This week! Holy
cow! It was fast, it was slow, it was
incredible, and it was insane all in one big jumble! So, I missed my Tuesday post and have decided
to join the Five for Friday fun! Here we
go!
We finished learning about types of prompts. Honestly, the materials my school bought for
writing are the most boringly designed products I’ve ever seen! They cost an arm and a leg also! I just couldn’t hand them to my kids and be
happy! Then I got the idea for this
lovely game-Spot the Prompt! The kids
enjoyed it so much and really had a lot of good practice with it! Once we finished playing (it actually took a
couple of days) we were able to complete the partner practice and the guided
practice for a grade. Overall, I was really
pleased!
Spot the Prompt has a few
finishing touches and then it will be available in my store!
We also became Knights for a few days! Together we worked to defeat the Digits
Dragon and save the Rounding Table! My
kids were in LOVE! We read Saint George
and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges and I was also able to discuss some of the
aspects of fairy tales. We had a great
time practicing our poem, rounding, and playing the game to become
Knights! You can find this product here!
We also started to learn about synonyms.
Little did I know that this would be one of
the kids’ favorite parts of the day. I
do Morning Meeting and last year many of the games were my students’ favorite
moments. I started by incorporating my
Social Studies Weekly as our shared reading.
I took a sentence from the article to begin to talk about what synonyms
are. The students provided the
non-examples that lead us to complete the chart. I then used this website to create cards that
we used to match up with a synonym buddy.
I had them greet each other, use eye contact, and say thank you to each
other when the pair didn’t match. I
increased it to 3 and then 4 groups as the week went on. I have a feeling I will be doing more of
this! They were so excited today to do
this activity! They cheered! More importantly, they learned. I was able to connect synonyms to context
clues! When they didn’t know the word, a
sample sentence was given, and they had to use the context to solve! It was AWESOME!
As a class we have also been hard at work reading The
Littles and working on literature Standard 5!
This is a little idea I came up with to track the events of the chapter
and have the students begin to understand the structure of a novel. It has been enlightening, to say the
least! We have had some very good
debates over what is and what isn’t a fever chapter. We have had firm
agreements on what is normal or somewhat feverish. It has been a great discussion and it allows
interaction among my literacy partners on a daily basis. More importantly, it is truly setting up a
classroom of learners, allowing for routine and for polite discussion. Truly
awesome!
I will say, I’m not totally sold on the mood of the chapter
part. Any suggestions would be great!!
Finally, I’m birthdayed out!
I had THREE this week and, during a discussion, found out we missed one
due to our hurricane days! PLUS there
was a birthday last Friday. What is with
September birthdays and my class! Not
that I can say anything personally. I
squeezed my oldest son out in September!
(Did I just say that-I did!!) It
was just a lot. We had so much food
though! It just might be time to think
of a different birthday routine! One
thing I do for my students is let them decide about the cha-cha-cha. A few years ago I had a student come up to me
and ask if I would tell the kids NOT to cha-cha-cha because they really didn’t
like it. The great thing was, I could
tell that child that I felt the same exact way!
It annoys me! So I did, and the
class was fine with it! Ever since, I
ask about their cha-cha-cha choice.
Today, neither girl wanted the cha-cha-cha! It is a small thing, but I’ve discovered that
it is important to them-and it is their day!
So, that’s it! Hope
you week was rockin’ and not as crazy as mine!
I’d love to hear how it went!
I would love a copy of your Knights packet to the 10,000,000 spot!
ReplyDeleteI could whip up a Quest Again pack! :)
ReplyDelete