A few more egg unit projects

Hi every one! I still wanted to show you just a few more egg unit things we did. These ones are more Language Arts related. 


Most of the kids had reading comprehension IEP goals, so I was always trying to find new ways of practicing reading comprehension during Language Arts. By the end, I was starting to repeat some of the activities! I did come up with a new one... a giant crossword puzzle! I first did it after reading The Egg, by MP Robertson, because I found a printable crossword puzzle online, so I just reproduced it on a poster board. 

The kids liked it so much and asked to do it again, so I made my own crossword puzzle for A Chick Called Saturday, by Joyce Dunbar. For the second one, I used an online crossword puzzle creator, and then again reproduced it onto poster board. The kids worked on this as a group. Every student had a turn to hear a clue and write in the answer, but he could ask the others for help. Check this out!

I even added some of my own artwork at the bottom:

Another thing we did was read Chickens Aren't The Only Ones, by Ruth Heller, and then brainstormed a list of oviparous and nonoviparous animals. The kids usually like brainstorming activities, and it is good exercise for their brains. Each student had to come up with one oviparous and one nonoviparous animals, and at the end it was kind of a free for all where they could just toss in any ideas they thought of. Here is our brainstorming board:

And now, for the best part!
We were doing this whole egg unit because of the eggs we were trying to hatch in our incubator. Well,  during my final week at Tree Elementary, our eggs hatched! I actually got to see one hatch before my eyes. It really was like a miracle! I was even more excited than the kids!

Five chicks were born healthy. One was born sort of unhealthy. He was just laying on the ground and not moving. After some research I figured out that he was born with splayed legs, which could be easily fixed with a bandaid around his legs. I wasn't sure how to do it so we thought we should let the people at the farm take care of his legs. (Our chicks go to a no-kill farm near by, where they make more eggs for more schools to hatch.) The splayed leg chick wouldn't eat or drink, because he couldn't really move around. I ended up caring for him by mashing up bird seed in water, smearing it onto my hand, and then holding the chick in my other hand. If I held my seedy hand in front of him, he would peck it and eat the food. I gave him water by just sort of spooning it into his mouth. I got kind of attached to that little guy! I really hope they were able to fix him up once he got to the farm!

I totally want a pet chick now. 

Free Bunny Writing Promt

Hi everyone! Still working on my lesson plans! Today I wanted to share a bunny writing prompt. It begins with, "One day I woke up, and noticed I'd turned into a bunny!" Students then write a short story about what happened. Once they've finished writing, there is also a bunny picture for them to color, making this assignment worthy of hanging on the wall or including in a portfolio! 

I've also included a "cloze" version, which you may choose to use with younger students or students with cognitive impairments. I'm going to use it with Starling, Triller, and possibly Rosella. The cloze version has a short story already written, but includes blank spaces for students to personalize the story. It reads, "One day I woke up an saw that I'd turned into a bunny! I felt _________. I said, '______________.' The first thing I did was ____________. Then I went to ________. I saw _________. I ate __________. When I turned back into a kid, I felt ________." It also includes the bunny picture for them to color.


I've uploaded it at 4shared.com. I used a special font that allows you to make your own lined paper. I embedded the font, so it should reach you the way I intended it to. If not, you may have to fix some things so that it looks right with your own fonts. 


I hope you like it! Later in the week, I'm sure I'll add some more freebies!

Spring Week

I am officially on Spring Break! Hooty-hoo! I wanted to share the spring Language Arts activities that I did this week! 


Lets see. On Monday, we read It's Spring, by Linda Glasser. Then the kids had to come up with a sentence about their favorite part of spring. That was the day that the fourth graders were on a field trip and Towhee  was absent, so only Kite, Starling, Triller and Rosella were there. The activity had to be pretty simple for them.


On Tuesday we read Quiet Bunny's Many Colors. I cut out flower shapes from index cards. I colored the backs of them with colors that corresponded with the colors in the book. On the front of each flower I wrote a comprehension question about the part of the story that matched the color. After I read the story, I showed the kids only the backs of the flowers. Each student had to pick a flower and answer the question. I really love this book... its very cute, and it has a good message at the end! 

On Wednesday, we read Spring Is Here, by Will Hillenbrand. This time, I tried a DRTA, or Directed Reading and Thinking Activity. Basically this just means that you keep asking them to predict what will happen next, and also keep asking them to check if their predictions were correct. Most of the kids did really well with it. Since I kept on talking to them throughout the whole book, they stayed really focused. 


