are 'quiet critters'. They are little critters who come out when it gets really quiet and sit on the students desk. They only like when it's quiet and will go back in their home of it gets too loud. Sometimes a REALLY quiet student will get two friends. They also like students who do their work because they like to see what they are learning, and like to learn themselves.

These work like a charm! Very cheap, and the kids enjoy friends on their desks.

FREEBIES!

Monkey Themed Labels for Tables available HERE.



Make Ten Go Fish for lower grades available HERE.

 

 

Rolling Comparison Dice Game

You can get this freebie HERE

 

The GT Extension game is available free HERE.

 

The first grade version is available for free HERE.