The Sneetches

Just a quick little post for a quick little cross-curricular activity we did today. We finished up our unit on Black History Month last week, so I was looking for a way to briefly review the key ideas from this unit. Furthermore, we have been focusing a great deal on making deep connections, and I love to tie in this reading strategy whenever I can. AND....March is the month of "Seuss" therefore, I had to make sure he was involved as well. And where did this all lead me....to "The Sneetches"

This book helped me create a short, 20 minute lesson, that incorporated all three of these things!

First, we read. I asked the students to share any connections they were able to make with the class orally while I read aloud! I can tell you that within seconds they were all connecting it back to what had taken place in the all the biographies we had read during our Black History Month study.

After reading, the students had to decide upon one of their deep connections to write down and reflect on how it helped them to better understand the story. Here are some examples (one connected it to Martin Luther King Jr., one did her own thing!:

You can download the connection sheet I created here for free!

(Border is by Scrappin Doodles :))

To finish up the lesson, I created a poster with the heading "How to (NOT) be like the Sneetches". We briefly brainstormed different things we could do to be the opposite of the Sneetches. For example, talk to someone/play with someone new, go out of our way to help someone, make sure we include people in the games we play etc. I told the kids that throughout the week I would like them to try to do some of these things. After they do, they can come to the classroom and share what they did to be "NOT" like the Sneetches on a small post it note and attach their post-it to the poster. At the end of the week, we will read and reflect on what we have done/written. I'll try to remember to post a picture of our completed poster at the end of the week for you guys, so you can see how it turned out!

Happy Monday! Whoo!

Making "deep" connections

Happy President's Day!

We actually had the day off, and I say that lightly, because I ended up spending the whole day working in my classroom anyway. Ahh..the joys of teacherhood.

I finally had the chance to go through and take a few pictures of some of the activities my students did this week focused on the reading strategy - "making connections".

To preface these ideas, it would be beneficial for all of you to know the anchor lesson that lead into them. This was another great lesson I picked up in my district class based on Tanny McGregor's, "Comprehension Connections". All you need is a glass of water and a golf ball that sinks, and one that floats (use a kids play set one or even a ping pong ball). Share with the students as you place the first ball that floats into the water that some connections are "surface" connections. This type of connection does not help us to better understand the story and sits on the surface of the text. Then, put in the real golf ball, and relay to them that this ball represents "deep" connections. These are the type we want to make as they help us to connect to the story and the author's message to better our understanding of it.

This week we focused on deciphering between the two. Here are two quick activities we did in order to practice this:

1. We read the story of Ruby Bridges to tie in to our Black History unit. I gave each of the students two post-its and told them to label one CP (Conexión profunda/Deep Connection) and one CS (Conexión superficial/Surface Connection). They had to write down an example of each as I read the story. After reading, they stuck them to this activity sheet and then had to reflect upon why the deep connection helped them to better understand the story, and why the surface one did not.

 

Click here to download this activity in English/Spanish.

2. On Friday, I gave each of the students a pair of the cards below (one "superficial/surface", one "profunda/deep"). As I read a story, I shared my connections and they held up the card reflecting type of connection they believed I was sharing. They did a really great job with this, and it was a wonderful quick assessment too to see who was getting it!

Click here to download the cards (available in English and Spanish).

Before I sign off I also want to give a quick shout out to Candis over at iteachduallanguage. She is having a giveaway which some of you dual/bilingual folk may be interested in, in which you can win a copy of the item below: 

Looks like a great resource, so be sure to check it out!

Tomorrow is Mardis Gras, and it is my 26th birthday! So be sure to check out my post as I will have pictures from the day as well as even may attempt to try out this linky party deal to celebrate!