5 Activities for October in the Upper Grade Classrooms

I love everything about the Fall.  It's the perfect combination of weather, beauty, and all things cozy.  It's also one of my favourite months in the classroom.  We're starting to get our routines down pat, beginning of the year assessments are complete (or almost ... haha), and our classroom community vibes are pretty strong.  We can start to handle some more engaging and hands-on activities ... and in my opinion, there is no better month to do it.  

1.  Fall Poetry Books - Falling into Poetry is easy with this resource that's perfect for the beginning of the year when the leaves start to change.  Students get an introduction to many different forms of poetry, as well as figurative language.  There are examples of each type of poetry and figurative language device, as well as space for students to complete their own examples.  Completed pages turn into a beautiful poetry mini book.  Each poetry form also has a leaf outline so students can copy their best poems onto the leaf and colour for display.  There is a branch included for each student to make their own little poet-tree, or individual leaves could be added to a bulletin board, kraft paper tree in the classroom, or REAL branches for a gorgeous autumn display.  

I have also integrated this into an art activity, where students paint a Fall background on a page, then choose 2 -4 completed poem leaves to glue down onto the background for a beautiful writing and art piece.  Click either picture to take a closer peek at this resource in my store.

2.  Clay Sculpted Leaf Art - Every year I look forward to decorating my classroom with gorgeous Fall Leaf Art.  For these beautiful Fall Leaf bowls, we used air dry clay.  I had students pick a real leaf from the school ground (a fallen leaf, of course) - one they felt they could trace.  Students were each given some air dry clay to flatten out to about 1/4 of an inch thickness (and just slightly larger than the leaf they chose).  Note - be sure to have them work with the clay on some type of paper, it's no mess that way.  Students then used a pencil to trace around their leaves on the wet clay, and then used a plastic butter knife to "cut out" their leaves and draw on the veining (copying their real leaf).  When done, we put them vein side down, over some crumpled up paper to sort of form the leaves into a slight bowl shape.  It takes about 3 - 4 days to fully dry.  Once dry, paint (we used acrylic paint) the leaves in gorgeous Fall colours.  Experiment a bit with this.  Using a toothbrush to splatter some of the paint on top makes very realistic spotting on the leaf - and practice mixing and blending with colours.  We sealed our leaves with a spray varnish when complete, but you don't need to do this step.

3.  More Leaf Art - This Fall Leaf Art Lesson is perfect to study line, shape, form, and colour with the elements of design.  Students will trace 2 - 4 leaves on their page, then fill the rest of the page with concentric circles (if you're brave you can have students use a compass, or use the page I included with the circles already drawn).  Choose 3 or more warm colours for the leaves, and colour each section made (by the circles) in a pattern.  When the leaves are coloured, choose 3 or more cool colours for the background, again alternating colours in a pattern.  The leaves look like they're falling against a beautifully windy sky backdrop, or falling into a pool of water.

4.  ALL the Craftivities - While I do love to sneak in my 3D craftivities at different points in the year, I have to admit, all the Fall ones top my list.  These activities make the perfect station activity, or independent work activity so you can meet with small groups or get some assessment done while students are hard at work.  Each one takes approximately one week.  I usually have students finish 2 questions (2 panels) from Monday - Wednesday.  On Thursday they colour all the panels, and then Friday is assembly day.  I have craftivity packages for both literacy and math.  The October Literacy 3D Craftivities Bundle has two different book report resources covering story elements and reading comprehension (the pumpkins and the ghost), as well as a fun one for synonyms and over-used words.  The Fall Math Review 3D Activity Bundle has a candy corn place value review, as well as a pumpkin pie shaped activity with word problems (about pumpkin pies, of course).  Click on either title or picture to the right to see these resources in my TpT store.

5.  Fall Drama Circle - You can't have all that Fall beauty without a little drama. ;)  A drama circle, that is.  This is a new drama circle with a Fall theme - make a circle, hand out the cards, and have some fun.  If the weather is nice, this one is even better outside!  All drama circles now contain colour and black and white copies, and a observation rubric for assessment of drama skills.  Click HERE or on the picture below to take a peek.

