Using Redwood Trees as a Teaching Tool – Part 2: Fact Finding

After our success with redwood needle estimation earlier in the week, I was excited for students to read redwood books and establish their own knowledge about these awesome trees.

I remembered a projected I did during my student teaching placement in 1st grade where the students made a flip book with facts on the inside about trees. To scale the project for 2nd grade I decided that students would be in charge of finding their own facts about the three main parts of the tree: roots, trunk/bark and branches or needles.

Over the course of the week the students read through any of the 12 books on redwoods and recorded nonfiction text features and facts during Universal Access time on this great “Non-Fiction Text Features” form I found on Pinterest. I provided a couple good elementary level books like this one in addition to adult texts like this one.

After they read over redwood books for a few days we reread the Scholastic News issue and recorded facts using complete sentences, quotation marks and page numbers with parenthesis on a separate piece of paper.

 

Next, I gave each students their 12 X 18 paper to draw their redwoods and choose a fact specific to each part of the tree that we was recorded from the Scholastic News. The paper was divided into thirds to guide proportional drawing and three even sections for writing facts. This project was difficult for all of the students to determine how to find facts and adhere to correct formatting. As a bonus, this project lent itself well to adaptations for high students where I required them to find six (instead of 3) facts from different texts beyond the Scholastic News.

Because of the depth of this unit the students came away with a strong understanding (and hopefully budding passion) of redwood trees. Additionally, both of these lessons fit well within the scope of the school calendar since they coincided with National Parks Week and Earth Day. I hope the students developed an understanding of why these trees are so special and how lucky we are to live near them. One morning one girl came up to me with redwood branches and said,  “Miss Cooney! I went home and I have two of these in my front yard!” Helping to make students more appreciative and excited about their environment is always a positive part of teaching.

This project met many Common Core Standards including the following:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.7
Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.3
Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.5
Know and use various text features (e.g., captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.6
Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.

Earth Day

This week marks not only Earth Day, but also National Parks Week and a great chance to encourage students’ love for the outdoors and everything about our planet. Throughout the year the class has been drawn to books about space and examining the globes in the classroom. They also developed a natural anticipation for Earth Day, which makes this project a perfect fit for their interests.

To build on the students’ excitement about Earth Day, we painted basic outlines of the planet featuring North America. During this week students have also been learning and reading about the redwoods and why are they unique to our region of the planet. The students had a good time painting, labeling the continents and bordering oceans and drawing their own stars. Plus, they look really nice altogether!

Artist study: Claude Monet

This art project was by far my favorite and most successful in 2nd grade. We have been building our water color skills through the vegetable study where students only colored large sections single colors. The following week students were allowed to experiment at a station during our Universal Access time by painting any scene from nature they wanted. Popular choices included flowers in a garden and waves on a beach.

Now, finally, it was time for one of my personal favorite artists: Claude Monet. If we are studying a famous artist, it is also important that students come away with some knowledge of their life. In our classroom I showcase a subject or person though at least 10 books at the front of the classroom about every two weeks. Our school library had a great selection of child friendly texts, such as Linnea in Monet’s Garden and adult books, such as Monet’s Passion, which shows real pictures of the gardens in his paintings.

To create these fantastic paintings the students first drew in the bridge, trees, sunshine and water lilies in crayon. They also added white crayon to mimic reflections in the water after the paint is added. When adding the water color, it is important to remind students to use large, horizontal brush strokes and encourage them to think how water can have a mix of greens and blues. Aren’t the finished products beautiful?

 

Fraction Flowers

Fractions are so much fun to teach and extremely approachable for many students at all levels because they are very tangible. Unlike other math concepts, like regrouping, students can rely on pictures or manipulatives to solve the problems. To finish our math unit on fractions, the students created these fun fraction flowers with word problems about their flower petals in the center.

Students could choose from three petal templates and choose up to four colors, although most chose only two. These are pretty straight forward to make and they are a great classroom decoration for Open House next month!

Step 1: Pick your colors and trace the petal template.

Step 2: Glue petals to the back of the flower’s center.

