Week of April 11

It felt like we had been kind of flying aimlessly the last month or so, with lots of events taking up our learning time, so it was great to get back to some serious & fun learning last week.

The kindergarten students learned all about what poetry is and looks like. We did a simple introduction using two books: I've Lost My Hippopotamus by Jack Prelutsky and Everything on It by Shel Silverstein. The kids were shocked when they saw the books, because they thought they were chapter books due to the amount of pages. We talked about how each page has a very short story called a poem on it. We also talked about how poems for kids are usually funny and that they can sometimes have a rhyme.

After we read the books, we looked at a poem called See the Bug. We highlighted words we knew in pink, then rhyming words each in a different color. We noticed that usually the rhymes come at the end of each line. I love having a Promethean board that students can come up and highlight & learn, especially in the lower grades.

First graders listened to one of our new books called Nerdy Birdy. We had a really funny conversation about what "nerd" means before reading, and had a pretty deep conversation after reading about including people even if they are different than us. It was a great book to use to talk about themes and our kids had some really great ideas to share.

Second graders learned about onomatopoeia words and we brainstormed our own while listening to some nature sound clips. We came up with some fun words for different sounds.

Third graders read some poems from a book called Rainbow Shoes. These poems are all about different colors. 

After reading, we wrote some color poems of our own. Mrs. Deiters' & Mrs. Collett's class wrote their poems on paint samples--I will post those examples once I take pictures! We have them hanging in the windows, currently. 

When we ran out paint samples for Mrs. Mehmen's and Mrs. Nove's classes, so we made our own using Google Drawings. 

Fourth graders spent a class watching the book trailers that they made. Each class has it's own Padlet with the videos which you can view on last week's post. Each student also filled out a reflection/feedback form regarding the project because I wanted some ideas of what students liked and what they didn't. It also gave them a chance to reflect on their work.

Overall, it was a great week!