Learning about software
In first and 2nd grade, the students are learning to identify educational software and educational computer games. We are expanding from Jumpstart 1st Grade to several other Knowledge Adventure games, including MathBlaster and Reading Blaster.
Mr. Boyd
Valentine Ode
For Valentine’s Day, the students tried their writing skills on a free-verse ode to something they love. An ode is a lofty poem to a person or thing. Most students chose their pillow pet; a few their games, computers, or bicycles; some opted for their mom, an aunt, teachers or school, and one, the rain! They had fun writing. If you come by our classroom, the poems are all tacked up on our bulletin board for you to enjoy.
On top of that bulletin board is a verse from Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The students discussed what this verse meant to them and wrote a note in response on a piece of heart-shaped paper. These notes are now the borders of the bulletin board.
When you look at our bulletin board, it is very telling. Yes, the things and people we love take center stage of our lives and God is on the periphery. The third graders were challenged to make it their goal by the end of this school year to reverse this – making God the center of their lives!!!! Let’s keep them in our prayers as they seek to put God first.
Fun with Legos
Writing?! Five sentences?! THREE PARAGRAPHS?!?! That’s the reaction you get when you want the third graders to write (well for most of them). Forget about telling them to add more details or rewrite a sentence or, horrors of horrors, calling their finished work a draft!
Last week, as a fun idea, I brought Legos into the classroom to illustrate the writing process. The students were randomly put into five teams. Each team was given the same number of Lego bricks (15-2×4’s, 9-2×2’s, 8-1×4’s, and 2-1×8’s). They had 5 minutes to create something out of them. Teamwork was crucial too. As a matter of fact, one team couldn’t pull themselves together and had nothing to show when the time was up. Thus only four teams presented their creations and we voted for the best one.
Then the teams were given unlimited amount of Lego pieces, which included people, windows, doors, flowers, trees, wheels and more. Again they were given 5 minutes to come up with an award winning creation. This time the dysfunctional team pulled themselves together and created something. Each team presented their creation and they told why the second one is superior to the first. The students used terms like better, awesome, hotter, more details, clever, cooler details, bigger, and has an environment. The last one I wasn’t sure of at first, but after questioning the team, I suddenly realized they meant setting!!
Afterward we spent a few minutes relating their Lego creations to writing. How, when we use a limited vocabulary, our writing is boring, which was the exact word they used in describing their first creations. In order to make our writing better, cooler, hotter, we have to include details, adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases and, of course, a setting. Sometimes we have writer’s block, like the team that couldn’t work together, but we should not let that deter us from writing. We need to push forward and do it. The next day, a student brought in his war cycle from home that he had built with Legos. He told me that he had to make six drafts (that was his exact word) before he settled on this final design. I loved it and told him to write down the drafting process to create this war cycle.
In the upcoming days, the third graders will be collecting Lego Blocks of Words. For now, there will be two strips of paper on the classroom wall – one titled Lego Blocks – Grownups and another Lego Blocks – Children. Underneath you will find all kinds of adjectives for that category. If you have a Lego block for these categories, let us know. We will add them to our collection. You never know, your block might appear in one of the student’s writing.
Mrs. Work
Analogies
Our Valentines analogies were both fun and great practice for critical thinking skills. For example, butterfly: wings as flower: petal or romance is to love as camaraderie is to friendship. Now it’s your turn. You decide which of the four (4) choices fits best. bracelet: jeweler as bouquet: (a) florist (b) arborist (c) flowers (d) herbalist. We also had a bulletin board display for Black History Month.
Ms. Hampton
Bulletin Boards
Students in the Resource Room have been asked to consider varied topics that relate to both their academic and spiritual growth. The Weekly Food for Thought Quotations and Daily Scripture are designed to strengthen students spiritually. Some quotes: It is better to be prepared when an opportunity presents itself than to have an opportunity and not be prepared. or When you feel least secure, God can be your Rock or Fortress.
For a special bulletin board project, the students were asked to consider gifts that God had given them and how they would use those gifts to bless someone else. They wrote their responses on colorful three dimensional Stars which were displayed on the bulletin board. We continue our positive word alliterations using the days of the week and the students have been very creative – Let’s make this a Magnificent, Marvelous, Magical Monday or Let’s make this a Terrific, Thankful, Thoughtful Tuesday, or Let’s make this a Fantastic, Fun, Fabulous, Five Star Friday!
Ms. Hampton