Week 14

Tuesday
ELA: Today, we took a short break from the Narratives that they have been working so hard on to focus on our skills with compare and contrast through Fractured Fairy Tales. The students shared out the story elements of what they remember from the original story of the 3 Little Pigs. After we refreshed our memories, I showed them a reading of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. During the clip, the students filled out a venn diagram comparing/contrasting the 2 stories. They noted elements like characters, plot, setting, resolution, etc. After they finished, I asked them what the term fractured fairy tales means? I got some good answers out of this one! For the follow up activity the students paired up with a chromebook and went to readwritethink.org to brainstorm how to create their own fractured fairy tale out of 3 original fairy tale stories. They had a great time collaborating on the stories and truly made them their own! When they finished, they picked up where they left off with their narrative. :)

SS: Student finished creating their flag, route maps and scrolls for their Europeans. They will start creating their "life-size" European Explorer tomorrow. They have been so creative so far! Can't wait to share their final products!


Monday
ELA: Today, I gave the students the challenge of sorting a scrambled paragraph into a coherent one. I gave them 15 minutes to work with a partner to unscramble it correctly. To motivate them to work quickly and efficiently I told them I would give them a prize if they finished before time was up. Right at the last second, all students were finished in both classes before the timer went off! Whew. They each got a piece of candy for their victory. It's the small things, right? :) It gave them good practice with understanding how a paragraph is structured.
Afterwards, I taught them how to form a strong concluding paragraph. This is the hardest part of a story to teach because in the conclusion, you aren't suppose to add any new information. This is challenging for the students because they are still in the early stages of developing their summarizing/restating skills. I created a short paragraph that compares it to how a pie is structured: The Crust - restate the main event  of the story, The Filling - review major points of the story and The Topping - your closing thought
I am eager to review their final drafts this week!

SS: Students finished their research in their groups. They split up the jobs for creating elements of their project. The slide is shown below. Their creativity is really shining!! Pictures to come soon.

Week 13

Friday
ELA:  Peer Review day!! Students were placed into pairs and swapped stories. They were given time to read to story twice, make edits as they saw fit and to fill out a peer evaluation sheet shown below. The students then were given time to collaborate and share edits and positive feedback. On Monday, students will self revise and learn how to write a strong conclusion!

SS
Students were put into their explorer groups to finished researching together.  The following websites were given to guide the research:

biography.com
history.com
encyclopedia.com
britannica.com
allaboutexplorers.com

Thursday
ELA: Descriptive words was the topic today! We learned how to turn flat words into juicy ones! The students were given a descriptive words sheet shown below and a thesaurus so they could change flat words in their narrative stories. Tomorrow, they will be reading, editing and providing positive feedback for each others' rough drafts! We are nearing the end... I cannot wait to read the final drafts!

B2T: We finished the novel today!! The students applauded at the end, I took a bow and we reflected upon the predictions we made before reading and how they changed after finishing. Tomorrow, we will watch the remaining clip of the movie and the students will be given time to rewrite the ending of the book in any way they wish! Yay, creative writing! :) <3

SS: Students chose a European Explorer to research today! They were given a graphic organizer and a list of credible websites to guide their research. Little did they know, whoever chose the same explorer would actually be working together tomorrow! I formed their groups based on explorer. The final product will include a "life size" representation of the explorer, the flag of the country they sailed for and a scroll that has significant information about the explorer's life, accomplishments and impact. They will be done with their final projects and present next week! All finished projects will be displayed in the library! I will post pictures as soon as they are all finished!

Wednesday
ELA: We talked about the importance of including transitions in our writing today. Words like first, next, last, finally, one day...etc can make our writing flow much better. Most students started on their rough draft and our plan is to have the draft done by Friday, so we can peer and self edit early next week.

SS: Since today is Veteran's Day, we talked about why and who we celebrate on Veteran's Day. They watched a moving video that touched on the different wars our soldiers have fought in and how many casualties there were. It did mention, however, that there are 24.5 million surviving veterans! They got to write a letter to a veteran and we are mailing them off to an organization that distributes them to US soldiers. They did a great job of writing them and showing their appreciation!

