It has been a couple of busy weeks. The students in my class have been very focused and working hard. I have been so proud of their accomplishments. This should be a fun week for them because I just love Halloween and will enjoy incorporating learning into the Halloween theme. So for Monday I started with my door. I found this door on Pinterest and made it my own. Very quick and easy. I cut strips out of used chart paper, and the eyes are out of Bristol board. Literally took me 20 minutes to make and looks so cute. This is a clip of the one off of pintrest. Mine looks almost identical, just with the bandages made out of chart paper.
We are doing a trick or treat rotation this week with the other grade 3 classes. I have done it for a handful of years now. The other teachers love it. The classes rotate from classroom to classroom for an activity or craft that lasts about 25 minutes. When they leave each teacher has a small trick or treat for them. The kids love it, and as teachers we plan for one activity and just do it 4 times. What a great morning it makes and the students are so engaged. This year I am doing the scavenger hunt with each class. I did it last year with just my students but they enjoyed it so much, I will have each visiting class do it. If you didn't see this last year, here it is. See what we did last year here.
So in the past week, the students have learned how to "Tweet" an incredible paragraph--Making great word choice and only using important details in their writing. They have chosen a topic and stuck to it. Each sentence has been about the topic (when tweeting I used the word hash tag).
The Really "Tweet" Student Project went home on Thursday last week. The students have 2 weeks to work on it. This year is the latest I have sent the projects home. I wanted to work on writing and paragraph's before they went home. We even did one in class that I was able to assess for a writing mark, which gives the students a model to follow. I was so proud of the results and look forward to the incredible work they will bring back to me. This is the first time using the paragraph package, I know Kaitlin used it in the summer with some children she was tutoring (see it here). It really was easy and specific. Copying their work into the good copy was easy as well. I found the template, allowed room for corrections, which kept the sentences organized--Which some of my students really need.
Check it out here.
Here are the project packages that went home.
In Language for the last 2 weeks, we have worked with a new book from Literacy Place. The book was jammed packed with opportunities to teach. This book in particular all the students could relate to. You would think that two weeks on one book would be too boring for the students. This book proved me wrong. Between glossaries, headings, print concepts, text features, predicting, analysing, surveys, letters, thought bubbles...this book had it all. The class did their best group, pair sharing work with the ideas from this book. I liked how it tied into surveys and math (even though we are not working on data and probability), I find that I have been doing quite a bit of "Whole Teaching" (teaching things as they come up and not as they are presented separately with a unit) it does help to have some prior knowledge on little bits of everything.
In Visual Arts we jumped into Pointillism. We examined and researched the famous work of Georges-Pierre Seurat. The students found his work fascinating and we're trying to imagine the time it would have taken to complete just one of his works of art. I then read "The Dot" to the students. It is one of my favourites, and I loved how it was symbolic of how simple this type of art is. It all begins with a dot on a page. If you have not read this book, it is a must have for every classroom. It empowers every student that has ever thought or said "I can't". For us teachers, it is how we look at each student's work. Is it what we envision or can we look past what we expect and try and find the reasoning behind their interpretation of what we expect. I know I am always trying to empower and find something positive to build a child's confidence. I understand it is hard to do all the time, but this book puts it into a simple perspective.
Hope everyone has a fantastic Halloween Week!
Christine :)
Comments
Post a Comment