On Thursday, we read Hooray For Spring, by Kazuo Iwamura. I did another very simple activity. I made a felt board by covering a piece of cardboard with black felt. I printed out some characters and items from the story, and glued them on pieces of felt. Before I read the story, I gave each student a character or prop. When the character or prop came up in the story, the student had to come and put it on the felt board. At the end, I asked for a volunteer to retell the story using the felt board as a reminder.Kite volunteered, and did the job well! 


On Friday, we did an activity that was kind of unusual. I had actually read about it in a blog. I can't remember which one, but if it was yours, feel free to let me know so I can give you credit for your idea! We read the story, When Will It Be Spring? by Catherine Walters. I covered the book with paper ahead of time so they couldn't see the illustration on the front. Before I started reading, I passed out clipboards with sheets of paper, and colored pencils. I told the students that I wasn't going to show them any pictures, and that their job was to listen and draw what they imagined when they heard the story. Most of the kids did very well with this. Want to see what they drew?


Martin drew a mama bear and a baby bear outside of a house. There are a bird, a butterfly, and a fire somewhere in the picture too. Aside from the fact that the bears were in a cave and not a house, this was a pretty good illustration for the story. 

Kite also drew a house. She had the mama bear inside the house calling the baby bear to come inside. She also drew a fire, snow, and a butterfly, which were in the story. 

Jay didn't even get to hear the whole story, because he was at some related service or another, but he still managed to draw a nice spring scene after he heard the ending of the story!

This is one of my favorites, by Towhee. On the top, he drew all of the things that the baby bear thought he was seeing, and on the bottom he drew the things that were actually happening. This was a very good illustration for the whole story! Towhee showed that he was really listening and understood the whole story. 

Here is another one of my favorites... for a different reason. Starling drew this. You probably can't tell what it is at all, because Starling just grabs colored pencils or crayons and scribbles frantically, the way a very small child would. However, when I asked her, she told me it was a picture of bears. For Starling to grasp that the story was about bears, without being able to see any pictures, was a pretty big thing! 

I think this was a really nice activity to do on the day before spring break.  We might have to do it again sometime, because the kids really liked it! 


In other news, I was observed by Professor A for the second time at this student teaching placement, the other day. She observed me doing my reading group. I was super nervous because my reading group consists of Starling, Rosella and Triller, who are on a preschool reading level or below. We use the Early Literacy Skill Builders curriculum with them. These three kids have a very hard time staying on task. In fact, they have a hard time staying in their seats instead of running around the classroom or laying on top of the table! But this ended up sort of working to my advantage. Professor A commented that my reading group was difficult to manage and that I did a great job teaching the concepts while also managing the behaviors. She said I was so patient and gentle with them, and kept the activities moving so they didn't have time to misbehave too much. In fact, she didn't have anything negative to say this time! I was so excited! 


Over spring break I need to be writing my plant unit, and also putting together a somewhat more informal Easter unit and chick and egg unit. Got any ideas? 

Saint Patrick's Day Language Arts

Hi everyone! I just finished my second week of teaching Language Arts! I think it is going really well. I try to help the kids get into the books and really enjoy the lessons. Sometimes it works. My Skippyjon unit is still considered a big success, in their eyes! This week the kids went to the school library, and they all begged the librarian for Skippyjon books! The school library only had two, and Rosella and Kite were the ones to check them out. Kite was also heard asking the music teacher to buy her a Skippyjon book! LOL! I guess that just proves my theory that Skippyjon encourages kids to read! 


This week I did a Saint Patrick's Day unit, for obvious reasons. Here's what we did. 


Day 1... I read them St. Patrick's Day, by Gail Gibbons, and we made a KWL chart on it. The kids were very interested in the KWL chart. They came up with lots of contributions for the K and W sections. For the L section, after reading the story, I usually let them look through the book to help jog their memory. (On the chart, the clover and rainbow are disguising the name of the teacher's aide whose birthday is St. Patrick's Day!) You may notice that someone asked "Why is he green?" in the W section, referring to St. Patrick. Most of the kids had this misconception that St. Patrick is actually a leprechaun. I tried to explain to them that he was actually a person who lived long, long ago. I showed them the illustrations of St. Patrick, and talked about the parts that discussed his life, to make sure they understood. Then at the end, after we completed the chart, I went over what we had learned. I asked, "So, who was St. Patrick?" And about four kids chorused, "A leprechaun!" Sigh. At least I tried! 