You can find all of these Fall-themed resources in one bundle that can take you through the month of October in your classroom.  You can out my Fall Activity Bundle HERE, or by clicking the picture on the right.

And lastly, if you made it all the way to the bottom, reward yourself with this little Candy Corn Decimals Place Value Printable.  Just click on the picture to the right to grab a copy for yourself.  Happy Fall, Y'All!

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Hook Them from the First Day ... Tips for Back to School

Like it or not, it's nearing that time again ... back to school.  I know some of my teacher friends are heading back already!

A few days ago on my facebook page, I asked people to leave a comment about their favourite back to school activity.  You know, those activities that start to build a positive classroom environment and get the students excited about the year right from the very first day.  Their ideas were so fabulous, I knew I had to share some of them with you (and get them down somewhere so I wouldn't forget them).

• Make a silhouette of each student's head using a projecter.  Then, students draw pictures of their likes and favourites within the head.  (Kerri)
• Students fill a brown paper bag with ten objects that reveal something about themselves, or evoke a special or humorous memory.  They decorate the bag and present it to the rest of the class.  (Candace)
• Using a big ball of yarn, get together in a circle and toss the yarn ball to each other, holding onto the yarn.  Students usually tell something they want us to know about them.  Eventually it makes a huge web and we talk about unity and how we all have to work together.  (Monica)
• Have your students write 5 things about themselves on a piece of paper, crumple the paper up, and throw it across the room a few times.  Students then find a paper and guess whose it is.  (Katy)
• Read The Important Book and have students create a list of important things about them.  Then have students use Wordle, Tagxedo, or Cloudart to generate a cloud of words about them.  Make sure they also include their names.  Their work is then printed and posted.  (Kimberly)
• Make hot air balloons.  Give each student a pre-made cut out of a hot air balloon.  On the front of the basket, students write their name and 4 things about themselves.  The balloon is for their goals for the year (at least one is personal/family/outside activity related).  The straps that connect the balloon to the basket display strategies that will help students reach their goals, and people who can help them. (Lesley)
• Take a picture of the student on the first day and have them write a letter to themselves for the last day of school.  It's always fun to see how much they change in one year.  (Kristine)
• Pass around a roll of toilet paper, asking each student to take as much as they think they need.  After all have done so, the students are then told that they need to share as many things about themselves as squares of toilet paper they have taken.  Always a fun way to start the day.  (Jody)
• Write questions on a big playground or beach ball.  Toss the ball around and when it is caught, where a student's right thumb lands, that's the question they answer.  (Karen)
• Measure the students on a bulletin board.  At the end of the year, you can put the paper back up and measure again.  Students are always amazed at how much they've grown.  (Katherine)
• Do a team-building activity where you take one large marshmallow, 20 uncooked linguini sticks, and an arms-length of tape.  In small groups, the students work together to build the tallest free stranding structure.  (Kristi)
• Make a "My Reading Timeline" where students make timelines that show their favourite books, series, authors, throughout the years starting as far back as they can remember.  Return the timelines at the end of the year so students can add their new favourites from the year.  (Jennifer)
• Students decorate a butterly to represent them.  They pass it to the right and the person compliments them and then returns the butterfly.  It still looks beautiful and the student feel good.  Then, they pass it to the left and the person says something they don't like about it and then they crumple up the butterfly and return it.  The butterfly will never look as beautiful.  This activity then goes into a discussion about character and the importance of using kind words.  (Heather)
• Students stand in a circle (teacher included) and toss a bean bag to one person at a time, saying that person's name.  Everyone has to remember who they threw the bean bag to.  Do it a couple of times with one bean bag going in the order you created, and then introduce a second bean bag so there are two bean bags going at once in the same order.  If they're really good at it, a third bean bag is introduced.  It's a great twist on the traditional name game.  (Cherissa)
• Give all the children letters in a bag that say ______ Grade Rocks!  (without telling them what the letters actually spell out).  They then have to see how many phrases or words they can come up with using the letters.  Challenge them to use all the letters.  The students will usually end up working together to find the phrase.  (Kirsten)
• Have kids wander around the room.  Call out a number and a machine.  Kids have to make groups of the number called and then "make" the machine with their bodies.  (Jennifer)
• Read Giant Steps to Change the World by Spike Lee and his wife, then discuss things students can do in the school or classroom to make changes during the school year on little footprints and then display them in the hallway.  (Evette)

This was just a small sample of the ideas ... so many wonderful and creative ones were shared.  

I have a favourite activity to share, too.  I like to do this bio poem with my students on the first day.  I project the poem first for students to get a rough copy done, then give them the templates for students to complete and decorate their presentation copies.  Students also make a picture of themselves to display with the poem.  The poem template is a freebie in my TPT store, and there is a template included for each grade, so I've got everyone covered.  ;)  You can download it by clicking HERE.  It makes a great bulletin board display that is ready to go by the end of the first day.

I have also bundled together some of my favourite back to school activities on TPT into a great First Days of School Activity Bundle.  This bundle includes my Back to School Drama Circle (a fantastically fun ice breaker activity), Back to School Cootie Catchers (for students to get to know their classmates in a small group or partner activity), The Length of a Summer (a fun mathematics problem-solving activity), and my newest First Day Apples Craftivity (get your students writing and create a fabulous display all in one activity).  You can view this bundle by clicking HERE.

Whenever your first day happens to be, I hope you have a WONDERFUL back to school start.  And maybe you gathered some new ideas today.  ;)

Back to School Bundle

First Day Apples Craftivity

The Length of a Summer

Back to School Drama Circle

InLinkz.com

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Poetry ... In Reverse

A few years ago I stumbled across the reverse poem, A Lost Generation, by Jonathan Reed.  I was blown away by it.  Immediately, I knew I wanted to share it with my class, and they were just as blown away as I was.  Over the years, I have continued to use it in my classroom, and every year, the reaction by the students is the same.  Many of them even ask to bring a copy home so they can share it with their parents.  (If you can't see the video below, here is the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA)

This year, I was finally brave enough to let my students have a go at writing their own reverse poetry.  After we watched and read the poem numerous times, I gave each student their own copy, and they went to work with a highlighter, highlighting the phrases that made the poem "work" (I had them work in groups of 2 or 3 for this).  They quickly noticed that every second phrase was generic - the fact that it contained no specific references was what made the poem reversible.

Then, we visited the site Budding Poets:  Reverse Poetry and read through some more examples of Reverse Poetry before I let the students loose to begin writing their own.  I did tell them they were allowed to "borrow" some of the general phrases from the poem if they were stuck.  This really helped the students get their poems started.  I asked them to try to write at least 14 lines, but many wrote more.

We have been piloting the use of 10 tablets in our classroom - Surface 2 tablets, so we wanted to be able to incorporate this technology into our poetry, as well.  We decided that when the groups were finished writing their poems (and after teacher approval) they would use the whiteboards and the video camera on the tablets to make a whiteboard movie or slideshow of their poems.  They used one whiteboard per line, stacked them all up, and then got ready to shoot their movies.  Most groups chose to make a video of their poems, but a few groups took individual pictures of each whiteboard (slide) and then put them together into a slideshow.  Both worked equally well.  We didn't read the poems out loud on the videos - the students thought it would be more powerful if the video was silent.

Here is a completed example of one of the poems my students wrote.  This group was made up of two 6th grade students.  The video you see is one I took on my iPad, standing behind them while they made a video on their tablet.  One student took the video, and one student was reponsible for changing the whiteboards.  On the video they took, you can only see the one stack of whiteboards (not the stack of removed whiteboards) - mine shows the whole process so you can have a better idea of what we did.  When all the groups were finished, we shared the poems with the whole class by projecting them onto the board.  What a great project!!  (Here is the link if you can't view the movie below:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO_B9gS58wg)

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A Peek at Last Week

We started our new read aloud this week - Because of Mr. Terupt, written by Rob Buyea.  This book came highly recommended by a few of my followers at the beginning of the year, so I scooped it up.  SO glad I did - my students are LOVING it!  (There's a sequel, too).  We're still studying summarizing as our comprehension strategy, so I've had the students working on summaries in various ways - through turn and talks with a partner, sticky note summaries, written reader responses, and different kinds of organizers.  One of my favourites this week as a 30 word summary I asked my students to write - exactly 30 words, no more, no less.  There was a lot of great thinking going on as they worked to add or eliminate words to hit the number target.  We've also used the book to start a lot of great discussions on characterization, as the book is written from the point of view of 7 different characters.  I think we'll move on to Making Connections as our next comprehension strategy as I'm pretty sure my students will relate and connect to some of the characters and situations/problems in the novel.

