Higher Level Gratitude

And November is here! Somehow this school year is going by fast and also taking forever. :) 

I know we are tempted to ask students to write about what they are thankful for this month. Here are some ideas on how to step that up a notch.

Instead of just: what are you thankful for.....:

* What are you thankful for that you cannot see?

* what are you thankful for that does not cost any money?

*Multiple perspectives--what would a dog, shark, dinosaur, teacher, etc. be thankful for?

*What would this character from a story be thankful for?

*Why should we be thankful?

Here are my students responses to: what are you thankful for that does not cost money?

Mom and Thomas the Train :)

Eric Carle-Very Busy Author

Eric Carle is one of my all time favorite authors. The Very Lonely Firefly and the Very Quiet Cricket have surprise endings that make my students gasp and want to read and reread those stories. We read those and the Very Busy Spider, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Then I ask students to change the details and come up with their own The Very (adjective) (creature). I love doing activities like this because you get to see the lessons in creativity paying off. :)

Where the Wild Things Are-Details

One of my favorite stories to read this time of year is Where the Wild Things Are. 

We read the story and discuss what makes the Wild Things (and Max) "Wild". I asked the students to change that adjective and describe what other details would change. Instead of roaring their roars and rolling their eyes-if the title was Where the Pretty Things Are-what would the monsters be like?

Stretching Thinking for the 3 Little Pigs

We read several versions of the 3 Little Pigs including:

We compared them to the original and discuss how the patterns in the stories were the same and that allowed us to predict what would happen next.

Then I asked the students to write their own "3 Little" stories. These were my favorites:

The 3 Little Kids and the Big Bad Dad

3 Little Princesses and the Big Bad Witch

3 Little Toys and the Big Bad Baby

And someone is ready for Halloween. :) The 3 Little Pumpkins and the Big Bad Skeleton.

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Character Study-The Pigeon

The Pigeon books by Mo Willems are such classics! They are a great way to teach how to read by the punctuation and there are many ways the author uses emphasis-with capital letters and underlined words. And the kids LOVE the jump scare that inevitably happens when the Pigeon yells. :) 

So we read the books for a week. We talked about Rules (from Depth and Complexity)--what is always true about the character of the Pigeon? We did Venn diagrams to discuss similarities and differences and a chart to map out the patterns in the stories.

We made bubble maps to describe him and asked if he was the type of character that we would like to be friends with.

Then I asked students to create their own version of a Pigeon story. What I love about what they came up with is they were all different! We have been working on thinking creatively and I think those lessons are working.

Here is what they came up with:

Pigeon Wants A Motorcycle

My favorite-I would LOVE to read this book. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where they had to come up with an idea for a pilot and went with the butler. :)

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Airplane

Self-Portrait Unit

I like to do self-portraits particularly when we are having Open House-always a crowd-pleaser for parents. :) It amazes me how the kids really don't think about what color their hair or eyes are so I have little mirrors they can use. We talk about taking up the whole paper otherwise they just draw a small circle in the corner.

I teach the students what the term is. And then we create self portraits in different mediums.

We make a self portrait using natiure.

And their favorite version-Snack Self-Portraits