Wintry Wonder and a Celebrity Visit!

What a blast! While we didn't get to do everything I'd wanted to, we did get a lot done.

First, we read the book and discussed its illustrations and content.

After lunch, I broke the news to them that someone had mixed up all of the events from the story, and that I needed their help to get them back into the right places.

I was surprised at what the kids seemed to enjoy the most. I suppose my surprise was based on the fact that I hadn't originally planned on including it in the lesson. It was a "Then What?" creative activity that chronicled the activities of Peter, the main character of Ezra Jack Keat's The Snowy Day, after his friend in the book had to go home. While they were at activity and lunch, I took some photos of Peter all around the school. When they came back, I uploaded them to my teacher's laptop and created a PowerPoint in about 3 minutes while she transitioned the students from lunch. The result was lots of screaming and smiles. During the time I was presenting, kids kept leaping up from the carpet, running towards the door and peeking through the window to catch a glimpse of the approaching hero.

I had no idea that they would react this way. Something that I had considered menial seemed like the icing on the cake to them...except, that is, for th real icing. When I placed a light package of sugar cookies on the Docu-cam, it was as if I'd ripped open an industrial sized package of delight. By the end of our lesson, they'd all gotten to make their very own snowman face cookie, using white icing for snow, candy corns for noses, and mini M&Ms for eyes and mouths. In order to accommodate a love for candy corns, one student expressed, "You can have two noses!" Others followed suit, and one student presented to me a snowman with noses all around the perimeter of his face.

In all, this was a priceless experience. Seeing them enjoy this activity was worth any preparations and time I spent in creating it for them.

Tomorrow's Forecast for Florida...Snow!

Tomorrow is Read for the Record, a national event that tries to break world records for the most people reading the same book at the same time every year. This program is lead by Jumpstart, an organization devoted to tackling the literacy crisis affecting our nation. This year's book is Ezra Jack Keat's The Snowy Day. This beloved children's classic shows the fun of enjoying a winter's day of snow and ice. The main character is

Anyway, I'm SO excited about tomorrows lesson...I'm leading it! I've got SOOOO many ideas. But I realize that I have to remember time constraints. Still, I have to overplan rather than not have enough planned for the kids. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they experience snow, some of them for the very first time!

Here's a quick list of some of the activities I've got in store for the day:

Reading - The book of the hour, The Snowy Day

Life and Social Skills - Dressing for the Weather (PDF file)

Math - Temperature; Snowflake patterns

Critical Thinking - ... I've got something for this, but I've forgotten exactly what it is!

Science - Snow Experience (PDF File)

Social Studies - Where does it snow?

Music and Creative Expression - Snowy Scene Collage (PDF File); Snowflake Picture

Wellness - Snow snack

I've got some more about the experience on my site.

Anyway, I'm off to dream of snowflakes and ice to rest up and prepare early for the day's activities. How fun!?!

Luck and Lepechauns

At work, the first graders spent much of their day engaged in a leprechaun hunt. Little green footprints trailed from the fish pond garden up to one of the 1st grade classroom doors and out through another. Happy, excited pairs of shamrock-hatted little people roamed throughout the school in search of clues that the leprechaun had left. The were able to use critical thinking skills to help them solve the simple riddle in each clue. At the end of the day, there was a fat pot of gold unearthed from the sand of the playground, its yawning mouth overflowing with shiny gold coins.

Activities like this help kids learn in a way that is meaningful to them. When a learning experience is meaningful, it is memorable, and can lead to higher level thinking. This is the goal of education: not simply to produce people who can score well on tests, but people who think and use this ability to solve problems. Only when we efficiently prepare students for life in the world are we truly achieving what it is we set out to do at the beginning of each new school year.