Lesson Plans: Week of January 6th

Well, I guess vacation is basically over… Between a restful 2 weeks, a new washing machine, a nice Legoland trip, this weekend's FB Hop, and the massive giveaway from yesterday, I pulled out my plan book to see what I'm doing this next week because I couldn't remember...  I did prep stuff before vacation, just need to remember what exactly is ready to go!  Linking up my plans with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings!    

 

We are still working on our OCR Medicine Unit.  This story is called The Bridge Dancers.  It's about two girls who live with their mom in a backcountry area - their mom is the Medicine Woman of the area and while she goes off to help someone, the two girls get into some trouble.  The story introduces using natural remedies as medicine, so I like to bring in an aloe plant and some of my aloe gel as realia.  

 

We are starting a new read aloud this week - Stone Fox!  Love this story about determination.  It's a short one, so it should only take a week to really tackle it.  

I have a free mini book pack if you need it! 

For Mentor Sentences we are reading The Three Snow Bears and focusing on complex sentences.  For those of you that aren't familiar with Mentor Sentences, Jivey explains it over on her blog (and I use her products).  

   

On Monday we are having a review day using my Mid Year Review Task Cards.  We will be playing scoot to review the concepts.

The rest of the week we are finishing up Factors and Multiples.  Over break I found some great free resources that I'm excited to use that aren't winter/Christmas specific.

Dots and Spots

Math File Folder Games

Teaching with a Mountain View

In Science we have reached our Earthquakes and Volcanoes unit.  A couple of years ago I found these things over on Pinterest that worked well. 

 

Lava in a cup by Science Bob

Fun Volcano Activity by Preschool Alphabet

We will need to make a lap book - This one is from imanshomeschool.  I really do love this unit! 

As for writing, this week we are using Blair Turner's New Year's Freebie to make goals, etc.  With coming back after vacation we review so much - rules, math skills, reading skills, making goals, etc… that I want them to write about it!  

I hope you have a great week!    

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Revisit: Snow Day Party

Snow Day is coming the first Friday back in January!  Since this week I am trying to prep for when we come back in January (in the midst of December classroom chaos)  I wanted to link up with 2 super cool linky parties to share my lesson plan that worked wonderful last year.

Holly's Tried it Tuesday

Hope's Take Me Back Tuesday

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Originally written January 4th, 2013:

I live in California and where I live we don't get snow.  At all.  Not even a bit near our houses.  So my kiddos never get a chance to have a snow day at school.
Now, as I was sitting at home over vacation I saw that Tara from 4th Grade Frolics had a snow inspired day for her winter party.  I was jealous for a moment, and then I decided to have a snow day as well - to celebrate January and coming back to school.  
So I chose some of the activities and crafts that Tara mentioned, and added a couple of other ones that I enjoy.
Here's how I planned my day:
Snow What Fun (Read Aloud)  To first get the kids thinking of what the snowmen might do if they were alive, I will read the book Snow What Fun.  I know it's supposed to be the night before Christmas but the kids won't care.  If a snowman came to life, I'm sure it would want to have some fun.
Snowman Narratives (Tara's idea) Her idea of having the snowman come to life for a narrative inspired me to have my own students create this same project.  Every morning from now until March my students will be completing quick writes complete with our Rainbow Edits (for convention practice).  My students will write about their own personal snowman and what would happen if they were to wake up someday to find it had come alive, or what their snowman would do if it was alive.  As the students finish with their Rainbow Edit they will have a chance to illustrate their final drafts complete with their own snowman.  I made up this freebie.  Just click to download.  

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Snowball Fight (Math Facts)I have a box of paper scraps - each page is around 8x8 in. and the perfect size for a snowball.  The kids each will take a page and write their name on it (small print to the side).  Then they will write a math fact on it.  On the count of 3 we will toss them up in the air, and then grab another snowball from the floor.  We won't toss it to another person, we will just throw them.  When we grab another one the kids will have to answer the math problem and write their initials next to it.  Then they have to come up with a different math problem to write on the paper.  We will crumple them up again and throw them.  We will repeat the process until we can not fit anymore math problems on the papers (or 10 minutes - whatever comes first).

 Fraction Snowflakes (Math - Tara's idea)This project uses qtips, dark construction paper, and white glue.  They create a snowflake using qtips and then had to calculate the 2 fractions.  I'm going to have my students write the fraction of how many full qtips/total number, and then another fraction of how many half qtips/total number.  I think I'm going to give them a total of 20 full qtips to do what they want with them - break or use full.
Making Snow (Science experiment)We just did the Orbeeze experiment yesterday, so I don't want to do an entire write up again.  Instead I'm just going to make snow (with them watching) and they will predict what will happen - how the snow will look and feel compared to real snow.  Then we will create a Venn Diagram using our senses and background knowledge.  I will tell them what this pretend snow really is made from.  The diaper ingredient always grosses them out - especially after they have all touched it.  It's not like it was a dirty diaper!!
Snowflake Bentley (Read Aloud)Don't you love this book?  I love how there are so many facts included and that it stresses that each snowflake is unique.  This will be our after lunch Read Aloud for today.  

