Character's Response - ELA Lesson Plans #6

This week's lessons focused on how character's respond to events.  The texts that we used were wonderful for this standard.  I will forewarn you that they are each very deep and you should pre read the text and decide what is best for your class.

In the text "Amazing Grace", the main character endears the reader from the start with her love for reading, story telling and imagination.  During the climax of the text Grace's classmates tell her that she can't play Peter Pan in her class play because she is a girl and person of color.  Grace's grandma steals the show with her reaction to the events teaching students that they can be anything they want to be.

In the text "Something Beautiful" the character is dismayed at certain parts of her neighborhood.  The focus being her courtyard which is riddled with trash and has graffiti on the front door.  The girl goes through the book collecting information on what makes life beautiful and ultimately decides to be proactive and make her neighborhood beautiful one action at a time.

The text "Fly Away Home" features a homeless father and son.  It shows their daily struggles and their reactions to the events in their every day life.  In the text the boy learns to be patient and wait for his turn to fly away home just like a bird that he encountered.  Make sure to have the tissues handy this week!

Are you interested in what my workstations look like? If so, take a look below.  Each week I differentiate reading stations for my students.  They have a great hands-on learning experience while their reading grows.  Click on the picture below to link to the units in my store.  

2 Minute Bat Craft

 Need a quick bat craft or Venn diagram for the classroom? I came up with this one to compare and contrast bat books.

1.  Cut 2 circles out per student.  I used my circle cutter.  It was a very wise $10 investment.  I can cut out a class set in under 5 minutes.
2.  Students cut one of the circles in half and glue on as wings.
3.  Have students add a face.

It's really that quick and simple!

Pumpkin Science Literature Connections

One of my favorite long lessons takes place during October with the book "Pumpkin Jack" by Will Hubbell.  In the book a boy has a jack o' lantern that he loves.  The pumpkin has to be placed outside where it decomposes and eventually goes through the lifecycle process again. During this same time we do pumpkin character book reports.  I always ask for a volunteer to leave their pumpkin so that we can see if what happened in the book "Pumpkin Jack" could really happen? Would a pumpkin decompose and start the lifecycle over again? If this happens, does it mean the book "Pumpkin Jack" is realistic fiction?  For years now, the pumpkin has always started a small pumpkin patch for us.

In the top photograph the pumpkin had just one seed left in it.  It started a plant in a pot for us.  The plant blossomed and we lost it over Winter Break.  (We are in Florida and I'm not sure our weather is quite right to start a viable pumpkin during October.). In the bottom picture, we left a lot of seeds and we received quite a large pumpkin patch.  You will see from the photograph on the bottom that we even got the start of pumpkins.  Once again we left for Winter Break and the patch died.  I'm content with taking a pumpkin and sticking it outside to see what happens.  Having a donated pumpkin is even better.  If you want to actually take care of the pumpkin and grow new pumpkins, you might want to research the best times to plant pumpkins and estimate the amount of time it will take your pumpkin to decompose.  Please leave any questions that you may have in the comment section.  There's also a link to a free pumpkin craft that I use to with this lesson at the bottom of the post.

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Crayons In The Classroom

Crayons are such a HUGE part of the classroom.  Every teacher knows the trials and tribulations of having, needing and using them.  Below you will find some tips that may be new to you, an incredible giveaway and a freebie just for being you!

Tip #1 Engagement

Up the engagement in your next lesson by stocking a center with fun twistable crayons.  

These crayons have lasted my class three years so they were worth the expense! You know how excited you get when you have cool supplies to use so just think of how excited your students will be.

Tip #2 Rewards

Offer special crayons like these Silly Scents as a special reward for well behaved students or as a prize in your class store.  They last forever! I like to stock up after back to school time when everything is marked down.

Tip #3 Calm Down

If students need a repetitive task to calm down, have them sort your crayons.  It's an added bonus that you have color sorted crayons afterwards! You can even throw them in cute drawers or containers.

Tip #4  Build Independence
Set your classroom up so that students can get what they need and put away extra items that they find in the classroom.  We have a crayon bucket that we place all lost crayons in. When students need a certain color they can just go get what they need.  If they can get their own supplies, then you have more energy to do other things.

Here's a freebie for you!  Just click below on the Sweden photo.  Before you finish up, one last tip.

