World War II

My undergraduate degree is in History and my favorite subject to study has always been WWII. I have looked forward to this unit all year and have so many different activities planned integrating all three subject areas (Writing, Reading, and Social Studies). We started the unit with a KWL and I was surprised (happily) that my students knew a few things about WWII:) However, there is so much more for them to learn! We are daily watching History Channel videos(2-4 minutes) geared towards that day's objective. They absolutely love these attention grabbers! Today we learned about different major battles. As a group activity I divided the students into groups (based on their learning ability and behavior) and had them to research specific questions with articles I provided them. They absolutely loved it! After they completed the group activity it was presentation time and they did a very good job.  As an individual assessment the students had to reflect about which battle was most interesting to them and why in 5-6 sentences. I look forward to tomorrow when they are doing individual research on different leaders. 

Getting ready for end of year state testing!!!!

This year the students will have 30 minutes to respond to a persuasive prompt for the ACT Aspire test. My students were so worried when I broke the news that the test would be time and they would need to produce a well written persuasive writing response within 30 minutes. Something I have learned is that it is essential to model and practice DAILY. At this point of the year every morning during their morning work time the students write a 5 paragraph response to a given topic (normally persuasive) and they do it well within their 30 minute time period. In additional, we have a weekly formal writing due on Fridays. I normally model on model and then allow students to brainstorm their ideas on Monday, Tuesdays are rough draft day, Wednesdays are revision/editing days, Thursdays are final draft days, and Fridays are normally illustration/presentation day. 

Recently the students finished class election speeches. All students were required to write a 5 paragraph essay (introduction, body, conclusion) with transition words. Along with their required writing students were required to create a campaign poster with a slogan. I had many creative students! 

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Teaching World War I

The students are learning so much about World War I. We had the opportunity to borrow one of the traveling trunks through the Upcountry History Museum and the kids loved it! They were able to handle actual artifacts from the War and some great lesson plan ideas. I highly recommend using the trunks in the classroom. It gives students first hand experience and they will love it!! I already have arranged for the World War II trunk. 


 http://www.upcountryhistory.org/education/traveling-trunks/

Point of View

Teaching point of view was so much fun! There were so many different activities that I was able to incorporate into our lessons to really cement their understanding of POV. Flocabulary has amazing videos and the kids loved the Point of View video, they would request all the time. 

 https://www.flocabulary.com/point-of-view/

One activity that helped the kids was a group activity that I found online. The teacher puts a picture in the middle of  an anchor chart and labels around the pictures all three different types of POV, along with the 3 types of 3rd person. The students work together (After the teachers models one) to formulate sentences to fit the picture in each person. 

The students also created a foldable that they used throughout the entire unit. I got the template for free on TpT. 

I used Point of View worksheets  from http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/point-of-view/point-of-view-worksheets/  to model and have students practice figuring out the POV. This is an amazing website that I use regularly. 

Elf for Hire!

The kids enjoyed the Elf For Hire Writing Project this week! We are starting our focus on persuasive writing unit and I thought this would be a fun and easy introductory formal essay.

"Scary" Opinion Writing

When you think of spiders what adjectives come to mind?  Students were asked this question and that started our  opinion writing for the week. Students worked on their opinion writing on spiders this week  

Wow, is it already September???

This year is just flying by! We are already wrapping up our third week of classes. Students are starting to adjust back to being in school. We are already focused on learning our standards for this year. In Social Studies we began studying Reconstruction. Our Writing Unit is focused on Narratives for the first few weeks of school. Your child have already created a map of their "heart" with events from their life. This is the first step in creating a personal narrative. In Reading we have started working on theme. Students have taken notes on what is theme and how to determine theme in literature. They will have an open note test on Friday. Our vocabulary focus is prefixes (re- and dis-).

                          Creating a "heart" Map.

                        Working on theme notes                                              (Standard RL.5.2)

 

Tomorrow, I have surprise for the students! They don't even know it yet! But, we are going to start an awesome Read Aloud: MATILDA! I love the book and the movie. I hope they really enjoy this book as much as I do!