Love, Splat Valentine's Day

For Reading/Writing we read "Love, Splat" and made a text-to-self connection with a little writing creativity from the one and only, Cara Carroll :)

The students finished the sentence stem "I feel loved when..." Then they were able to put their little Splats together!

We are all special and unique

This lesson came from Scholastic.com. I read "Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon" to the class and we talked about how Molly's grandma helped her feel special. Then we read the poem that was on the Scholastic lesson plan called "Sunny Sunflowers," and discussed how we are like sunflowers because we are all special and unique

On each petal, they wrote a sentence telling what made them special. This really helped me see who could form sentences on their own, and who needed help!

 

http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20School%20Year

What do you do well?

http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20School%20Year
^ printables

"What we are reading"

http://4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com/search/label/Book%20Whisperer

wanted the kids to be able to visibly see their progress in the classroom as well as in their data notebooks so here was my plan:

I made a What We're Reading board. Each time decides they are committed to a book or a student finishes a book, they get a note card. On the card they put their name, the title of the book, and the author. Then they turn the cards in to me and I punch a hole and put them on a metal ring and hang them on the board on a fat push pin. (now, I realize that there are only 12 hanging there....I have 22 students so........some are slower readers, some have given up on a book, others forgotten....it's a work in progress.)

"The Black Book"

http://4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com/search/label/Anchor%20Charts

Make a big deal of this, before you have homework
Scary music!
Make them write in it, not the teacher.
It'll be shared at conferences


I also explained to them that the Black Book will be pulled out and shared during conferences.

I have to say, this is working. I talked this up last week telling them all that it was coming to the classroom soon. Then yesterday, their first night of homework this week, I reminded them that "the Black Book would be in the classroom tomorrow." This morning as students were coming up to my table to turn in homework one boy walked up, there were 2 piles, one for Active Reading Notebooks and the other for their math page. He had his Active Reading Notebook but couldn't find his Math....at one point he put down his backpack and I heard him say to himself "this isn't happening". I cracked up. He found his paper but was worried because the Black Book was there. I do have to add that out of 22 students there are only about 4 that tend to "forget" their homework, so hopefully this will be a way to get them back in the homework ballgame:)

"Grinchy Adjectives"

http://4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com/search/label/Anchor%20Charts

I told them they were going to get to watch the Grinch movie (original) and they had to come up with a list of adjectives to describe him (when he was being bad). Then we did another blogland, Pinterest inspired anchor chart from Mrs. Carroll at The First Grade Parade:

They did a pretty good job coming up with adjectives for our old buddy the Grinch and had a blast! Then they wrote a paper on: Their day with the Grinch. Can't wait to read them all!!! They made covers for their papers and we made them books:)

And finally, one last idea from Go Fourth! With Mrs. Owens. I printed the lyrics of the Grinch song and we found the similes and metaphors. We chose the old famous words:
You're as cuddly as a cactus and you're as charming as an eel, which they drew and they were adorable:

I kinda pulled this all together at the last minute so didn't have enough time to get green candy canes....ours had green stripes so that counts right??

The Story of the Frog Belly Rat Bone

by Timothy Basil Ering

Students need one sheet of paper folded in 4ths. and a pencil/crayons
Cover the cover with a folder.
Read a few pages give the students 3 minutes to draw and color