Tuesday
ELA: We are continuing our narrative writing pieces and explored how to use our senses in our writing to make it even more interested to the reader! We practiced this concept by examining popcorn! We wrote details explaining how it smells, looks, feels, sounds (as it's popping) and, of course, how it tastes! A pic is below with the activity sheet and the delicious popcorn.

The kids did a great job of using descriptive words instead of boring ones like yellow, pop, buttery. 

B2T: We started reading chapter 12. 

SS: Students continued their Tasks in the scavenger hunt. They focused on a T/F section and drawing scenes depicting what two explorers accomplished. 

Monday

ELA:
We have launched our narrative writing today! Students created booklets for the 6 different types of hook sentences to help them with starting their story. For instructions on how to make the booklet click here. After we explored each type, they chose which hook they wanted to use and wrote their hook for their small moment topic! The kids did a great job of writing their hooks. I was very impressed! I can't wait to read the final copies and to see how they progress in their writing from this mini unit.

B2T: Today, the students watch a 15 minute clip of the movie and wrote down evidence as to what was similar and different from the book in chapters 10 and 11.

I created a new, library rotation schedule for the students to reference for when they are allowed to go to the library during silent reading time. This should clear up the confusion and mix up of days! I am definitely learning as I go with some procedures this year! :) Woo year 2!

SS:

Today, the students did a European Explorers Scavenger Hunt. There were 10 explorer cards taped in different spots of the pack area with information on them for an explorer. The students use graphic organizers to fill in answers about the different explorers. We will finish the activity tomorrow. Based on what they learned, the students will be able to choose which explorer they want to research for their end of unit project!

Week 12

Friday:
ELA: Today, we went through what a narrative writing piece is and is not. We learned that narrative pieces are about our lives BUT is focused only on one event, not our whole life story. Students were given time to brainstorm which prompt they wanted to focus on and created a list of story ideas from their own lives.

B2T: Students were partnered up and given time to go back to chapters 10 and 11 to pull evidence about 3 different questions. Monday, they will compare their text evidence to evidence from the movie clip.

SS:
We have this AWESOME new, online resource for SS called the Discovery Education Techbook. It is a highly interactive online "textbook" that has almost any topic in history you can think of. Today, we did a trial run of how the site is set up for the students and we practiced with a map activity about different explorers. Students seemed to really enjoy the way the site was set up and the lesson we tried out. Bravo Discovery.com! We will be using this site frequently throughout the rest of the year and they will start using it this week to research an explorer for their final project before Thanksgiving break.

Click here for a video showing how the techbook works!

Thursday
ELA:
Word Work: As a team, we have decided to put a hold on WW until after Thanksgiving break. The students will be working on their summative writing piece. I will be walking them through how to write a narrative story effectively. They are able to choose from 3 different prompts:
1. Write a personal narrative about a difficult or challenging time in your life.
2. Write a personal narrative about a time you did something fun or special.
3. Write a narrative that tells an exciting story.
Over the next two weeks, we will be taking this process on step at a time and building off the day before.

B2T:
SS:
Today, we finished talking about the Columbian Exchange and how it impacted the old and new world. The students were given the rest of the class period to practice their US geography skills on this website.



Wednesday

ELA:
Word Work: Today, we jumped into our words and learned how to use the inflectional ending -ing with one syllable words. When the word has one syllable and is a VC base word, then you double the last letting before adding -ing. Example: get = getting (one syllable and the -et makes it a VC base word). We spent the majority of the time practicing with these one syllable words and adding the ending to them.

B2T: We finished up writing our Chapter 10 quick write. Overall, students did very well with the writing process. This biggest struggle is with the mechanics, such as spelling, punctuation, homophones, etc., but they are doing very well with pulling text evidence to support their response. Afterwards, we read ch. 11 whole class and what a tear-jerking chapter it was! One of our beloved characters, Leslie Burke, died from a creek accident. Some students already knew the plot twist, but it was interesting to hear the students' responses to this event in the book regardless of whether they had known or not.

