Main Idea Freebies and an Easy Visual Arts Lesson!

With Mother Nature beginning to slooooooowly reveal Spring, we said so-long to Winter with one last "winter-themed" interactive story entitled "The Lift", this week. Check it out HERE.

As you may know if you follow our blog, I love to use the app "3:15" on the iPad to engage my students with shared reading, all while focusing on a particular reading strategy. Check out my post about this awesome app HERE.

For the past few months, my class seems to really be struggling with finding the main idea, as well as citing evidence when responding to texts. I find that using these video/reading stories have them paying closer attention to details. They are better able to recall specific events because it is interactive. If you are teaching upper elementary, it's definitely worth looking into :)

Early in the week I picked up these awesome *free* display posters from The Picture Book Teacher's Edition. I love that it provides the students starters and ideas on how to uncover the main idea and how to cite evidence. I review them a few times a week as a refresher and leave them posted on my Literacy Focus Board so that the students can refer to them when they are required to write a response to a particular reading.

I also used a VERY basic reading passage this week to continue to discuss "The Main Idea", as well as continuing to determine how writers incorporate Figurative Language into their pieces.
I had my students create a figurative language key at the top of the passage and highlight with various colours on their 2nd or 3rd read through.  You can pick up this freebie HERE.



We are also working on "how to research" and recently wrote research papers focused on "Natural Disasters". The students are now transferring this info onto the Google Presentation platform.

I cannot tell you how many workshops and presentations I have been to and have witnessed presenters reading large paragraphs off of a slide. I am currently teaching my students how to condense important info and to really "LEARN" and "KNOW" the info they are presenting orally.
Presentations begin this week! We'll see how it goes :)

In Visual Arts we continue to work on "perspective", with a focus on space and shape.
I love this SUPER EASY activity!
 Together we did a "modelled/shared" piece. Then the students used these ideas to make their own piece of art. See below. Grab this free art lesson idea HERE.



Finally, in Phys. Ed. class we are learning how to play Badminton!
For the past 3 weeks we have been working on basic badminton skills and drills.
This week, I broke the students into teams of 3 and created a "Round Robin Tourney".
The students are having a blast.
I used this site  http://www.printyourbrackets.com/ to create my brackets.
Click the type of tourney you would like to run and enter the students name. It's easy-peasy!

Lots on the go this week.
April is Poetry Month and I have created and snagged some great resources for upper elementary...... so stay tuned.

Have a great week!

~Kaitlin~

Comments

  1. Great ideas and I love seeing how people use the stuff I make, thanks for the shout out!
    Shawna
    The Picture Book Teacher's Edition

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Shawna!
      And thank you for your great products!! As you see, they are applicable across many grades :)
      So great.
      Have a wonderful, week :)
      Kaitlin

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment