Five for Friday: Fall Fall Fall

Linking up with Doodlebugs for another Five for Friday

We are all about bats the past week and a half! Check out Tuesday's book talk here to see what we've been up to!

We went on a field trip around our town and to a farm last week. The kiddos had a fabulous time, especially in the one room school house! The questions were priceless... "how could all those grades fit in here?!" "how did the teacher know what to teach?" "why did the students have to use chalk?" Yes we have reached a generation where very few kiddos have been exposed to chalkboards in a classroom!!!

I've expanded my "teach your hand" to "teach your foot" while students are waiting for the rest of the class to finish writing something down during a whole group lesson. To learn more about teaching your hand and foot, check out this weeks Whole Brain Wednesday.

I've been dying for an excuse to use the magic curtain strategy I learned about in my grad class to build excitement and get students talking about a new unit. We are starting a unit on matter, so I decided to cover up solids, liquids & gases on the carpet to build excitement while my kiddos ate lunch (they eat in my room) wondering why I wouldn't tell them what was hiding under the table cloth!

You might have thought there was candy or critters underneath with how excited they were when I finally revealed what was underneath. After observing and discussing with their partner, they had to make a prediction about what we'd be learning about in science.

We made these awesome pumpkins last year and it took FOREVER... so this year I smartened up and had our 6th grade reading buddies help us out with the cutting. These are really cute and simple... 11 same size orange circles, fold 10 in half and make a slit about half way from the fold side. Slide the folds onto the 1 not-cut circle and spread them out to create the pumpkin look. Then glue on a green stem... easy peasy!


Have a lovely weekend!

Book Talk Tuesday: Bats!

After being MIA for a week... I'm linking up with Mrs. Jump for Book Talk Tuesday...

We've been doing lots about BATS in my classroom over the past week and a half or so.
We started off by reading the well-known: Stellaluna.

We read the beginning of the story together (up until when Stellaluna falls into the bird nest) stopped and made a prediction. We then continued reading and students had to identify if their prediction came true or not. If it didn't they had to tell what really happened.

The next day, we retold the story aloud using our Whole Brain Teaching retell gestures... check out #3 on this 5 for Friday post if you're interested in the gestures. We then reread the story and used this retelling scaffold freebie from me to retell the story in writing. It was the first independent retell my kiddos have done, which is why we used the scaffold. Some of my students will use this scaffold for the better part of the year. Others are already ready for less structure.

We reread the end of the story on the third day of Stellaluna to identify the author's message. We also worked together to find proof of the author's message.

Finally, our book buddies came on their usual Friday mornings but instead of reading with us, helped us make these cute bat crafts. I got these templates free from A Cupcake for the Teacher here.

After we were done with Stellaluna, we moved onto what we Know & Want to Learn about bats. We did a class KWL & then the kiddos created their own. I make sure my students ask a question for the "want to learn" section.

Today we read Bats by Gail Gibbons, whose nonfiction texts I've raved about here. The text is short enough and interesting enough for kiddos to sit through the entire thing! ALSO in the same sitting *gasp* my kiddos were just about jumping out of their seats each time I answered one of our questions from our W section.

We completed the L section while we read (the text directly or indirectly answered each of our questions) then the kiddos went back to their KWL and answered the questions they had asked (if they could).

Later this week, the kiddos will read leveled texts about bats to complete the organizers in my TPT product below. Next week we will compare birds and bats (also with the organizers from my TPT product). Check out the bats/birds mini-unit below!

I love combining a fiction & nonfiction books into mini "themed" learning! I hope you'll consider going "batty" about learning in your classroom too!