Egg Lessons

Hi everyone! The good news is, I finally graduated on Friday! I am officially done with school, and will receive my certification over the summer! The bad news is, of course, that I really miss my class at Tree Elementary!


Even though I'm done student teaching, I have to catch up on posting the things I did in the last few weeks. So today, I thought I'd share some of the things I did during our Egg Unit! 


The unit was actually kind of scrawny, because by the time it started, we had so many other things going on. One week was only a three day week because of conferences, and the next week we had two field trips! However, here is what we did manage to do. 


On the first day we did something the kids really enjoyed, although I don't have pictures of it. I dissected a raw egg! I didn't let them do it themselves because this particular group has a lot of kids who stick everything in their mouths, and I didn't want them getting salmonella. But they did watch very closely, and they liked it a lot! 


First, showed them an egg, and we talked about the differences between the eggs in our incubator, and the eggs in the grocery store. A lot of the kids thought that the eggs in our incubator came straight from the grocery store, and that if they ate eggs they were eating baby chicks. I explained that the grocery store eggs are just "practice eggs" that were never fertilized and do not have chicks in them. 


Next, I asked them what they thought would happen if I squeezed the egg as hard as I could. They thought it would break, of course! So I took the egg and squeezed it (over a bowl, just in case) with all my strength! It didn't break! You can try that at home if you don't believe me. The shape of the egg makes it really strong, so that they don't break under the pressure of the hen sitting on them. 


Next, I took out a safety pin and chipped off some of the egg shell, so that they could see the membrane inside. They were very interested, because they never knew that an egg had this part. I explained that this membrane protected the baby chick from germs. After that, I actually broke the egg open into the bowl, so that we could talk about the parts. I peeled the membrane away from the inside of the shell so they could see it even better. We talked about how the egg white is actually called the "albumen" and that it acts as a cushion for the yolk. The yolk provides nutrition and water to the chick. We talked about how the chick doesn't have a little fork in there to eat the egg with, but the nutrition is absorbed through his skin. I showed them the little spot where the chick would be, if the egg was fertilized.  


I had an extra egg with me (just in case I messed up the first one) and, at the kids' request, I broke that egg for them to examine as well. They really loved the lesson... I heard lots of "Wow!" and "Whoa!" and "Cool!" The best part was, my professor was there observing that lesson, so it looked really good that the kids were that into it! Afterwards we did a little art project where they colored, cut, and pasted the layers of the egg on top of each other, so they had their own little egg diagrams. 


Okay. So that was kind of the introduction to the lesson. Another thing we did was play the game, "Chicken, Chicken, Where's Your Egg?" This game is played exactly like the old "Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Bone" game that many of us played in elementary school. One person goes out into the hallway, while the rest of the group gets into a circle and chooses one person to hide the egg. (We used a plastic Easter egg!) Then the person in the hallway comes in and stands in the middle of the circle. The traditional poem goes, "Doggie, doggie, where's your bone? Somebody stole it from your home! Guess who? Maybe you! Maybe the monkeys in the zoo!" For the purpose of our Egg game, I changed the words to "Chicken, chicken, where's your egg? Somebody stole it from your nest!" I just stuck with those two lines, so it would be easier for the kids, many of whom have speech delays and short term memory issues, to say. (I also made a poster with the words, along with little pictures, to help them remember the lines. The person in the middle, aka the chicken, has to guess who is holding the egg. Traditionally, the person gets three guesses before they have to give up and be "out" or start over. But for our group, they had unlimited guesses. Otherwise probably nobody would have ever guessed correctly. We played until every kid had a chance to be the chicken and the hider. For the final turn, Mrs. Eagle got to be the chicken! The students loved it! When it was their turn to be the chicken, they would flap their arms and make clucking noises! It was a nice exercise on working together and problem solving. 


For the sake of not making this blog entry five hundred pages long, I'll cut this short for now, and continue the egg unit description later. Thanks for reading! 

My Easter Themed Week

Hi everyone! I'm back to report on my Easter-themed week! I already wrote about my Bunny Writing Prompt a few days ago. And now for the rest of the week!


On Monday, for Language Arts, I read the book Quiet Bunny, by Lisa McLure. We read Quiet Bunny's Many Colors during Spring week, so the kids remembered the character. This time, I created stick puppets for most of the characters in the book. Each kid had a puppet to be in charge of. When their character came up in the book, the kid had to make the correct animal noise. At the end, when all the animals make their noises together, all of the kids had to join in with their animal noises!

On Tuesday, we read The Easter Cub, by Justine Korman Fontes. We played the 5 W's game. All I did was take a poster board and divide it into 5 categories... who, what, when, where and why. I wrote questions about the story on the sticky side of Post-it Notes, and then stuck them to the poster board in the right categories. The kids couldn't see the questions. They had to pick a category, and I'd read them a question from that category. Basically, its just a more novel way to do comprehension questions on a book. 