Day 2...We read both Jack and the Leprechaun, by Ivan Robertson, and The Leprechaun's Big Pot Of Gold, by Patricia Reeder Pubank. The Leprechaun's Big Pot Of Gold is actually a board book. When I bought it I thought it might be too simple for the kids. However, there aren't that many St. Patrick's Day books in existence, and I needed enough for five days! So I bought this one. And actually, the kids liked it better than the other book! I think because the cover is shiny, and there are a cute dog and cat in the story. We did another Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two books. I want to do a Venn diagram every few weeks so that it sticks in their head!

Day 3... I read The Last Snake In Ireland, by Sheilla MacGill Callahan. Its basically a retelling of the legend of how Saint Patrick got rid of all the snakes... but there's a twist at the end!  Before reading it, I explained that a legend is a story that is about a real person, but the story itself has been passed down throughout the years and nobody knows for sure if it is true. I asked them again, "Was St. Patrick a real person?" and, thankfully, they replied, "Yes!" My plan was to read the story and then have them all tell whether they felt the story was true or made up, and give a reason. However, towards the end of the story, five of the eight kids got pulled out to go to Social Skills. (Social Skills wasn't scheduled for that time, but the social worker had some spare time and wanted to make up minutes the kids missed during ISAT week.) The kids that were left were Rosella, Starling, Triller and Jay. Rosella, Starling and Triller are the kids with the most cognitive impairments, and Jay has mild autism and was probably busy daydreaming about outers space when I read the story, so the activity sort of fell to pieces. I showed my power of flexibility and dismissed them to free time!

Day 4... We read St. Patrick's Day Alphabet, by Beverly Barras Vidrine. I had printed out a small picture to represent the word for each letter of the alphabet in the book. Each kid got three or four pictures to hang onto. I brought in a poster board. As I read about each letter, the kid holding the matching picture had to come and stick his picture onto the poster board. At the end, I gave them sheets of St. Patrick's Day stickers and let them decorate it. They loved this! The picture of the poster is at an odd angle, because the only place we could find to hang it was up above the bulletin board, and I had to look up with my camera! 

Day 5... We read The Night Before St. Patrick's Day, by Natasha Wing. We did a simple story map on it, which I didn't take a picture of because you probably know what a story map looks like. The kids were pretty good at identifying the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end. They also really liked the story, and Towhee even noticed it's similarity to The Night Before Christmas. After reading it, I made a pie chart with a "slice" for each person in the room. I asked each student if they thought leprechauns were real, or made up. For the students and teachers who thought leprechauns were real, I colored a slice green. For the students and teachers who thought leprechauns were made up, I colored a slice blue. Want to see the results?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone! Come back next Friday to hear about my Spring unit! 

My Skippyjon Jones Week!

Hi everyone! I told you I'd tell you more about my Skippyjon Jones language arts unit at the end of the week. It went really well! Personally, I think the Skippyjon Jones books can be a little hard to follow. For instance, I am still not really sure what was going on in Skippyjon Jones In The Dog House... a bobblehead was involved, and a very old chihuahua spitting beans out a window... hmm. But I do also think Skippyjon Jones is a very loveable character. And the kids love the rhythm of the stories. In each of the Skippyjon books there are parts where Skippyjon or his friends, the Chimichangos, burst into song. I always sang these parts, putting the words to simple tunes that I thought were kind of Mexican sounding. The kid loved this, and they'd all laugh in delight and try to sing along! They also loved that Spanish words were involved. Rosella and Kite both speak Spanish as their first language, so they were able to translate the Spanish words for the other kids... and many of the other kids just love hearing Spanish words even if they don't understand them. (They are constantly telling each other, "Sientate ahora!" and "Escuchando!" because they've heard one of the teacher's aides, who also speaks Spanish, saying these phrases to Rosella a hundred times.) By the end of the week, almost all of the kids were able to tell me that the Skippyjon Jones books are about a cat who thinks he's a chihuahua, who goes into his closet and has adventures, and who has chihuahua friends called the Chimichangos. The fact that they could tell me that shows comprehension skills that they don't very easily show!