SS:
Students were given time today to continue working on their responses to the Columbian Exchange activity. They activity focused on finding the positive and negative effects of the trade and responding to a writing prompt using the positives and negatives in their answer.


Tuesday

ELA: Word Work: Today we focused on a mini lesson for idioms. Can you explain what the idiom means based on the picture? Students did well with this task! Some were harder than others but we figured them out together. We will be continuing our study of attaching the inflectional ending -ing to base words. This sort will include VVC (Vowel, Vowel, Consonant), VCC, VCEdrop and a new one VC (this will apply to one syllable words). The VC base words will need their last letter to be doubled before adding -ing. Here is the attachment of the sort words:

For B2T, we are continuing our writing pieces for Chapter 10. Students will assess their work and conference with me to ensure they are writing with their best effort! We will continue reading chapter 10 once we are all finished with the quick write.

SS: We learned about the Columbian Exchange today through some kinesthetic learning activities! After all of that sugar from Halloween still running through their veins, we figure they need some movement!
Activity 1: Each student was given a card with a food on it. In their graphic organizer, they had to write whether or not they think the food is from the Old World (Europe) or the New World (Americans). As they were passing the cards, it was interesting to see who connected the food smelling activity we did yesterday to their thinking today. After time was called, we went over the food cards whole class.

Activity 2: Each student was given a card with the name of a food on it. One side of the room was given Old World food items and the other side was given New World food items. The students were told they could trade cards among  their group only. I gave them 3 minutes to get up, mingle and bargain with their World group. When I called time, I explained we would now trade within both Worlds. We went silently out to the common area and the students held their cards in front of them. The whole activity was SILENT which they handled VERY well! If they wanted to trade, they pointed at that person and the other person would either nod or shake their head to communicate if they wanted to trade or not. After the 3 minutes, I had them line up by the lockers and turn over their cards. The students with an x on their card stepped out. I asked them "What else was traded between the cultures besides food?" Disease was the word we agreed upon. The 7 students with x's have to dramatically but silently die from their disease. We continued our discussion about why some people died and how there were positive and negative effects from trade for BOTH cultures.

If you want to purchase Activity 1, you can find it here!

For a FREE copy of Activity 2 click here!

Monday

ELA: Word Work: Students took their Vocab Sort 3 assessment! I am excited to see how they did this time around. They knocked the last one out of the park! In B2T today, we started reading chapter 10 titled "The Perfect Day". We stopped after reading a few pages to begin responding to our quick write: Explain why you think Jesse did not invite Leslie on the trip. Think about Jess’ words, actions and thoughts. Justify your answer by citing specific evidence from the text. I have created a quick write rubric for the students to use to assess themselves on how they did in their writing. I have attached a picture of it below so you can see what is expected of your child in terms of writing. If students rate themselves below a 4, I have them go back and fix that area to make it be 4pt material.

SS: We had a blast today learning about the new world smells! We shared our background knowledge about European Explorers and then jumped into a "smelly" activity. Each group was given 9 cups that had a new world food in it. The cups were covered in foil and holes were poked in the tops so they could smell the delicious new food smells! They took turns smelling each cup and recording what food they thought it was. I attached pictures of the foods below.

Week 9

Friday

ELA: Students finished their Letter to Leslie and conferenced with me about the structure of their letter. Afterwards, we walked the first 19 minutes of the movie. Students filled in a graphic organizer that compared and contrasted the book with the movie.

SS: Students continued researching their tribe in order to prepare for creating their presentations.

Thursday

ELA: After reflecting on the bullying Leslie experienced in chapters 3&4, students wrote a letter to Leslie giving advice on whether they think she should stay who she is or if she should change herself to match her peers.

SS: Students chose a NA tribe to create their Shadow Puppet presentation about. They were given a graphic organizer, rubric and chromebook to begin their research!

Wednesday

ELA: Today, we spent time going over our findings in chapter 4. Afterwards, we compared and contrasted Multimedia vs Text. Why do producers change the book when they make it into a movie? How do they create scenes out of the chapters? etc.

