Hello All!
Hope all is going well for you! I have been busy this month. With holidays, like Valentine’s Day and President’s, it has been difficult to get all our work done. One of the things I taught that turned out to be a great lesson was one of my guided reading lessons. We read an except from the book One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Scholastic Guided Reading Short Fiction Reads). I just got these cards because my principal bought them for the 4th and 5th grade teachers to share. This particular card is level S reading.
My students read them independently. When they finished, I asked them to ask any questions about content or vocabulary that they didn’t understand. Some students didn’t know what a Wildcat (car) or rapping (hitting/banging) on the window meant.Then we moved into the lesson on inference. I used the example of where the family traveled to Alabama and stopped only at a gas station or a nice colored family’s house. Also, Delphine states “We are no longer in Brooklyn” like the line from Wizard of Oz. This showed how Alabama was different towards African Americans than in New York. Then my students had a great discussion about other inferences in this text. Students came up with one or two inferences on their own and wrote them on their sheet. Finally, we shared out our findings.
I want to bring the students back and discuss the theme of this piece too. There was so much to talk about, I needed to break it into two discussions.
Another activity that went well this month was a lesson I taught in science. My 4th graders are studying energy and how it is transferred. I passed out sheets with different items that store energy and students had to show where that stored energy can be transferred. They got to work in partners and most chose to put their flow charts on the floor. When they were done, I took a picture so I could grade it later. It was fun to see how they came up with different schematics for the process.
Thanks for stopping by. As teachers, we are all so busy planning our lessons, so I am truly appreciative that you took the time to look at my posts. My hope is you may see something you can use or one of my lessons sparks ideas for you.
Karen