Iktomi and the Plains Native Americans

March 30, 2014

Spring Break is here! We are grateful for a little reprieve because we have been working like mad since coming back to school in January. It was a four day week for us, so we tried to cram a lot in to wrap things up. We were successful in some areas, but we still have some loose ends. We are excited about our fable writing. It is going well so far, but we are not finished. We will share the process we went through, and our final products, in our next blog.

Besides fable writing, this week was all about Iktomi, the Plains Indian trickster, legends. If you haven't ever read these books, you should really check them out. The kids really think he is a hoot! We read aloud many of Paul Goble's Iktomi legends so the students could get to know this hilarious character. While we were reading, we kept adding to our Iktomi character trait web.

We read two different Iktomi tales during shared reading, and each student had their own copy of the book. One group read Iktomi and the Boulder and the other read Iktomi and the Berries. During this first read, students recorded their thoughts in their reading notebook, and we discussed them after reading every couple of pages. We have been so pleased with the development of their thoughts from the beginning of the year. The students are truly starting to have authentic conversations about their reading.

One of our target skills was cause and effect. So, each group completed a cause and effect page with the story. We differentiated between the two groups. One group only had to identify the effects. The other group had to identify both causes and effects. Over the break, we plan to put up the two cause and effect pages for free on our teachers pay teachers store.

After break, we will switch books between the groups and complete a story tree, which will address another target skill-plot.

We connected social studies with our shared reading and read nonfiction texts about the Plains Native Americans. The students recorded important information on their matrix, and we compared the Plains Native Americans with the Eastern Woodlands.

In computer lab, we used tagxedo to review important cultural components of the Plains Native Americans. We were happy with how much they learned about the Plains Native Americans in a short amount of time.

As a fun way to end our week, we made rattles. We learned through our reading that the Plains Native Americans used them for many different purposes, including playing the Hand Game. This was another Native American game our students enjoyed playing.

If you are on Spring Break like we are, we hope you have a good one! We'll see you back on this blog in two weeks.

Kim and Anne

Fables

Friday, March 21, 2014

Sorry for the break last week, but we were trying to get our report cards finished.  We are relieved that they are completed and have been sent home!  It's hard to believe we are now in the last trimester of the year.

We have been reading fables, myths and legends for the past few weeks because our students have really hooked into this genre. This week we read A Froggy Fable by John Lechner.  The kids loved it and were able to have insightful discussions.  We did two story element projects with this fable.  One focused on the story structure.  Some students completed a story mountain independently and the other group completed one in a guided lesson.  It was challenging for the independent group to decide which events were important and needed to be included on the story mountain. To help support them we gave them event markers on their mountains.  We had to discuss the importance of not including too many or too few details.  The other group was challenged to complete their story mountain with events that were given to them.

Independent Group Story Mountain

The students then used the story mountain to decide the theme of the fable.  We thought about the protagonist's thoughts, feelings and actions throughout the story.  Then we thought about where in the story the character changed and learned something that we could apply to our own lives.  From there, themes were discovered.  Some possibilities were flexibility, appreciation, and acceptance.  After writing the theme and supporting it with evidence from the text, they created a tissue paper scene that also supported the theme.

We have been talking about the themes of stories all year.  To review this concept we showed them commercials from the website values.com.  A colleague shared this site with us.  The kids had to explain how the events in each commercial supported the various themes.  It really is worth checking out because it hooked the kids in.

Next week we are going to be writing our own fables.  This will be a brand new activity for us, but we found a great fable lesson plan by Jane Loretz on teacherspayteachers.  We are really excited.

We will let you know next week how it goes.

One more week and spring break is here!  We just hope we have spring weather.

Kim and Anne

Free Aims Education Lesson and More

Friday, March 7, 2014

Another busy week down!  At least it was a five day week and we got a lot accomplished. The biggest accomplishment was publishing our In winter...writing.  To take some of the blame off ourselves, we did have many days off this winter.  They turned our fabulously.

Last week we focused on social studies, so this week we will highlight our science experiment.  After studying the properties of liquids, we used the scientific method to draw conclusions about the density of liquids.  We were so thrilled that our students were able to use their background knowledge from our Sink and Float activity to draw a conclusion about why the liquids formed in different layers.

After the experiment we made A Big Density Column that we learned about when we took part in a Golden Apple Science workshop one hundred years ago!  It's such an effective way for students to learn about how molecules are arranged in different liquids and why they have different densities.

Last week we promised to share with you a great math lesson from Aims Education.  This was a free Common Core lesson plan offered through Twitter.  The equation mats really helped our students understand the story problems better and recognize where the numbers should be placed on the mat.  The problems that are part of this lesson are much more challenging than traditional second grade story problems because they include start unknown, change unknown, and end unknown.  Here is a link to find your grade level's free lesson plan.

Here is the second thing we promised to share with you--an article that really gave us a shot in the arm during this long winter.  Speaking of which, this winter has been incredibly tough on our students.  Besides missing so many days of school, they are often indoors during lunch recess because of the cold weather.  Cabin fever has set in.  This article fell in our laps at just the right time.  It was just what we needed to revitalize our teaching.  You may find it useful.

Looking forward to springing ahead this weekend.  Hopefully the weather will spring forward as well.

Kim and Anne