SS: The students went to the library to learn how to create presentations using the Shadow Puppet app. The librarian showed examples of student presentations from last year and walked them through the creation process step by step.

Tuesday

ELA: We continued our finding of text evidence with our partner through closely reading chapter 4.

SS: Author and musician Joe Crookston performed for us today!

Monday

ELA: Students spent time in the library today to check out a new book and to silent read. We further explored similes and metaphors by looking at examples of both and changing them to be the other. Ex. if we read an example of a simile then we would try to change it to make it a metaphor and vice versa.

SS: Students finished their totem pole crafts.

Week 8

Friday

ELA: We finished close reading chapter 4 and students were put into pairs to pull text evidence together for instances of bullying.

SS: Students finished their stories and started creating their totem pole animal.

Thursday

ELA: We started close reading chapter 4.

SS: Today, I introduced the totem pole project the students would work on for the next couple of days. The students watched a short video on the significance of the totem pole and I read a short story to them about it. Students took an online quiz to see which animal will represent them on their totem pole. Afterwards, students started writing a story from the perspective of a NA about why they are receiving a totem pole.


Wednesday

ELA: We went back and reread a section of chapter 3 to practice the strategy of Close Reading. I modeled how to find text evidence for bullying in the chapter and  we recorded our findings in the graphic organizer. Afterwards, the student were put into groups and they talked about and recorded the differences they each have. When we came back together we shared some of the differences and talked about how these differences don't make anyone better or worse than anyone else.

SS: We talked about the Northwestern tribes way of life and watched a video that showed a cultural dance. They students were given time to research the Southwestern tribes on their own using the graphic organizer and chromebooks.

Tuesday

ELA: We continued our reading of Chapter 3 and answered discussion questions along the way

SS: We continued our talk about the NA in the Great Plains and read an excerpt about the resources they used.


Monday

ELA: For WW, we did a review of our compound words. We also started reading B2T chapter 3 and focused on finding similes and metaphors in our reading.

SS: We watched a video about the Great Plains NA and talked about their way of life.

Week 6

Friday

NO SCHOOL :)

Thursday

ELA: Continued our quick write for chapters 1&2 and talked about the main character Jess and the character traits we have seen so far.

Wednesday

ELA: We read chapter 2 and started our quick write that asks us to compare and contrast chapters 1&2.

SS: We finished our Dream Catcher craft


Tuesday

ELA: For Word Work today, the students were given white boards and dry erase markers. I called out one vocab word at a time and they either had to draw a picture of the word, define it without using the word in the definition, spell the word or use it in a sentence. We finished reading Ch. 1 and discussed the characters we have read about so far.

SS: We continued our Dream Catchers craft.

Monday

ELA: In Word Work today, the students filled in Vocabulary Bingo sheets on 3 of the words in our sorts.
We filled in a prediction sheet for Bridge to Terabithia and answered the prompt: What do you like about spending time with a good friend? How would you feel if you ever lost touch with that friend? 

SS: Students will create a Dream Catcher in order to launch the study of the Great Plains Native Americans. We are making them out of paper plates, construction paper and yarn.

Week 5

Friday

ELA: Students answered the quick write: What do you like about spending time with a good friend? How would you feel if you ever lost touch with that friend? 
We started reading chapter 1.

SS: Students we introduced to their project of creating a dream catcher. They wrote their stories about their own personal dream catcher that they will create starting on Monday.

Thursday

ELA: We have begun our Bridge to Terabithia Unit! Students will be introduced to Bridge to Terabithia and create predictions about the book based on the cover and movie trailer.

SS: Today we talked about the life of the Southeastern Woolands. SE NAs were very good at sneaking up on their prey. We played a game that simulated that sneakiness.

Wednesday

ELA: We further explored how to effective pull evidence from stories to back up our claims in writing. We use the ACE strategy to help guide us in this effort. Answer the questions, Cite your evidence, Explain how the evidence supports your claim. They cut out ACE cards and glued them in their interactive notebooks.We watched "The Emperor's New Clothes" and the students had to give the Emperor a character trait, support it with evidence and explain their thinking.