Also inspired by the book, we've added "Dollar Words" into our daily number talks.  The characters in the book had a math project to find as many dollar words as they could (words that add up to $1.00 or 100 - a=1, b=2, c=3 and so on).  I made a quick template page for our smartboard, and give the students 3 or 4 minutes at the beginning of each number talk to try to find a dollar word.  Students that find one can share at the smartboard when they are done.

We've also been working on our Remembrance Day tribute this week.  Every year my students participate in our Legion's annual Literary and Poster Contest.  My students have been working on their posters (colour or black and white) and poems (at least 4 quatrains with a rhyme scheme) throughout the week.  We've also been working on our Poppy Craftivity, but we won't finish these up until Monday.  I'm going to use the poppies and copies of their poems for our November bulletin board display.  I can't wait until we are all finished - they are doing such a great job!

Yesterday we finished our slideshow for our Remembrance Day assembly at the school - made with Windows Live Movie Maker.  I used the students' posters in the slideshow, and had them each write one word on their hands that made them think about veterans.  (Please ignore all the spelling mistakes on the posters - although I checked and proofed all the rough copies before they started their good copies, many of my students apparently can't transfer the correct spelling.  Ugh.)  I posted our video below - you may have to click through to youtube to watch it (it's doing something funny on my computer).

Happy Saturday!  It's a rainy day, and my oldest and my hubby are feeling under the weather.  Hoping for a quiet rest of the day, already back from dancing lessons with my youngest two, and new winter boots, hats, and mitts bought for all the kiddos.  Now if I could only convince the cleaning fairy to visit my house.  ;)

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A Peek at Last Week

Is anyone else as exhausted as I am?  I usually have my energy back by the beginning of October, but it hasn't happened yet.  I wanted to do this post yesterday and link up to 5 for Friday, but I fell asleep by 8:30, and didn't get up until this morning (quite early I must add - the girls have dancing and soccer at 9:00 am both Saturdays and Sundays ... perhaps another reason why I'm still exhausted).

Anyhow ... enough whining.  I had another great week in the classroom (LOVING my class this year), and just wanted to share a few of our activities.

In science we're finishing up our inquiry projects.  Students chose 3 questions that they still had about space and the solar system at the end of our unit (I did have a list of questions for those that were stuck, but many came up with their own questions).  They have finished up their research, and are working on their presentations for the material.  They could choose to present the information in any way they wished.  Watching them work right now is awesome!  I have some students making slideshows in photostory (complete with an audio file of their research), some are making powerpoint presentations, some are making 3D models with plasticine, a few are doing dioramas, others are doing poster board presentations ... it's definitely exciting!  Students will be presenting their projects on Wednesday, so I'll share some photos with you next week.  

In Language this week we've been studying poetry.  We're into summarizing as our reading comprehension strategy right now, so we've been summarizing the poems we've looked at, and I threw in a little study of figurative language, poetry elements and structure, and word choice.  Our big poem this week was The Raven - definitely challenging for my sixth graders, but not too difficult.  We looked at one page per day (4 pages in our copy), and each day, each group took on one stanza to summarize into their own words (the orange sticky notes on the papers).  Yesterday, students took their reader response answers (they had a page of questions they completed while studying the poem) and we used Tagxedo (like Wordle, only a little cooler) to make these awesome raven {yes, I know they look like chickadees ;) } word pictures.

We also wrote our own Halloween poems this week to add to our writing portfolio bulletin board.  I LOVE how they turned out.  I shared the stationery we used on my facebook page this week.  You can grab it from google docs by clicking HERE. 

