It's kind of... odd... to think that the kids I am currently teaching weren't even a twinkle in their parents' eyes when 9/11 happened. I remember where I was, and I'm sure everyone who was alive 13 years ago can identify the exact moment when they heard the news.
I don't want to go into great detail, but the fact of September 11, 2001 should still move Americans today. So, even though my students are currently living in a post-9/11 world, they need to know about an important piece of our recent history.
This video from Nick News is moving, informational, and kid-friendly. I've shown it to my students every year since it's airing on the 10 year anniversary.
We are studying landforms and bodies of water this week. What better way than to use a fun, interactive Power Point?!
I know I have shared this Power Point before, but here it is again.
We had a good time learning about landforms and bodies of water. We even learned some hand motions to go with them. I'll have to get pictures to show you how smart we are. :)
It was a good Monday back from Fall Break. (It's not too often you can say that!) My soldiers came back ready to learn and I came back sleep- deprived, but ready to teach! (It's my own fault for being sleepy. I just finished the new book in the Heroes of Olympus Series- it is sooooo good!)
In TIER II (reading intervention) we started new sight words, found HERE, and we worked on a fluency activity with a new Level A book.
If you've ever wondered about the different levels in books, well, join the club. Last year our school used Rigby levels, and this year we are using Fountas and Pinnell. The difference between the two- Rigby used numbers and the F&P uses letters. A Level 'A' book uses a lot of repetition.
I can see a cat. I can see a dog. I can see a balloon.
Once a child can recognize the repetition of the text, it becomes easier to read. The books on this level focus on using easy sight words. The trick when teaching with this type of text is having activities that ensures that the student really is learning the sight words and new vocabulary, not just depending on the pictures to 'read' the text.
So far, I've been very impressed with how quickly my TIER II students have picked up on their sight words since the beginning of the year and have worked hard on learning new vocabulary words.
Math's focus today was Adding 0,1, and 2 to numbers up to 12. Basically, students learned that when you add zero to a number, the number stays the same. Me- 1+0 Students- 1! Me- 10 + 0 Students- 10! Me- One Gajillion + 0 Students- (stunned silence)
A brave soldier- One Gajillion? Me- Right! The number never changes!
When students add 1 to a number, you just count UP! We began by counting to 20 by ones. Easy enough. We just needed to remember to count up to the next number!
Adding 2 was a little more difficult. Most of my students chose to use the "Put the number in your brain and count up" method. For example- let's use the number sentence 8+2. Students would take the bigger number, 8, and place it in their brain. (8,8,8- tap, tap, tap) Then the students would count up two times. (9...10) and they would have their answer!
The problem we ran in to... no one had 11 fingers and I wasn't willing to let anyone take off their shoes. Students just had to count up without being able to show the whole number.
During whole group we worked on Pronouns. I explained that there were sometimes when I just don't have time to use specific nouns. When I get too lazy, I use Pronouns. Of course, we made a chart.
We used our Big Book read-aloud to do a little practice. We read through the story once, then we read it again while taking out the nouns and filling in pronouns in their place. We decided we didn't like the 'only pronoun' version very much because pronouns can cover too much. Without a few nouns sprinkled in, we didn't know what the story was about!
In case you were wondering, the story is about a little girl who grows a little plant and takes it to the County Fair. It doesn't fit in with the other flowers, but the girl doesn't care. She takes the flower home and replants it and is happy.
This week is a short week, so I didn't want to print out a whole new set of Read, Build, Write cards when one team wouldn't get to use them. So instead, I had my students review the vocabulary from our last story.
Last stop- Social studies. This week's topic of interest- Antarctica. By looking at the KWL chart we created, I think my students were still thinking of Australia.
Before we created the chart we found Antarctica on the globe. We talked about how since it is located at the bottom of the globe, it must not get much sun. And, if it doesn't get sun to keep it warm, it must be cold. My students could understand that concept, but they couldn't make the jump from being very cold, to not being a place where jungle animals could live.
After filling out the K and W sections, we talked about the movie Happy Feet. As soon as I mentioned that movie, all of the light bulbs inside their heads went off! We visited National Geographic to learn more about Arctic animals. THIS is another great part of the National Geographic site. I'll have to make sure I show it to my students tomorrow!
**REMINDER** Parent/ Teacher conferences are all this week! I had 4 parents come in today! I will be available tomorrow until 6pm. On Wednesday until 4:30, and Friday is a half day and I will stay until 3:30. Come by anytime! You will receive your child's report card at the conference.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm ready for days 2 and 1 to be over. It has nothing to do with my class, and everything to do with the fact that my throat is killing me and I need fall break to get some sleep and medication!
My soldiers were wonderful today. They were understanding when I said I was sick, and didn't make too big a deal out of my having a coughing attack in the middle of small group reading time. They were so concerned that everyone stopped what they were doing to watch me! It would have been funny if it hadn't hurt my throat so much! :)
In reading we read the story Counting on the Woods. After reading it we charted what the author saw in the woods, then we classified the nouns into singular and plural. I gave my students an informal assessment at their seats on singular and plural nouns and I think they get it! Tomorrow we look at possessive nouns. Mine! Mine!
During TIER II I had the students who were still at their seats create a scene about the song Waltzing Matilda. The kids were to create the scene and label the pictures with the Australian vocabulary from the board.
All of my soldiers did a great job, but one picture stood out from the rest.