Here are the language arts activities we did for the week. On Monday we did the context clues activity that I told you about the other day. Tuesday we used the reading comprehension spinners. Wednesday we made a character map describing Skippyjon Jones, which unfortunately one of the kids erased before I could take a picture. 


On Thursday I introduced them to Venn diagrams. We read Skippyjon Jones And The Big Bones, and then we compared and contrasted it with the book Skippyjon Jones In Mummy Trouble that we'd read the day before. I was kind of excited that almost every single kid... including Starling, the student who is the most severely cognitively impaired... was able to come up with either a similarity or a difference. 

Today, we read our final book, Skippyjon Jones Lost In Spice. This time we did a sequencing activity. I made eight sequencing cards. It was a little complicated. I picked eight important events in the book, scanned those entire pages, cropped them and shrunk them down to small pictures, typed a simple sentence underneath each picture, printed them, cut them out, glued them onto index cards, laminated them, and added Velcro circles. I numbered a poster board one through eight, and put the other sides of the Velcro circles under the numbers. After we read the book, each student had to come up, find the sequencing card that happened next in the story, and put it in the right spot on the board. When all eight cards were on the board, one of the students volunteered to "retell" the story in the correct order. Here's our "story board!"

As our final activity, the kids and teachers in the classroom voted on their favorite Skippyjon stories. I made a chart ahead of time, with a picture of each book. I gave everyone one of those little round price stickers, and they had to stick it next to their favorite book. It sort of made a bar graph! Then we figured out which book was the most popular book in the class. 

So that was my Skippyjon week! 
Afterwards, I set out all of the books on a table and told the kids they could read them during free time or Silent Reading. They were all so excited! They all wanted to flip through the books, look for the singing parts. Its kind of crazy when you have eight different kids begging you to read them five different books, all at once, during free time! I think that, for eight kids with special needs, whose abilities range from below preschool to about second grade level, to be excited about the same series of books, says a lot about that series!
So, thanks, Skippyjon! 

A Successful Observation!!!

Hi everyone! I told you earlier that I was planning a Skippyjon Jones week for my first week of teaching Language Arts. Little did I know that my professor, Professor A, would decide to schedule her first observation on my very first day of teaching something! I was so, so nervous... especially considering the fact that my last observation at the preschool didn't go so well.

I talked to Mrs. Eagle about how nervous I was, and about some of the things that Professor A criticized me about at my last observation. She suggested some ways that I could make sure to manage certain kids' troublesome behavior... :;cough cough Rosella cough cough:: and gave me some last minute hints. She also suggested that we would talk ahead of time about what the kids should do afterwards, so I could successfully transition them to their next activity at the end of the lesson. And finally, I decided to bring stickers. These kids are suckers for stickers!

Professor A showed up, and the kids greeted her exuberantly. There were only six kids, because Jay is still sick from when he went home early the day of our field trip, and Martin went home early today after ralphing in the garbage can in front of the whole class. (Of course the kids told Professor A that story right after they told her their names!)

I asked them all to go to the carpet for Language Arts. Rosella started acting up and refusing to sit down, but I took Mrs. Eagle's advice and started praising all the kids who were sitting down, and Rosella took her spot! I introduced Skippyjon Jones. I read it to the kids with as much feeling as I could muster. When I came to the Spanish words, I stopped and asked the Spanish speakers in the room (Rosella and Kite) what the words meant, and they were proud to translate.

My lesson plan was on using context clues. So I had used highlighter tape to mark some of the tougher words in the book, and I had made corresponding word cards. Throughout the book, when I got to a hard word, I would stop and ask the kids what it meant. I tried to model using context clues to figure out what a word meant. For instance I would say, "Skippyjon is wearing a mask because he wants to be incognito. What does that mean? If you're wearing a mask, do you want people to know who you are?"

After finishing the book, I had the kids take turns picking a word card. We would then find the word in the book, I would reread the passage, and they were supposed to figure out what the word meant. This was extremely hard for them, even though we had already talked about the meanings of every word. I had thought looking at the pictures might jog their memories. But it was very tough. For instance Oriole thought "enraged" meant "beans," just because he saw the word "beans" on the same page. I tried to give them multiple choices, such as, "If someone has stolen your beans, how do you feel? Glad, or angry?"

Finally, I transitioned them by showing them the mini-book they were supposed to make, giving them their stickers, and sending them to their desks.

By that time, my mind had gone blank! I was just surviving minute by minute! But Professor A was smiling as she asked me to go to the teacher's lounge with her.