That same day, we did the Bunny Glyph I made last week. The kids who have more difficulties had to get very close, step-by-step assistance from teachers or aides, but all in all it worked out as a great following directions activity! It was a good exercise for the kids because they had to listen, make a connection between the choices I gave and which one applied to them, follow the direction that went with that choice, and then stop and wait for the next direction. I actually took pictures of the completed glyphs so you can see how they turned out! Starling, of course, got a little out of control with hers! If you want the code to decipher their pictures, here it is:

GLYPH CODE

I colored this bunny in a special way, so you can learn all about me.

If his EARS are BROWN, I am 9 years old.

If his EARS are GRAY, I am 10 years old.

If his EARS are WHITE, I am 11 years old.

His EYES are the same color as MY EYES!

If his NOSE is RED, I like CHOCOLATE CANDY.

If his NOSE is PINK, I like FRUITY CANDY.

If his NOSE is PURPLE, I like CHEWIGN GUM.

His FACE is the color of my HAIR.

If his BOWTIE is BLUE, I like READING best.

If his BOWTIE is RED, I like MATH best.

If his BOWTIE is PURPLE, I like SCIENCE best.

If his BELLY is PINK, I have BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

If his BELLY is WHITE, I’m the only child.

If his FEET are YELLOW, I like GYM CLASS best.

If his FEET are GRAY, I like MUSIC CLASS best.

If his FEET are BROWN, I like ART CLASS best.

If the REST OF HIS FUR is BROWN, I like playing outside.

If the REST OF HIS FUR is YELLOW, I like video games.

The FLOWERS are MY FAVORITE COLOR.

Now you know all about me!

On Wednesday, we read a very funny book called Here Comes the Big, Mean Dust Bunny, by Jan Thomas. The story is about some dust bunnies who love to rhyme, all the time. So we brainstormed a whole bunch of rhyming words! 

That day we also played an Easter memory game. A lot of people may have heard this idea. I bought lots of Easter erasers and Fun Foam sticker shapes from Dollar Tree. I put an eraser or sticker in each egg, making sure that I put two of each item in both sets of the game. The kids played it just like regular Memory, but instead of turning over cards, they had to open plastic eggs and see what was inside. Each set had about 26 eggs. The more higher-functioning group (Kite, Towhee, Martin and Oriole) loved this game, did very well with it, and played it twice in a row. Meanwhile, the lower group (Rosella, Starling, Triller, and to some extent Jay) played one game for the whole time, with two adults assisting them, and never got a single match. By the end, we were really coaching them, saying things like, "Remember, the BUTTERFLY is in the DARK BLUE EGG! If you get another BUTTERFLY, choose the DARK BLUE EGG!" And at some point I just started rolling the correct egg towards kids and hoping they picked it up. I wanted everyone to get at least one match before we went home! The lesson I learned? Next time, give the first group the large set of eggs, and make a very small set with about twelve eggs. for the Rosella-Starling-Triller-and-kind-of-Jay group. 

On Thursday, we read the book The Night Before Easter, by Natasha Wing. For this one I used an idea given to me by someone from this blog (I cannot find the comment anywhere right now, but I remember it well.) I told the kids that there were three ways to read a book. (The commenter actually told me about four, but the kids don't really write during Language Arts... thats more of a Unit thing.) First we did a picture walk through the book. (Even though I hate the phrase "picture walk." I have no idea why but it gives me the heeby jeebies! It may be the Asperger's coming out in me... when I first heard the word "picture walk" I imagined a teacher taking a group of children on a cool walk through lots of giant pictures. When I found out it just meant looking at the pictures of the books, I felt sort of nauseous. Ever since then, I've felt sort of sick whenever anyone said "picture walk." I'd rather say, "Look at the pictures." But I digress...)

 The second way to read the book is just the normal way, for me to read it to them. And finally, the third way, was for them to retell the story to me. Whenever we retell a story, it is really just Kite who retells the whole thing. For the other kids it seems nearly impossible! So I've been trying to get them to practice it often. 

Today we also painted eggs. The kids had been asking to paint eggs, but Mrs. Eagle thought it would be difficult to bring hard boiled eggs into the classroom and then have them transport them home. Three quarters of them would probably forget to take the eggs out of their backpacks for several weeks, and they'd start to rot in there! So I found some Styrofoam eggs at Hobby Lobby, and I brought them in with some paint brushes and neon poster paints. I stabbed each egg with a toothpick and then stabbed the other end of the toothpick into the bottom of a small paper cup, to make a little egg stand. This way the kids could paint all of the sides of the eggs, plus the top and bottom, without trying to turn them around in their hands or having them roll all over their desks. The eggs turned out rather lovely, if I do say so myself!

After that, the kids got to do an egg hunt, which Mrs. Eagle plans every year. They do it in a kind of unusual way... One student goes into the hallway, while another student hides five eggs. Then, when the hallway student returns, he hunts for the eggs while the others give them hot-or-cold hints. Its kind of a problem solving and team building exercise, as well as a fun party game! 