She even included the ghost of the Swagman that is mentioned at the end of the song! Great job!
As promised, I did get video of Mrs. Overton singing our Favorite Nouns song! Unfortunately, I left the camera at school and I'm at home blogging. I'll upload it first thing tomorrow! Mrs. O was kind enough to bring her copy of the Sound of Music so my students could see the scene for themselves. They kept yelling out "Nouns!" when the song said "Things". (Just like I taught them!) :)
This was the only picture I got of literacy centers today. That coughing fit really slowed me down!
In math we worked on collecting data. We made a chart of collected data during circle time. We graphed the different colors of shirts in the room. I forgot to get a pic, but I'll get one tomorrow.
The lesson had the kids filling out a 10s chart. (there was a number on one side and students had to figure out how much was needed to get to 10) I don't know what flipped the learning switch to on in my students' brains, but they got it! We've been working on missing numbers for weeks and they've struggled, but they understood this!
For now in, I'm teaching everything in a graph or table format. If that's what it takes, that's what I'll do!
*REMINDER* Report cards are coming out soon! I'm going to send
home a Parent/Teacher conference sign-up form tomorrow. The
administration decided that report cards will be given out during
conferences- October 24-28. I will be available every day after school
when we get back from Fall Break. (except Thursday) Tuesday will be my
very late day- I'll be available until 6pm. (unless something unexpected
happens)
Counting today, just 4 more days until Fall break!
It was a musical day today. (I've always thought that life would be better lived if everyone would randomly break into song and choreographed dance.) Well, there was no dancing, but there was singing!
I decided to integrate our social studies topic of Australia and our whole group reading time and we studied some Australian vocabulary! Fun! And of course I need a fun song to engage my students. :)
When I was a kid, I loved listening to childrens songs. On one of my numerous CDs is the song Waltzing Matilda. I never really understood what was going on in the song, but I loved singing it!
As it turns out, Waltzing Matilda is an Australian song that is full of fun Aussie vocabulary! I wrote down the vocabulary from the song on the board and we listened to the song.
After listening to the song, we had a good time trying to come up with what we thought each word means!
The class decided that Billy is something you eat, since the Swagman was waiting for his Billy to boil. As it turns out, Billy refers to a brand of tea found in Australia! A jumpbuck is a term for a kangaroo. The Swagman was waiting by a billabong (a small lake) waiting for his Billy to boil, and a jumpbuck came along.
The term Swagman refers to a hobo, which is another term that the students didn't know. (a homeless person) You can see from their guesses that they didn't think a Swagman was a very good person. I pointed out that he was a jolly Swagman, but my students didn't recognize the term jolly. I told them that jolly was a term that we use for Santa Clause, so it is a happy term!
So, now we knew that a happy hobo was waiting for his tea to boil, when a kangaroo came to the lake to drink.
Well, the Swagman grabbed the jumpbuck and shoved it into his tuckerbag. (that was easy to figure out. It's a bag the swagman carried with him) But, when he did he got caught my the Squatter and the Troopers! A squatter is the person who owned the land the Swagman was on. The Troopers were like police, but before there were police.
As you can see, my students knew that Troopers were important, but they didn't know to what extent.
The Swagman didn't want to go to jail, but he jumped into the billabong and was never heard from again.
So, here is the story of Waltzing Matilda, using non-Australian vernacular:
Once there was a homeless person who decided to camp near a small lake. While he was waiting for his tea to boil, he spied a kangaroo that had come to the lake to get a drink. He decided to grab the kangaroo and stuff it into his backpack, but when he did he was caught by the owner of the land and the town deputies. Instead of letting himself be caught and taken to jail, the homeless man decided to jump into the lake. He was never seen again.
You're probably wondering the significance of the word Matilda. Well, there were different definitions for this term, but the one that made sense to my class was that a Matilda is a rolled up bedroll (like a sleeping bag) that the Swagman carried with him.
At the beginning of the song, the Swagman invites the listener to go Waltzing Matilda with him- to roll up their bedroll and follow him. (be his friend, I would assume) In the beginning, the Swagman was living a free life, able to go where he chose. By the end of the story, the Squatter and the Troopers told the Swagman to go Waltzing Matilda with them- to bring his things and go with them to jail.
I loved this lesson! My students loved this lesson! Mrs. Hughes, the Literacy Coach, stopped in the room and got hooked! She loved the lesson too! But the fun didn't end there, my friends! There was more music to come!
We are learning about Nouns, which are people, places, things, and animals. What better song to use in this lesson than My Favorite Things? (I told you I loved musicals!)
While searching my teaching blogs, I found where one teacher had used this song to teach plural nouns. Genius! So, I printed out her version of My Favorite Nouns for my students and we went though and found the nouns. (after we listened to the song once or twice first!)
Unfortunately, I can't remember the teacher's blog that shared this idea. If by chance that teacher should stumble across my blog- I'm sorry! Please let me know if this is yours!
We were listening to the song one last time when who should come in your room but.... Mrs. Overton! Her office is right across the hall from our room, and she heard the song at her desk As it turns out, The Sound of Music is her favorite movie and she was drawn in by the lure of Julie Andrews!
My students were in a state of shock and awe when Mrs. O came in... and began to sing to them!
And me without my camera at my side!!! Good news, Mrs. O agreed to come back tomorrow when we categorize the nouns from the song, and she agreed to video! :)
In other news, here are the literacy center pictures of the day....
