Personality Poems

Here are some examples of my students' personality poems.  They really loved writing this one. Each student had to choose a person to write about. It could be someone they know or a fictional character they liked. 

This is the format we used:

L1 - name

L2 - 4 adjectives describing the person

L3 - loves ____

L4 - fears ____

L5 - needs ____

L6 - gives ____

L7 - believes ____

L8 - name

Once again I loved seeing the different people/characters my students chose. No two poems were alike. This class loves that opportunity to be creative! I really should give them more opportunities.

 

Couplets are next! Those are a little more tricky. Can't wait to share them!

Count-A-Word Poem

My poetry unit is going full swing! I love doing a poetry unit. But I especially can't wait until we have our poetry night. I love seeing my students share their poetry with the rest of their peers and their parents. They always do such a great job...always, I've only done this one other time. Ha!
Anyway, I wanted to share a few of my students' Count-A-Word poems. Sorry that the pictures are a little fuzzy. It is on the dark side in Starbucks.





A Count-A-Word poems is not a rhyming poem. It has a specific amount of words on each line.
L1 - 1 word
L2 - 2 words
L3 - 3 words
L4 - 4 words
L5 - 3 words
L6 - 2 words
L7 - 1 word (same as the first)

I let my students choose anything they wanted it to be about. I just said they could not write about a person (because we were going to write personality poems next). We read a few examples, wrote a few as a whole group and then brainstormed some topic ideas. I love the range of poems the students wrote. They were very creative! There were only a few poems that had similar topics. This has to be my favorite unit to teach.

Stay tuned for our Personality Poems! 

Gotta Love the Impromptu Projects!

Our current science unit is on Stars and Constellations. I love studying the stars! After we finished reading a lesson today I decided that it would be fun for my students to create posters about what we have learned so far. It was random, but I love what I see coming from these students. They are following a check list and working well as groups. It is interesting to see the leaders come out, leaders clashing with each other, compromising, creativity, silliness, and art. All of these things are important in the learning process! I can't to share pictures of this project!

Here is the checklist I gave to them. 

• Title
• Information
• Correct Spelling
• Cursive
• Easy to read/Neat
• Names of people in the group
• Pictures
• Color
• Creative
• Everyone participates
• Work well as a group

Cursive

I always forget how stressful cursive is in January.
I teach cursive in the first half of the year and in the second half we use cursive in every subject.
It never fails that first time I ask them to do an entire assignment in cursive there are several students who panic. I try to remind them that it will take us longer, but there are some that I just can't convince. A handful of them are whining about it, one is crying, and the rest are frustrated over it taking a longer time. Good grief! I guess I'm just torturing them.
Muah ha ha ha! (yes, that is my sinister laugh)

Phases of the Moon

I found this great idea on Pinterest! (I love finding things on there!)

The students used Oreo Cookies to model the phases of the moon. 

They had a blast and were excited to munch on a few when they were done! 

I had them working in pairs because I wasn't sure if I would have enough cookies. I find that when I randomly pair students together it works the best. They all got right to work. It was a huge success!

Keep Those Lesson Plans!

I'm only a beginning teacher, but I've gotten some great advice from my peers this year. They all tell me to keep my lesson plans. This may seem logical to you, but I'm not just saying to keep your lesson plan book. It is helpful to be able to look back at your lesson plan book for sure. But I'm thinking about it in a more electronic form.
At my school we have to post our lesson plans, including the objectives, onto the program RenWeb. This how parents and administration can see what we are doing in our classrooms (other than coming into the classroom of course). Before I post them on this program I type them all on a Word document. That way I have them all in one place to look at next year when I'm planning out my lessons. Some of them will change slightly since I am learning what works and what doesn't, but at least I won't have to rethink every single lesson.

So...
KEEP YOUR LESSON PLANS!!

New Obsession

Sometimes kids are so funny. It cracks me up what I find in their desks. I don't look through their desks very often, if at all, but I asked them to clean them out on Friday due to a school preview day coming up. A few of my students didn't really understand the task apparently. What makes me laugh is the amount of children who have accumulated a lovely rock collection in their desks. No wonder they can't fit anything else in them (!) they are full of rocks! 

A handful of my students have decided to spend their recess time crushing rocks out on the playground in order to find crystals. This wouldn't be a problem except that the school secretary has asked that they stop due to the amount of students coming in bleeding from cutting themselves while breaking the rocks apart. Well I guess they are back at it again. So funny.

 

Do you remember playing with random things in your desk growing up?