Rainy Day Poems

We’ve reached the end of our little units for March. Our poetry unit was great and lots of fun, but everyone felt it was time to put it to rest and move on. After reading tons of poetry, discussing the images we see in our heads, and the meanings behind the poems, I gave them two final pieces to consider before wrapping up the unit.

Remember those awesome rainy day paintings they did? They wrote their poems to respond to their art. We took a period to brainstorm and discuss what rain looks like, sounds like, and feels like. We even did a rain circle (where someone starts by snapping their fingers and steadily gets noisier, then quieter to resemble a rainstorm. I’m sure you’ve done it at some point in your childhood).

They then took all our ideas and wrote poems about a rainy day. I didn’t put too many parameters on it because I didn’t want to stifle any creativity. Here’s one that I just loved: 

Boomy boomy boom boom.

Rain, rain go away. Come again another day.

Wetty wetty wet wet.

Boom boom boom.

Muddy muddy mud mud.

Blue blue. Gray gray. Wet wet.

I’m so wet wet wet.

I love how this student included beat and repetition in the poem he created. I’m telling you, I have 18 wonderful little poets in my class.

For the final analysis piece, I gave them this poem:

The Ice Cream Store

By Dennis Lee

Oh, the kids around the block are like an

Ice cream store.

‘Cause there’s chocolate and vanilla,

And there’s maple and there’s more.

And there’s butterscotch and orange---

Yes, there’s flavours by the score;

And the kids around the block are like

An ice cream store!

We had a great discussion about how the poet isn’t talking about ice cream; he’s talking about diversity and how we are all different. It lead into a fantastic discussion.

I’m not going to tell you that we completely wrapped up our addition math unit. We are done with the restaurant piece, but on Monday we will be moving into subtraction and they will certainly have to continue adding if they want to subtract.

Side story: In my first year of university, I went to my first class called, “Math for Educators” and my professor said, “There is no such thing as subtraction!”

Talk about feeling mislead all your life! But he’s {sort of} right; subtraction is simply reversed addition. If you can add, you’ll never really need to subtract.

I’m hoping this is where I’ll get with my class. If they have strong addition skills {which they do}, then they should be able to solve many subtraction questions simply by adding up. It’s a tough concept for grade ones, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’m putting the final touches, bells, and whistles on my unit plans this weekend. I’m super excited to begin our science unit on structures and mechanisms. We have a lot of fun ideas in the works.

Happy Sunday!

Kid Snippets: Math Class

Just a funny little math video for you. My friend and colleague, Stacia showed this to us in a math release meeting we had this morning. Don’t tell me you haven’t had a moment similar to this at some point!

Notice Anything Different?

I got a blog makeover! Isn’t it sooo pretty?! I’m sending a big thank you to Beth over at The Cutest Blog on the Block Custom Designs. She was able to start right away, took my very non-specific design ideas and made something that is just perfect for me. She kept in regular contact with me, allowing me to approve designs and ideas before she installed everything. It’s the perfect blend of calm, yet fun colours, a bright appearance, and my love of ducks. Thanks so much, Beth!

Now, I need to apologize because I didn’t blog this past weekend. I was busy being lazy and helping my friend begin planning her wedding. But mostly being lazy. Good thing I already dedicated a post about St. Patrick’s Day (which was really the highlight of the week anyways).

But let me tell you about what we did on Friday. Our whole literacy unit this month is on poetry. The kids have read lots of poems and responded to them through art. On Friday, I had them begin the opposite task that they will be working on this week. I want them to respond to art with poetry. I had them create a rainy day picture and this week we will be writing rainy day poems to complement their pictures.

Don’t they look great? Click HERE for the inspiring idea I found on Pinterest.

On a glass half empty kind of note, I don’t have a lot of hope for the bean seeds we planted. My thumb is anything but green and I fear my kiddos’ plants are taking the brunt of it. If all fails, we will persevere and try again down the road.

I’m going to "oooo" and "ahhhh" over my new blog design for a little bit and then maybe do some marking. Maybe…

St. Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patty’s Day to ya! And welcome back from March Break! I have never felt so rejuvenated and ready to get back to school. March Break was spent exercising at the gym, getting back into healthy eating habits, going to an Arcade Fire concert, and getting ADDICTED to House of Cards. We actually spent 10 hours on Saturday watching episode after episode. We were hooked.

Anyways, back to school…

When I came back to the classroom this morning, a leprechaun had already been by! The desks were all turned so that the openings were closed in, he wrote all over our white board, rearranged our number line, and threw papers all over the floor! He continued this nonsense all day whenever the kids and I were out at recess or lunch. What a rascal!

You see, last year I took a trip to Ireland with some friends and I can’t be sure, but I suspect it snuck into my bag and came back to Canada. Havoc was wreaked last year after I got back, so I told the kids that the leprechaun probably hid out somewhere all year, just waiting to come back out on his special day.