So that ends my Easter week. I had a blast planning and carrying out this week's unit! Next week is my plant unit, and then we start eggs and chicks. 

In an interesting side note... Yesterday I logged onto Blogger and saw that I had gotten 75 views on my Monkey In My Chair post! I was kind of excited, thinking so many people had been interested in the organization. But when I checked my stats, I saw that 65 of those views had come over from a large anti-Obama website! (In case some people reading are not bloggers,this wouldn'tmean that people did a Google search for something and came up with my blog. There would have had to be a link to my blog somewhere on the anti-Obama site, so viewers could come straight here from there.)  I cannot figure out why... I went to the site to see if somehow my post had ended up in some sort of news feed. I couldn't see it anywhere. So, where did all of these anti-Obama readers come from? I guess I'll never know. 

I hope you all have a nice weekend, and a nice Easter if you celebrate it! Thanks for reading! 

A Fun Team Building, Brain Bending Game!

Hi bloggy buddies! Last night was my second night of volunteering with the mentoring program. As I mentioned before, I've been matched with an alarmingly hyperactive ten-year-old named Sadie. The whole thing is somewhat awkward because there are only about six children, and six adults, in the program, plus the two leaders. So generally the other five children and their mentors are working quietly and happily on some sort of project or game, while Sadie shrieks at the top of her lungs and zips around the room like a stray bullet! I haven't managed to make much of a connection with her, mostly because it is hard to converse with someone when you are chasing them down a hallway and trying to wrangle a permanent marker out of their hand! LOL!


At any rate, the activity we did last night was a lot of fun, and it even kept Sadie somewhat engaged about seventy-five percent of the time. I thought I'd share it with you, because some of you may be able to use it with your classes or even with your own families! We played with 10 to 13 year olds, but it can probably be played by any kids who can read and spell  somewhat fluently, at least well enough to spell three letter words!


Divide everyone into small groups. We had three in a group but you could make larger groups of four or five if you want! Each group gets a few sheets of  paper, and each group member gets an index card. You'll also need a timer. Plus, if you include the bonus round, you'll need a few extra items. (See Step 5.) Now here's how you play. 


1. Each group member writes on his own card two vowels and eight consonants. Don't show the other members of your group what you're writing, yet!


2. All of the groups now have a specific amount of time (five minutes, ten minutes, whatever...) to make as many words as they can from the letters on each index card. You don't put the index cards together to use all the letters... you just see how many words you can make from one, and then the next, and then the last. For instance if my index card said a, e, g, f, b, t, l , s, my team could write down flag, tag, gas, last, and so on. Write all of the words down on a sheet of paper. It doesn't matter how long or short they are, as long as they are real words. When the timer goes off, pens and pencils go down!


3. The groups have to count how many words they have written down. The teacher or whoever is running the game might want to go around and scan the lists to make sure all of the words are valid and that there are no duplicates! The teacher should write down the number of words each team got. 


4. Now, each group switches index cards with another group! The same process begins again, but this time, each word is worth two points! When the timer goes off, the teacher should write down the total each group has and add it to each group's previous total.


5. Here comes the bonus round! You'll need to have blown up a bunch of balloons... maybe about twenty. Each balloon should have a slip of paper inserted inside it. (Do that part before you blow it up, obviously!) Half of the slips of paper should have two random vowels and eight random consonants on them. The rest of the slips of paper should be blank.


6. The teacher or organizer presents the following information to the teams. They now have a big decision to make. Each group can opt to either take a balloon or not take one. If they choose to take one, and it has a slip of paper with letters on it, they can participate in the bonus round, earning two points for every word they make from those letters. But if the balloon has a blank slip of paper in it, that team loses twenty points. The members of each group will have a minute to discuss this and decide what they want to do. If they choose to take a balloon, they can send one member of the group up to get one.


7. Begin the bonus round for any teams that are going to participate. 


8. After the timer goes off, the teams that participated can add their newest totals to their scores. The teacher or organizer can now declare which team is the winner!


9. You can also have a class discussion afterwards, about how each person feels they contributed, what were the hard and easy parts, how they decided whether to take a balloon for the bonus round, etc. 


Its a fun game, and its a lot more exciting than it may sound! I hope some of you get the chance to try it out!


And now, for a funny story from student teaching. 
Kiwi and Teal, two little girls in the at-risk class, both speak English and Polish fluently. They've become great friends and play together every day. Today, the two little girls were speaking to each other (in English) as they colored. The kids who are English Language Learners are encouraged to practice speaking in both English and their first languages, so the teacher, Mrs. Wing, casually suggested that the girls might like to speak to each other in Polish. Kiwi looked horrified and said,. "Noooo!" 
"Maybe you could teach me some Polish," Mrs. Wing said.
Again, Kiwi said, "Noooo!"
"Why not?" asked Mrs. Wing.
Kiwi retorted, "I'm not your mother!" 


Thats it for today, everyone! Thanks for reading!