There, she actually complimented me! She said that she loved my lesson plan. She said she loved the way I read the book, and that my love for the story really came through... that even Mrs. Eagle and the aides were leaning forward in their seats and listening to the story! She said, "You must have a really strong background in children's literature!" (Uh,,, I took the one children's literature class the university requires, just like everyone else... but thanks!) She said that I seemed very happy and that the children seemed happy too. She said, "I think you're really coming into your own here!"

This from the lady who, three weeks ago, said that my chances of ever getting a job interview were slim and that I might do better as an aide.

I'm reading all five of the picture book Skippyjon books this week. Next week I'm doing St. Patrick's books. The week after that I am doing books that were made into movies... I found out that Shrek, Night At The Museum, and Mars Needs Moms were all originally picture books, as well as the obligatory Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and Where The Wild Things Are. One thing I wanted to ask you guys is for language arts activities that can be done while kids are sitting down, like during a story time. We have comprehension spinners, which I've used a few times already. I've also planned in  two Venn Diagrams, a character mind map, a story map, some sequencing cards, a KWL chart, and a discussion on whether a legend about St. Patrick is true or false. Are there other activities you can do that don't involve worksheets? We don't have a smart board. I do have a small white board to use by the story area, and I can make some things as well. Any suggestions? I need to plan five more weeks of Language Arts activities!

I look forward to hearing from you! You all always have great ideas!

One Week Down, Nine To Go!

Hi everyone! Well, I made it through my whole first week at Tree Elementary School! I am enjoying it, but its not going quite as quickly as the days at the preschool did. Maybe I'm judging too quickly, since I've only been there four days... and maybe its just because I am more nervous now than I was at the preschool!
The teacher, Mrs. Eagle, is giving me responsibilities pretty slowly. So far I've been asked to take over the putting up of the daily schedule (which basically entails sticking pre-made cards up on the board in the correct order,) collecting the lunch money and sending a kid down to the office with it, and sometimes pulling down the screen for the morning announcement show. (They  have a little webcast type thing each morning.) I've also helped kids with their AR and other reading programs, helped kids with their math worksheets, and observed the teacher doing Running Records with kids. 
I am looking forward to two weeks from now, because that is when Mrs. Eagle says I can take over my first subject, Language Arts! The class does Language Arts in a very simple way. Basically, the teacher reads them a story, and then sometimes they do a little activity, such as answering comprehension questions. My responsibility will be to plan out which stories I want to read, and which activities I want to do along with them. The activities cannot be worksheets or projects anything like that, just a very informal activity. Actually, because of the way my school requires me to lesson plan, I think I am going to be giving them more challenge than they are used to. For the lesson plans we write, we have to include an objective that is connected to the state standards, and assessment. So I can't just say, "I'll read a story." I have to make it a little more meaty than that. It may be hard to balance what the kids are used to doing and capable of doing, with what I am expected to have them do. 
I have already planned out my first week of lesson plans! I cranked most of them out last night, and finished the final two today. I own all of the Skippyjon Jones books, so I decided to do a week of that. The five activities I've planned out involve answering reading comprehension questions, using context clues to figure out unfamiliar words, describing a character, comparing and contrasting two stories, and retelling a story using sequencing cards. We'll also talk about what a "series" is, and on the last day we'll make a bar graph of our favorite Skippyjon books. I hope it isn't too heavy of a week for the kids! I can't wait to tell you more about it  in a few weeks. I'll also post the lesson plans after the week is over, in case anyone wants to use them! 
The week after that, I'm going to do St. Patrick's Day books. I haven't cranked out those lesson plans just yet. And after that... who knows! Anyone have any great books you think kids would enjoy? Keep in mind, although they're in fourth and fifth grade, the highest readers are at a second grade level.I did ask Mrs. Eagle if any of the kids complain about having to hear "little kid" books at story time, but she says the kids seem to enjoy the picture books. So... anything goes, I guess!
Other than that, I don't have much news to tell you. Funniest moment of the week? For me it was when we were reading a book about Abraham Lincoln. One page showed a picture of the Lincoln Memorial, with a closeup of the statue of Abe Lincoln sitting in the chair. When Martin saw it, he asked in alarm, "Is Abraham Lincoln in there?" I had to quickly explain that the statue had been made by carving stone, and they hadn't simply poured concrete over Lincoln's body! 

Have a great weekend, everyone!