Creating Snowflakes (Art)I had every intention of sending snowflakes to Conn. but they don't need them anymore.  So we will do it for fun, to practice following directions, and to decorate our own classroom.  After reading Snowflake Bentley I want them to create their own unique snowflake.
Glitter Playdough Snowmen (Art - Tara's idea) I used the same recipe that Tara shared and will give each student a little amount to create their own 3d snowman as they finish their snowflakes (and have picked up all their tiny little scraps of paper off the floor/desk/chair).
I love Winter!!!
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I hope this helps someone.  :)  Have a great day!  

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Sunday Night Lesson Plans

Another week is about to begin… Linking up with Mrs. Laffin to share my plans for the week. (For the record, my plan book was filled out before tonight… barely… these busy days and evenings haven't let a lot of time to breathe, let alone tackle the big to do list.)

This week our medicine unit has to do with heart surgery, specifically the first ever successful one.  I know, gross!  But the kids are fascinated with it, so I go with it too.  I really am thankful for the advances in heart care - without it I wouldn't have my mom.  

To make it personal I found this image that I'm giving them to add to their interactive notebooks as a reminder - and as a little incentive - a coloring page.  

I'm also using these graphic organizers this week for our mentor sentence and our text.  

For math we are still plugging away at long division.  So far we have tackled 2 and 3 digits, this week we are wrapping it up with 4 digits.  Lord, help us!  As a fun review, I found this freebie over on TPT that I'm excited to use.  

 

My students have enjoyed playing dice games, and this pizza game adds a little more fun involving pizza & coloring.  

We zipped through Chocolate Touch last week, so later on this week we are moving onto Chocolate Fever.  Before we move on, I will be using my Activity Cards to have kids show comprehension of the story.  

Rock Time!  Last week was all about Minerals and this week it's time to turn the tables to talk about Rocks.  I'm still using Jessica's activity unit to help kids make it "come alive".  Last year I used chocolate, cookies, and pancakes to get the kids interested, this year I'm changing it out to use Jessica's Smore's activity - less mess!  

 

The Traditions Books are DONE - finally!  Tomorrow I have to start the process of binding them together, and then the kids will help me wrap them for their parents later on this week.  This week during Writing time I am going to focus on reviewing grammar using this pack from Blair Turner.  My students enjoyed her Thanksgiving Grammar, so I splurged and picked up her Holiday one too.  It is perfect review for them.

We will also start focusing on creating short Winter Stories using 4th Grade Frolics Story Starters set.

It's going to be quite the week…  definitely will be holding onto my hat (and scarf… and inhaler…) to make it through the week.  

Have a wonderful day!  

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My 1st Day of School (Lesson Plan)

So, yesterday was my first day of school and it was overall a good day.  I guess the big thing is remembering their names - I'm not good with names and it bugs me how long it takes me.  Do you have a method that you do that helps you?  I'm open to advice!
So, here's what I did on my first day.  Just my simple plan.  I always write out my first day as a checklist - too many details to try to fit inside the little boxes in my plan book.
1. Opening - Who am I? worksheet - they did this when I was doing the paperwork type thing.  I collected it and will add to their student info area.
2. Introduce myself - started off with what do they know about me, what do they want to know about me... (basically a K,W, L type thing)
3. Showed them my Snapfish book about 4th grade - pictures from the past year of activities we completed.
4. Tour of the classroom - where things are, what the different areas of the room mean.
5. P.E. prep/Welcome back assembly/Recess time (took 90 minutes of the day)
6. Find Someone Who game and share time about the different things.
7.  Practice Whole Brain Teaching of "Class? Yes!" - That was fun!!!
8.  Over 3/4 of my class brought all their supplies, so we unloaded their backpacks and organized as much as we could.  I love the fact their families looked it up on the class website and knew what to expect.
9. Read Aloud - Did you fill a bucket today?  Brainstorm about our classroom, discussion about behavior, behavior chart, etc.  Talked about how our bulletin board buckets work, then students took an index card and wrote a note to someone in the class to fill their bucket - they turned them into me for me to pass out after I read them.  
10.  Team work Puzzle Challenge - took the idea straight from Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies.  We only had a 1/2 hour to do this activity due to lunch, so it was more to see how much they could accomplish in that amount of time.  Out of the 6 groups, only 2 got far enough along to see a puzzle really forming.  It was a good discussion with those 2 groups sharing what worked to work as a team, and the other groups mentioning what they could have done differently.  As they were working on the puzzles I was wandering around listening, putting office papers on their desks, and taking their first day pictures.
11.  Lunchtime!!!  
12. I had every intention of having a brainstorm of what Read to Self would look like, but that didn't happen... we had to organize the huge pile of office paperwork into 2 piles - the stuff they needed their parents to fill out and the stuff their parents just needed to see.  So we tackled that task, then I had to explain how the Classroom Library was set up.  Then it was just the basic write down your homework (Read 20+ min, Office Paperwork, Agenda $), clean up your area, and head out the door end of school moments.  Mondays we are dismissed at 1:30 - so it's a pretty early day. 
Some things that I realized or remembered about myself... I love having a routine, a real routine, and starting over having to tell them every little thing bugs me.  I don't like talking up a storm but I know it's necessary on the first day.  I loved being a part of the action with playing Find Someone Who... and I loved having my students tell me something they enjoyed about the day as they exited the classroom.  It might be a challenging year, but then again it could be the most wonderful year ever.  We'll see how today goes...

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