Titanic Week!

I’ve blogged about this before, so excuse the repetition...but I love the Titanic. My mom took me to see the movie when I was 7 (I don’t think she anticipated the graphic scenes) and I fell in love with the movie, the history of the ship, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

I’ve always found the whole story to be so interesting. It was a time when there was a major shift in the industrial world and people truly thought that the advancements in their modern technology basically made them invincible to the natural world. The steel and iron built “unsinkable” Titanic would prove to the world that this is in fact, very untrue.

To activate prior knowledge, I asked the students if they have ever heard of or knew anything about Titanic. I was shocked that a few of them could speak about the movie, but hey-I guess I was only in Grade Two when I saw it for the first time. Who am I to judge?

To get them all pumped up, I made them all boarding passes with a fun, made up biography of their character. To protect their names, I’ll show you my boarding pass.

I was adventurous with the biographies. Some of them were elderly women married to rich men, some of them were third class men who helped build the Titanic, and some were children travelling the world with their families. The funniest among the Grade One audience was the girl who was engaged to be married! Oooooooo!

Our boarding passes served as our shared reading for the week as we worked on comprehension skills. 

"Do you understand the information on your ticket?"  

"If I ask you a question about your character, will you be able to find the information and answer accurately?" 

It was tons of fun.

But don’t worry, there were other curriculum connections as well. As you know, we are learning about structures and materials in science, so we talked about the pros and cons of different materials, specifically iron and steel.

I asked them if they thought Titanic was a good structure. Thank goodness there was a unanimous “NO!”

I asked them how the Titanic could have been built better, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I have a few future shipbuilders/architects in my class. One kid suggested that he would have used the same materials, but have multiple wall layers so that even if it did crash into an iceberg, only the outer wall would be damaged. That’s a genius idea! {At least I think so. Professionals may know a little more about that…}

In our literacy program, we have been learning about heroes, so we learned all about Margaret Brown. She’s most commonly known as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”. We learned how this first class woman helped to provide food, water, clean clothes, blankets, and hot beverages to the Titanic survivors.

Descriptive Feedback

I used this piece of writing as my mid-point, formal descriptive feedback. When the kids were finished, I put a sticky note on each of their pages with my feedback. In Grade One, I keep it simple. I may just write, “Capitals”; or I may write, “word mat”. Whatever it is they need to improve on, I let them know on a sticky note. They. Love. It.

Then I sent a more formal form of feedback to parents so they know exactly how their children are doing.

Let’s not forget, Easter is in just a few days, so we had some Easter fun at the end of the week. We made adorable magnetic picture frames to put on the fridge at home. I took their pictures, had them developed, and stuck them in the frames before I sent them home.

And of course I had to spoil them rotten before I said goodbye for four days.

As I asked them about their Easter weekend plans, one girl shared her agenda:

Girl: I’m going to Disney World and then we’re going to Miami.

Me: WHAT?! Can I come? Can you squeeze me in your suitcase?

Girl: Sorry. I think I just need some alone time with my mom and dad.

Fair enough…

Happy Easter!