Polar Bears - ELA Lesson Plans #17

 This week is all about a close read of polar bear texts.  Last week's penguin unit was no mistake.  It built a schema for the kids on climate, polar regions and climate change.  This week we will delve into two main texts reading them over and over as we focus on asking and answering questions, finding new vocabulary, discovering author's point, compare and contrast and responding to text dependent questions in length with adequate support. While my normal shared reading texts last 20-30 minutes, this week will last 45-60 minutes taking up our writing block.  Students will respond to a question each day with a short answer with the exception of the fourth day.  On the fourth day they will respond in length.  Below level students will be expected to answer the question "Why is ice important to polar bears?"  On level students will be expected to answer the "Why is there a serious possibility that polar bears could become extinct?" with a three part response including: topic sentence, three supporting pieces of evidence and closing sentence.  Above level students will answer the same question with a four part response.  They will include the information from the on level response and add in a response that rebuts any climate change hoaxes.  For independent reading time, students will work on influential African American reading stations in anticipation for next week's lessons.

 This book is put out for students who need to extend their learning.

 On Thursday students will answer the question "Why is there a serious possibility that polar bears could become extinct?"  If time allowed, I would use Friday to conference with them.

Author's Point of View - ELA Lesson Plans #14

 How many more weeks do you have before winter break? We have two glorious weeks before we get off for the holidays.  Getting through to the end just may be the biggest test of my teaching skills yet.  This week will be all about thematic days.  Tuesday -Friday I will throw in food to help motivate my students to keep on learning .  We'll have a Cookie Day, Hot Cocoa Day, Candy Cane Day and a Gingerbread Day.  Monday is set aside for fruitcake, but we won't have any food because I spent the weekend loving on my family and not shopping for my class.  Each day we will also have a fun holiday read aloud, Grinch Reader's Theatre fluency time and Grinch sing alongs.  We will perform the reader's theatre, song and various poems at our holiday party.  Writing will look the same as last week, but we'll be writing about holidays around the world.  We are keeping the same format because otherwise kid's attention span wanes and we lose learning time.  Using a high interest topic coupled with a familiar format will keep the kids learning to the end or as long as I can possibly get them to.

We'll also be planting our traditional Candy Seeds.  You can find the seed pack and activities in my Peppermint Day unit by clicking on the picture below.

You can find my lesson plan page outlines from A Modern Teacher.