I am FINALLY done with the 5th graders and the Where I Am from project. Since I only see each class once every six days, it has taken me quite awhile to finish this. I think this project would have gone smoother if I could have seen the same group of kids four days in a row, they forgot too much in between class sessions., but I guess that is the curse of being a "specials" teacher.
I have these fifth graders for two more classes and then they go to the technology teacher until Christmas break. Today I started a digital camera project with them based on the book Flotsam. The lesson came from an idea I read in SLJ earlier this month. Today was my first day, and so far the kids LOVED it. I am doing things a bit differently than was described in the article and I created a step by step guide that they have to follow to take a picture, upload it to a computer and print it out on the color printer - I was so happy that they all seemed to be able to follow the directions. I will upload some of their finished pictures when we are finished next week!
Last week I started my first story time of the year. Since my "theme" for story time this year is "Where Can Books Take You" I decided to start the year off "taking" the kids to the jungle with the book Edward In The Jungleby David McPhail.
My activity with the book for Kindergarten was for them to color a jungle animal mask that I had already cut out for them, then I helped them glue on a craft stick to the bottom so they could hold it up to their face like a mask. My activity for first grade was the same, except that I had the students cut out the mask (I cut the eyes for them, and I found this AWESOME tool at Michaels that lets you cut out circles perfectly!)
For my second grade students I decided that I wanted to jump right into research with them this year, so after the story we talked about fiction and non-fiction and I had non-fiction jungle animal books out on the tables for them. We talked about the parts of a non-fiction book (table of contents, title page, index) and I passed out bookmarks that I had made with the name of a jungle animal on them. They then had to find 3 "cool" facts about their animal, using the table of contents and the index, and then write their facts on the bookmark.
The kids loved the book and both activities worked out great.
To end my week last week I had some good news, I had been selected as the Teacher of The Year for my school - it is an awesome honor, especially because the two other teachers who were finalists are just AWESOME teachers (and I am not just saying that...they really are!)
