By fifth grade, students have a pretty strong understanding of the three states of water: solid, liquid and gas. As we introduced these concepts as a review for the coming weather unit, I challenged my 5th graders to find only natural materials outside to model these three states. At first, they were puzzled. Then, they were angry with such a ridiculous request from their teacher. Finally, when they realized it wasn't an option, they said "challenge accepted!" Here's what they came up with. Brilliant!
We used the student's school uniform shirts as data to collect for our introduction to line plots and other graphs. each day that the students came in, we would have them post a correlating sticky note, mark an X or draw a symbol of various types of graphs to familiarize them. Once our math lesson on graphing began, the connection was quick to be made when they looked around the room and saw their data. Data collection topics:
This week, we are working on the continuation of comparing and contrasting. It is really awesome that the science curriculum map and the ELA map are both working on compare/contrast so the kids can relate and overlap their knowledge from subject to subject. In this lesson, my CT gave each student a piece of construction paper (The same color to prevent arguing), printed article questions and on a separate piece of paper, the essential question for the close read. The students glued the essential question on one side of the construction paper and the article questions (3 per article) on the other. She advised the class to fold the paper in half vertically after gluing so that only one article’s questions were available at the time. The students read one article yesterday and the other today. Both readings were done “buddy reading” style where pairs were formed and paragraphs were traded back and forth. After a paragraph was read aloud (by partner A), partner B summarized what they heard partner A read. A and B collaborate to check understanding and hold the other accountable. Below you will see the articles and a finished piece of work from one of my students. This is definitely something that can be differentiated for grade levels and used across subject areas. I will be using this strategy in the future!
As an introduction to free writing, we gave each of our students a sticky note and read them only the beginning of a very descriptive scary story. The spooky theme was inspired by the upcoming Halloween holiday. We gave the students a structured free write by asking them to jot down three things that has scared them or still scares them. My CT modeled things that she was afraid of at their age. After the kids "left their fears" in the thought bubble, we read them allowed to share. In their writing notebooks, students quickly were reminded of other things that scare them that they didn't initially think of and wrote them down. This was an activity that could be used for any themed free write. I may use this in the future as an alternative to Turn & Talk or group sharing. This way, students are hearing multiple views from their classmates. On September 13th (2013), my CT conducted a math lesson that I particularly enjoyed. This was a Friday, in the days prior to we have been reviewing the different ways to show multiplication. To introduce division, my CT gave each table a box of various manipulatives, so each table could collectively decide the one of their choice, and four paper plates. She asked each the tables to count out 24 of the manipulatives of their choice and to spread the paper plates out so everyone at the table could see them. She asked the tables to work together and find out a way to split the 24 manipulatives onto the four plates but they had to be in equal groups. She and I circled and checked for these equal groups. All but one table of three students understood that each plate would get six manipulatives. For the group that didn't understand, I made an analogy:
"If we are all eating at the dinner table and these (the manipulatives) are all biscuits, how are we going to split it up? Should you get 6, she get 4, and we each get 7?" The group agreed that this was unfair. "So how are we going to make it equal?" The group quickly changed their answer to four equal groups of 6. The class was thrown a curve ball when they were asked to remove one of the plates but still have an equal number of manipulatives (or biscuits) on the remaining three plates. I circled back to the group that struggled last time and told them that I cancelled our dinner plans and that they could eat my portion. They didn't hesitate to put eight manipulatives on each plate, along with an eager smile when they finished. Lastly, the students were asked to remove another plate and make equal groups among the plates. While the process wasn't enough to my liking, I began asking the groups who finished quickly to explain why they split the manipulatives in the ways that they did. Other questions I asked were: "How do you know they are equal?" "Do you get more manipulatives per plate if there are more plates or less plates? Why?" "How did you decide to split it this way?" "What did you do first and how did you fix it to make look like this?" The kids were answering my questions with both accuracy and confidence. I was very pleased. My favorite part of the entire lesson was when my CT asked who found this difficult. Many responded that this was simple. She smiled and said, "Great! Then you all know how to divide..." I can't even explain the facial expressions from the kids. They were amazed that they were doing division without even knowing it! One student even asked, "That's what division is?!" This was a great idea I stole from my first grade Collaborating Teacher (CT). The students read a story as a class called From Wheat to Bread.Each student was given multicolored post its and were told to sequence the story on each post it where they can later test their knowledge by uncovering each step as they please. Genius! |
Author's Note:Here are some lesson plans that I have either done or observed and want to pass on to the teaching community! Please feel free to steal at your leisure! Archives
February 2015
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