Tip #5 Fine Motor Skills
You can use this freebie to help build student's fine motor skills.  I love to put these sheets out for bell work.  They can have fun coloring, build fine motor skills and your administration won't freak out when they see the kids coloring.  We use this Sweden unit when we're learning about cultures from around the world.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I am joining some of my friends with a STOCK YOUR CLASSROOM Giveaway.

• Visit each blog and enter each rafflecopter.
• A different winner will be chosen from each rafflecopter.
• Enter between October 1 - 5, 2017.
• Each of my friends will choose a winner.
• Winners will be emailed.
• Winners will also be announced on our FB pages or Instagram pages.  Make sure you follow our pages to see if you won.

PLEASE NOTE: Winners will have 48 hours to respond to our email.  If no response, we will choose a new winner.

You can win the prizes below by clicking on the following:

• Michelle @ Teach123 - Glue
• Fern @ Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas - Markers
• Megan @ Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade - Flair Pens
• Amy@ Learning Lessons With Amy Labrasciano - Crayons 

2 Minute Pumpkin Craft

Do you need a quick fall craft for the classroom? How about a cute Venn diagram that you can hang up after your students fill it out?  I wanted to compare an informational and fiction pumpkin book with one another and this is what I came up with.

Steps:
1.  Cut three circles per student out or have them cut it out.  I love my circle cutter.  I bought it a while back for volunteer work that I was doing and it was a great $10 investment. I can cut a class set in under 5 minutes.
2.  Have students glue the circles together as seen in the picture.
3.  Students should cut out leaves and a stem and glue onto the pumpkin.

Letter Clip Word Building

Need an easy to make word work station that won't break the bank? Here's an idea for you.

You'll need:

Wooden Letters

Clothes Pins

3 Rulers

Storage Tub

Clipboard

I bought the letters and clothes pins from Walmart for $3.  I already had the rulers, clipboard and storage tub.  If you don't want to use wooden letters you could save a $1 by printing and laminating letters, but they won't last as long.

Step #1 Paint the letters ( I chose to keep my vowels a different color )

Step #2 Hot glue the letters to the clips.

Step #3 Clip the alphabet to the rulers.  For younger grades you may want to write the letter on the ruler so that students know where to put them back.

Quick, simple and cheap!  Check the picture out at the bottom to see how I store them.

Click below for another DIY word work station.

Cause and Effect - ELA Lesson Plans #5

Hi everyone! I'm so sorry for missing the last two weeks.  We had a horrible hurricane and I couldn't post my lesson outlines.  The good news is that I'm back, and I may say this all the time, but next week is going to be so much fun!! I'm a huge proponent of engaging lessons that meet the student's needs while helping them to grow as learners. I'm also a sucker for thematic lesson plans and next week is a must for my students - Apple Week.  Don't you find great joy in teaching fun topics?

Before we start talking shared reading, let me tell you about a couple of activities that we'll be doing. We will be sampling yummy crockpot applesauce.  Of course I don't have the time to make it from scratch so I use jarred applesauce and warm it before the students arrive.  They have never figured it out and I hope you don't tell them!  We'll sample different varieties of apples and graph our favorites. We'll sample some apple candy and for incentives I'll pass out Apple Jacks.  We'll also have a basket full of fun apple books.

The standard that we will be learning is a little more challenging than others, but still very engaging and interesting to students.  We'll be taking a look at how events can connect through history and science.  In order to do this, we'll look at John Chapman's life.  The students will determine what each event causes later in John's lifetime.  For example, it is believed that many apple orchards exist because of John's work.  Without his travels we would not have had so many crabapples.  We'll also be taking a look at how apples can add nutrition to our diets, the pollination process and the apple lifecycle.  Just think of a time line and lifecycle wheel.

Once again writing will be an extension of our shared reading plans.  Each day we'll be writing an informative piece on an apple page.  When the students are done they we have an awesome apple book.  Just look at it below!

I am super excited to give my students independent workstation materials that couple so well with our shared reading and writing.  These centers will center around the five core components of reading:  phonics, phonemes, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.  I've spent a lot of time trying to create materials that work for each student, are engaging, purposeful and self explanatory.    Thank goodness I finally figured it out.  Click on the image below to find the unit.

To find the other materials that I used in these lesson outlines, click on the links below.

Apple Bellwork Freebie

Johnny Appleseed Reading Passages

Informational Apple Reading Passages and Task Cards

Apple Partner Pair Cards With Engagement Questions

To visit the first of my series of lesson outlines click here.

You can find my lesson plan pages at A Modern Teacher.