SS: We started our study of the tribes in the 5 NA regions. Today we talked about the life of the Eastern Woodlands.

Tuesday

ELA: Further explored character traits through an index card activity. We also talked more about the excerpt "Out of My Mind" and picked out character traits the main character possesses. The students backed up their claims with text evidence.

SS: We talked about how NA used symbols to communicate. Students created a story with at least 10 symbols from a NA point of view.

Monday

ELA: We used our vocabulary boards and chromebooks to explore some of our vocabulary words today. We also took some time to talk about character traits through scenario cards.

SS: We have started our Native American Study! We read a NA story called A Boy Called Snow and talked about the importance names have in that culture. The students chose their own NA name and drew a symbol to represent them.

Week 4: 9-9 to 9-11

Friday

ELA: Students continued exploration of their Word Work words: Compound Words through playing a game modeled after Scattegories. We also learned the difference between a feeling and character traits. We practiced using character traits through watching video clips and writing character traits for the characters in the videos. 

SS: Students watched news footage of 9-11 attacks and discussed why this happened, what terrorism is and why we remember this day.


Thursday

ELA: Students will practice Reading is Thinking concept through reading and marking thinking on “What a Year” excerpt. Teacher will read aloud excerpt and allow students to share their thinking with the class at different points in the reading. 

SS: Students will present Autobiography Maps. Practice knowing the names of states and recognizing what they look like through playing "I Have, Where Is".

Wednesday

ELA: Students will be introduced to vocabulary terms for Unit 1: compound words. In groups, students will sort words and write in vocabulary notebooks. Students will practice Reading is Thinking concept through reading and marking thinking on “What a Year” excerpt

SS: Guidance Lesson with Counselors

Tuesday:

ELA: Finish marking thinking in "Out of My Mind" excerpt and respond to Quick Write: "Think of a difficult time you’ve experienced in your life. Describe your difficult time, and explain how you persevered.  Who helped you during your difficult time?"

SS: Students will be given time to finish Autobiography Map project. 

Monday:

NO SCHOOL - LABOR DAY

Week 3

9-4-2015
ELA: *Reward Day* (shorter class schedule)
Students will finish Quick Write responses and be allowed to go to the library as a class. 

9-3-2015
ELA: Students will continue exploration of "Reading is Thinking". Students will pair up with a partner and share each others' thinking. Each partner will mark their own papers with their partner's thinking. Students will respond to Quick Write: While reading the excerpt from Out of My Mind, we learned the Melody is a child with Cerebral Palsy.  People treat her differently because they think she doesn’t understand.  Think of a difficult time you’ve experienced in your life. Describe your difficult time, and explain how you persevered.  Who helped you during your difficult time?

9-2-15
ELA: 

Students will explore “Reading is Thinking” through reading excerpt “Out of My Mind”. I will model how to show my thinking as I read the passage, then the students will reread passage independently to show their thinking.

9-2-2015
Social Studies:
Wednesday through Monday will be dedicated to understanding and creating their end-of-unit Map project. The students are to create an Autobiography map with the land forms representing elements of their lives, such as interests, family, pets, etc.

9-1-2015
Today in Social Studies, we explored the differences and similarities of Physical and Political Maps through hands on activities in our interactive notebooks. We are sharpening our map/geography skills this week so we can start our year strong before we dive into the Native American unit! 

In ELA, students were placed into new groups and completed a team building activity with their team members! We also explored what good teamwork looks like, feels like and sounds like. We will be diving in to our Lemons to Lemonade unit of study tomorrow!

Year 2!

I am incredibly excited for what great adventures this next school year will bring! Count down is now 17 days to new beginnings, new friendships and new learning at Holt Middle School. I hope you are enjoying the rest of your summer and are preparing yourself for the next chapter in your lives. Your life is a book, how are you going to fill the empty pages?

Thank you for visiting my teacher blog! My goal for this website is to keep parents and students informed on what learning is going on in the classroom. I also want to provide activities and resources to be used by others in their own classrooms! Happy exploring!