Mad About Science

9/19/2015

Science has been a big hit this year. Once again we started off with the Steve Spangler Orb experiments to introduce the scientific method. The kids absolutely loved it, and came up with great new questions to ask.

We took advantage of their high motivation and enthusiasm with science to introduce them to nonfiction descriptive text structure and note taking. To show them how to make main idea headings and supporting details for their notes, we read aloud the first part of the book, What Is A Scientist? and modeled note taking for them. Then, in collaborative groups, students read about specific fields of science from this book and another resource. They added to the notes we started, and then presented their findings to the rest of the class. They loved being teachers. We feel so lucky because we got a bonus lesson teaching the main idea and details of the book as we introduced descriptive text structure.

After taking notes, we introduced informative writing. This was our first crack at writing paragraphs that included a topic sentence, supporting details, and a closing sentence.  But, it connected perfectly with our teaching of nonfiction descriptive text structure. The students were going to have to describe what a scientist is, and what they do. After introducing the elements of informative writing, our kids started "cooking" their ideas for writing by creating a scientist sticker scene that we bought from Oriental Trading Company.

Finally, it was time to write! We had the students work in collaborative teams to write their first informative essay of the year. We were so proud of not only their results, but also their effort. They were presented with a challenging task, and they persevered through it, and had success! This was a great way to start the year!

We look forward to telling you about more of the connections that are happening in our classrooms. We know we have an exciting and engaging year ahead of us!

Kim and Anne

Friday, September 4, 2015

We have we been you ask?  Well, most of August was spent writing our math curriculum for the district.  It was a daunting task and is still not complete, but we feel good about what we've accomplished with some of our colleagues.  We were also getting our classrooms set up, and meeting and planning with our two new team members.  As exciting as it is to begin a new school year and to meet new kids and families, we have forgotten how busy this time of year is.

Now that we have a week and a half under our belts, we can blog again.  We want to tell you about more of the books we read over the summer.  We can't wait to use them with our new students.

This first book we chose to read because it correlates well with our first reading unit on tales.  It is called Isle of the Lost, by Melissa De La Cruz.  It takes place after all of the fairy tales have been told.  The villains have been banished to an island of their own.  They cannot use magic and must live a life of misery and hardship.  It is interesting to learn how the characters from various fairy tales interact with each other.  The end leaves you hanging, wanting to read the next book in the series called The Descendents by Rico Green.  It is the perfect book to introduce allusion.  The book allows for deep analysis of the characters and their actions and how those actions affect others in the story.

Another book that will go along with our tale unit is Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff.  This book takes place before the tale of Rumpelstiltskin.  Rumpelstiltskin is only twelve years old.  Everyone calls him Rump because he does not know his real name, which is unfortunate because he lives in a kingdom where your name is your destiny.  While searching for his identity, Rump has many obstacles to overcome.  Again, allusion can be taught with this book because there are other fairy tale characters referenced.  This would also be a good book for discussing point of view.  It would be really fun to compare this book with the original tale.

Throughout the year we will share new books we find exciting.  

Enjoy the long weekend!

Kim and Anne