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
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