This year has been so full of students moving in and out of district ( I have received 4 new students since October) and lost 3, testing and retesting for the kiddos, and snow days (we've had three already and are looking towards a possible fourth Monday!) that I just haven't been able to post about our Fall! But, I've gathered some snippets from our Fall and early Winter for you all to see what we've been up to in 413 :)
The writing curriculum we use with the kiddos was written for children in urban districts (specifically written from experience in the Boston area) and is called Talking, Drawing, and Writing. Coming from teaching with Lucy Calkins, who begins students writing as soon as possible, it was hard for me to fall in love with our program at first. However, after sitting down with the manual for a few hours, I began to really understand why it works for my population. The thought process is this: a good handful of the children we encounter in the city districts are from backgrounds where storytelling and verbal communication is of utmost importance. Sometimes this takes the precedence over story reading to young children. Instead of playing on this fact as a disadvantage, our program caters to the students' backgrounds and first builds intricate and detailed stories through oral storytelling, like so many are accustomed to doing. This eases their stresses about writing and focuses their attention on the actual story first.
A big part of this curriculum is teaching tools and techniques for drawing and sketching. This is also in the hopes that if we can build these skills, the students will learn to add detail to their pictures, and as a result, their stories. We work on sketching with many mediums, but this was definitely a crowd favorite: clay person sculpting and drawing....
Check out the detail one of my girls added to her clay person! Eyes (equipped with pupils), mouth, hair, arms, different torso parts.. she loved this station!
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Another unit we covered in the Fall was shadows and properties and characteristics of light. My kiddos loved this unit and were able to share so much previous experience and many beliefs about shadows throughout our project. One of my favorite videos to explain a scientific topic was during this unit and can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty0C8mH4Jy8 . This is a short video from a Peep and the Big Wide World show and mixes just the right amount of silliness, inquiry, and child friendly language to explain what a shadow is and where it originates. So fun!
Here my friends are discovering how shadows move and change when they are different distances from the light source. The puppets were made using an Ellison machine and popsicle sticks and were all black to simulate shadow coloring. They loved being in control of the learning at this station.
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I love Thanksgiving because it folds in just right to my community-focused inclusion classroom. The children always love learning about the Pilgrims and Native Americans and always get a kick out of the fact that they were real! One of the first projects we did this year used the book The Littlest Pilgrim as a starting point. We discuss as a class the different jobs children of this age had to do and how it compares and contrasts with what they are responsible for today. Then I have a volunteer dress as a Pilgrim and one as our modern day kid and we sort pictures of toys/jobs using a large string venn diagram on the floor. This is a great physical and visual activities for all of your learners!
Following this activity I introduce some Thanksgiving house area props for them to discover and experiment with. Here are a few of the girls reenacting the first Thanksgiving :)
On the last day of school before Thanksgiving break, the kiddos and I make our very own Thanksgiving Feast together. This was a little difficult this year because we were not able to use an oven so we made a Thanksgiving trail mix. The students practiced reading recipes and fractions (my highest students), measuring and pouring using a whole and half cup (some new vocabulary words that they still remember today!), and taking turns and carefully mixing the creation. So much fun... and such a yummy treat!
My anxious kiddos awaiting the Thanksgiving Feast amongst the cornucopia....possibly wold's best vocabulary word to teach five year olds... the variations were numerous and simply adorable!
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On the last few days before our Christmas break, we compiled our thoughts, knowledge and excitement about gingerbread that we had gathered from our inquiry unit on gingerbread (men) and made our very own gingerbread! The first day we measured, poured, and mixed all of the ingredients for gingerbread (homemade and very messy with molasses) and then I brought home the mixture and made the gingerbread men. I was at first very sad the kiddos wouldn't be able to cut out their own cookie and place it in the oven but was surprised to find out they loved waiting over night for them. It was an excuse to be super excited for math two days in a row! One of the bananas even asked me to "Pleeeeease not open the oven so they don't escape!" Precious.
On the second day we decorated the gingerbread men but the only catch was that they had to follow a direction card. These cards were differentiated and dictated what had to be on each gingerbread man/boy/girl/baby. The cards helped the kiddos practice number ID, sequencing or simple addition. Functional and Fun!
Yes, they got to eat them too!!