Perhaps this is where I smuggled a leprechaun (accidentally)

This is what it must feel like to be a tiny little leprechaun

We decided to play along with the leprechaun and celebrate his special day. We wore lots of green, we read a funny poem, and did some Lucky Charms graphing.

When they weren’t working on math or literacy tasks, they were trying their darndest to catch the leprechaun with homemade traps.

I wanted to know what they felt lucky to have, so we wrote them down on foam shamrocks and made this cute little hallway display.

At the end of the day, while the kids were in library, our leprechaun left us a farewell note. Now we know for sure that he won’t likely return until St. Patrick’s Day 2015.

Now I really want to go back to Ireland…

TGIMB

Thank God It’s March Break!

I didn’t post last week (sorry) so I’ll catch you up on a few things. We started a new unit on poetry, where our big idea is: “What do the words make you see?”

(oops, my number line is a tad crooked)

We want the kids to be able to read a poem many different times for many different purposes, and respond to it through art. We are also placing a strong focus on rhyming words.

A fabulous Pinterest find for my writing centre

We started the unit with this fun poem:

The Monster

I thought I saw a monster

Underneath my bed---

His tongue was yellow

And his eyes were red.

I thought I saw a monster

Underneath my chair---

His face was purple

And he had pink hair.

I thought I saw a monster

In my room last night---

His legs were orange

And his feet were white.

I thought I saw a monster

And that he saw me---

But don’t tell my mother

She’ll be scared, you see.

It’s a great one to use for the visualization piece because it has so many adjectives. We actually deleted some words so that the students had to think of what word would rhyme and make sense. {And I'm sorry, I don't remember the source of this poem.}

We also looked at this poem:

Chilly

I’m ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chilly,

I’m c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-cold,

I’m s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-silly,

Should have worn my c-c-coat like I was told.

Now I’m s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sorry,

I th-th-th—think I’m going to freeze,

Let me in so I can warm up,

P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-PLEASE?

Now it’s s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-snowing,

And my b-b-b-body’s losing heat,

My poor nose is g-g-g-g-g-g-glowing,

And I’ve lost the f-f-feeling in my feet,

How my teeth are ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chattering

And I think I’m going to s-s-s-s-sneeze,

Let me in so I can warm up,

P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-PLEASE?          

-Kaye Umansky

    

This one was tons of fun because it becomes a whole new poem once you read it according to the interesting print. It also led us into another learning goal we want the kids to achieve in this unit: “use better words”.

We are starting this board in our room so the kids can refer to it to actually use these words in their own writing. They love increasing their vocabularies!             

For WEEKS the kids have been begging me to bring back Candy Land. If you don’t remember our Candy Land math unit, you can click HERE to give it a read. It was a great, really engaging math unit all about number patterns.

I also loved Candy Land, but I didn’t want to do the same thing again, so I introduced a restaurant. And they love it.

They need to refer to the menu in order to solve the math problem. The line at the bottom is for their number line, because right now we are learning how to add numbers using a number line.

As for science, here is a picture from last week when we did our food web activity.

During our Friday art period, we read Clever Tom and the Leprechaun and learned about how sneaky those leprechauns can be! Then we made mosaic rainbows because leprechauns hang out near rainbows, after all.

Sadly, only two kids finished because they were obsessed with the idea of a leprechaun and couldn’t stop talking about it!

After a productive math-based PA Day, the beginning of March Break begins! I’m looking forward to a week of sleeping in (which is like, 8:00), going to the gym, and visiting Toronto with Rob.

Have a wonderfully fun and relaxing March Break!

CURRENTLY March

Yay, it’s March! Spring is right around the corner…or at least it’s supposed to be. It still very much feels like winter and I’ve had enough of it! So to help get me into the spring mood, allow me to welcome in March with Oh Boy Fourth Grade’s currently. 

Listening: As usual, Rob is playing video games. This time it’s Toy Story. He bought it so that I would (hopefully) play with him. And I did. Once. But I didn’t like it. He was so bummed. Now he plays it by himself. I’m convinced he does it to persuade me to try again.

Loving: I’m feeling very motivated lately. I used to go to a gym around the corner from where I work and I was an avid attendee. Then I got really bad at going and ended up quitting altogether. Today I went to the gym where Rob and a friend of mine go and I signed up for a membership. It’s a much nicer gym and hopefully the company of these two will keep me coming back as often as I used to go to my old gym last year.

Thinking: I forgot to upload all of my camera pics from the week onto my computer. AND I forgot to bring my camera home. So no weekly classroom update from me this weekend. There wasn’t a whole lot to discuss anyways, but there were still a few pictures to show. I hope my friend, Tara can forgive me. She’s a loyal reader.

Wanting: March Break! Who doesn’t love a week off? We have some fun plans in the works.

Needing: March Break! (I think you get my point)

???????: This month the readers have to guess what the topic is. Can you guess what I’m talking about with the three clues I’ve left for you? I expect a lot of family and friends will get it…