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!

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!