Polar Bear Week

I decided to teach about Polar Bears this week. We are working on nonfiction writing and i figured the students would be able to write interesting reports on Polar Bears. Also, my exciting news of the week...I got a SMARTboard for my classroom. I couldn't wait to use it.

The first day, the students created a KWL, filling in 5 things they kenw and 5 things they wanted to know/qustions. After finishing, they read a leveled polar bear book in partners and went back to list things they learned.

The next day, we read in groups of 6-7, with my interns each reading with seperate groups to listen for fluency. Then i was able to use the SMARTboard. I put up a video about Polar Bears and some of their habits. The students were so excited to see and hear the bears moving, growling, fishing, and interacting with each other. The students then answered questions about the movie.



Thats where literature groups ended for the week, but i plan to continue polar bear study next week as well. I will complete it with the students writing a report abotu polar bears.

This week we started with the idea of starting a career study. I read the book Maybe you should fly a jet! Maybe you should be a vet! This is a Dr. Seuss book that explores all kinds of jobs in rhyme. We discussed other words for "job," such as career and occupation and how all of these words are synonyms. Then the students read in small groups a book about different community helpers. They then wrote three careers which they might like to be. Some students wrote made up careers, such as princess and wizard. Most students had good ideas to what they wanted to pursue (at age six). There were a lot of teachers, doctors, scientists, police officers, and fire fighters. All pretty common jobs for young children to want.

My plan from here was to check out enough books from the library so each child could have a book on at least one of there career choices to learn more about what they do. The library did not have books on a first grade (although advanced) level. The books were written for upper elementary. Also, the library would not have enough books for what i needed.

Since my original plan did not work, i decided to have students learn a bit about other careers than the ones they chose. We first partner read the story again to work on fluency. Then i passed out career cards in envelopes. Each child had a picture of a person in that career, a description of the career, and a card with the tools of that trade. The student had to create a riddle about the career, giving hints at what their assigned career was.

The next day, we read our riddles and saw if others could guess the career we had. Afterward, the student wrote what their mom and dad did as an occupation and whether or not they would like to do it. I was surprised by how many students either had non-working parents (or didn't know what they did) (or didn't think they had a job other than mom and dad). I have never done a job study before, so this was an interesting factor. Their assignment for the night was to ask mom and dad what they do.

This was only a 3 day week, because we had Monday off. Next week we again only have 3 days, so it is difficult to find things to teach. I may have them read fiction and start to do book reports.

Ideas for future literature groups

I am thinking of a couple different areas to study with this group. Mt problem is finding enough resources to use with 22 kids for 30 minutes, 4 days a week. Each child needs something to do.

My topics I am thinking about are:

• planets
• careers
• animal reports (maybe frogs, turtles, penguins)

Any ideas or suggestions would be great!

1st and second weeks are over

The first 2 weeks are over and i am feeling more comfortable. The first week, we did a fiction book about clubs, compared the story with other books, created club rules, and met each other.

The second week we read an informational fiction about spiders. On Monday, the students complete an altered KWL chart telling 5 things they knew about spiders and 5 questions they had about spiders. I used partner reading, by handing each child an orange or blue number when they walked in and they read with the student who had the match. They then discussed comprehension questions.

On Tuesday we discussed nonfiction work. We talked about facts versus opinions, plagiarism (or the first grade equivalent) and parts of nonfiction books, such as diagrams and labels, the table of contents and the glossary. The students completed a glyph about their opinions of spiders and labeled the parts of spiders.

• Spider Diagram -



• Spider Glyph - http://www.abcteach.com/free/g/glyph_spider.pdf

• Spider Fact Project

On Wednesday, the students used nonfiction books from the school library to find 8 facts about spiders. The students were writing the facts on gray strips of 1in X 9in paper.

On Thursday, the students completed their spider facts and created a fact spider (using the gray strips for the spiders eight legs).

Our groups do not meet on Friday, due to testing in the homerooms. We are skipping groups next week, because of UF homecoming on Friday and a play we are attending on Tuesday. We feel that skipping the groups will allow us to cover all reading material and be able to test on Thursday.

First Week

I have 22 students with a different level of "high" reading ability. The first day we discussed the idea of literature groups and decorated name tags. I have taped the name tags to desks, so i can flip them down when my homeroom class comes back. Second day we read a story called "The Everyone Club." We discussed different clubs and related it to our reading club. We also voted on a mascot...they chose a shark.

I am worried about the transitions moving to and from classes. The kids are so loud and excited that they are distracted for at least 15 minutes afterward. Also, the timing between teachers is causing interruptions and even more distractions. How can we help timing and transitions?