To go along with our Word Choice in poetry, we also finished up our Tombstone Synonyms this week.  We completed our Plot Pumpkins last week.  I think they look great decorating our classroom library.  You can check out both these craftivities (and one more) HERE.

We're studying patterning right now in math (actually, just finishing up).  We've been working on completing our Concept Posters (I use them as a second summative assessment right before our final test so I can see what areas need a little more review right before the test).  If you can see on the picture, I left up one example of place value (our last unit) and added some examples from this unit.  When we finish this unit, I'll just leave up the one example of "pattern rules" and add some more from our current unit.  This way, we'll build a concept wall bulletin board over the year.  We've also been doing some three part math lessons with problem solving.  The students are getting pretty good at explaining their thinking, and posting some exemplars has really helped them organize their work on the page.

But, the most exciting thing to happen in math this week was our start of Number Talks.  This book came highly recommended to me (I put the amazon link at the bottom of the post) and will be perfect for our school focus on "operational fluency" this year.  It focuses on mental math strategies through number talks with the students.  I made this quick template for the smartboard this week, and we will use it for our talks.  I'll post a little more about it in a bit ... we're just getting started so I want to have a few more talks under my belt before I share more.  But ... the kids and I are really excited about it, and I can't wait to see them take ownership over it.

Ok - that's about it for now.  Sorry for the rambling post ... I was just excited to share.  ;)    Happy Saturday!!!

Other Autumn-Themed Resources:

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Think Pink: National Pink Shirt Day

February 27th is National Pink Shirt Day.  Today, our school was a sea of pink as we did our part to stand up against bullying.

National Pink Shirt Day was started in 2008 as a response to two boys in Nova Scotia who took a stand against bullying by supporting a boy who was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school.  These two boys saw the incident and went out and purchased 50 pink shirts to distribute to other boys at the school to wear.  You can read more about pink shirt day here at www.pinkshirtday.ca.

We kept the theme going in our classroom today.  I had slips of paper in my "name jar" with the words the bully, the bullied, and the bystander.  Each student had to choose a slip of paper to examine the issue of bullying from one of those three points of view.  The students then got into three groups to "talk it out".  They discussed what their feelings would be, reasons for the behaviour, actions, etc.  By taking the "role" of either the bully, the bullied, or the bystander, students felt more free to discuss the feelings as they felt they weren't being too personal, or sharing too much.

They then had to write a poem from the point of view they had chosen.  We used a simple "I Am" template for the poem.  The end results were SO powerful!  Students typed them out and I photocopied them onto the T-shirt template on bright pink paper.  We are going to read some of our poems at our end of the month assembly tomorrow.

As students finished their poems, I gave them another T-shirt template, this time photocopied onto a light pink piece of paper.  They designed their own T-shirts with an anti-bullying message.  LOVE them!  We cut the T-shirts out and made a wonderful bulletin board display with a powerful anti-bullying message to share with the school.

I have uploaded a copy of the template we used for the poems and the T-shirt to google docs.  You can click HERE or on the picture to the right to grab a copy for yourself.  I have read that April 10th, 2013 is International Pink Shirt Day - does your school celebrate pink shirt day?

Happy Wednesday!!!  We're half-way there!

Jen

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Friday Art Feature - Pastel Snowflakes

Oh my goodness - it's been a while.  Is it just me, or is everybody feeling a bit overwhelmed right now?  (Not that I'm wishing 'overwhelmed' on any of you ... just hoping I'm not the only one).  I've got some fun things to share, so I'm hoping to get in a few more blog posts before Christmas vacation.

Today I want to share our art from this week.  I saw this idea posted on facebook and thought it would be a fun quick project to take on.

I pulled up some pictures of snowflakes on google images.  After we studied the snowflakes, the students had to draw them using white oil pastels.  When they were done they painted over the paper using a watered-down paint mixture.  Note:  the paint didn't resist as much as I had hoped over the oil pastels - I think I should have added more water to the paint.  Some of the students went back over their snowflakes with the pastels to really make them stand out.

In keeping with our "poetry tied to art theme" this year, I had the students write a haiku on their art.  Beautiful, easy, and quite timely considering the snowfall we have had lately.  

Happy Friday!!!

Jen

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