 

Step 3: Cut and glue the lined paper for the word problem.

Step 4: Count the petals and write the word problem! Enjoy!

 

 

Introducing Watercolors

Now that we are more than half was through the school year, this wonderful group of 7- and 8-year-olds is showing a lot of growth, maturity and academic gains. Watercolors are one of those art materials that require a little bit more control and understanding to work so this time of year is a good fit for their progress.

We are working up to a Monet-inspired watercolor project so to help students gain experience with this new material we illustrated some veggies to go along with our science unit on plants. First, I brought in real beets and onions so students could examine the texture and detail on the plants. Next, in a strictly directed study painting project, the students used crayon resistance to outline the vegetables and soil and the students filled in the designated colors with the phrase, “water, paint, water, paper.” Because, as the students now know, watercolors are so special because they use so much water! Hint: Remind students to use large brushstrokes in one direction. You can say, “Watercolors aren’t like crayons…They are something new. We just go one way with lots of water. Water, paint, water, paper!”

The following day I allowed the students to rotate to a watercolor station to paint any nature themed scenes they wished in preparation for our Monet lesson. With the increasing control of the paint colors students really showed some special scenes and had a great time doing it.

One student in particular, who at times poses behavior and emotional challenges, particularly embraced the project by creating numerous compositions and taking the lead as the go-to student helper for other students. It is wonderful to see ways that all students can feel successful within our little classroom!

Valentine’s Day in Room 22

With each season and each holiday I have enjoyed seeing how the students and their community celebrate different holidays. As I found out, Valentine’s Day is a pretty big day! This year we decorated the classroom for Valentine’s day by making these cute heart shaped caterpillars. Like other art projects, each child has to use their listening skills, judgement of space (like when forming the heart) and creativity.  Additionally, each student added their own, unique catepillar environment to the background. For the students’ valentines I created bookmarks using paint chips, a heart shaped hole punch and string.

Chinese New Year and a Cherry Blossom Art Project

When I reflect about my childhood in school, some of my most significant education memories come from field trips, hands-on experiments and guest speakers.  This spring I decided to make an effort to get a diverse group of speakers to come into the class. Last week featured a guest speaker (and a good friend of mine) who is Chinese-American and now works for Facebook. Not only were the students being exposed to learning about another type job they could have, but they were surprised to meet another person who had started school not knowing any English and excited to learn some basic Chinese phrases. The students listened to how Chinese New Year is a cultural celebration for many people in the United States and around the world and some of the symbolism behind cherry blossoms.

This is one of the easiest and most rewarding art projects we have done so far this year. You probably have everything you need already in your classroom!

Materials needed: paper, pink tissue paper, straws, black paint, paint brushes and white glue.

Step 1: Make up black paint and water in a 1:1 ratio and place about a 4 in drop at the bottom of a student’s paper.

Step 2: Allow the students to blow the paint up the page. Although not everyone will remember, remind them not to suck in, I know I saw some black teeth this day. You might want to show some pictures of cherry blossom trees in bloom for inspiration. We let ours dry before starting to place the tissue paper.

Step 3: Direct students to place a drop of glue on a branch. Pinch the tissue paper around the end of a paintbrush and place it in the glue.

Amazing Animals and Adjectives

Second grade is a great time for writers because they pretty much over the mechanical chore of producing letters, they know the basic spelling of many words and have ideas to write down. However, one major challenge, as with a writer of any age, is getting these students to add detail to their writing.  Last week, we focused on defining adjectives and figuring out how to add them to our writing.

Students working together to describe this school of fish.

Last January in 1st grade many students did a unit on penguins (one of my favorite animals) so I decided to combine a penguin project with learning about adjectives! Tapping the students prior knowledge about different types of penguins helped them come up with adjectives. First, I gave the students scrap paper and oral directions for creating a penguin. For example, “What shape do you see here in the middle? The biggest one? Yes! A big white oval! Everyone, please cut out a large white oval for your paper.” This project was a great assessment of students ability to follow oral directions and use creativity.  They turned out super cute!

The next day, I created a word bubble with “penguins” in the center. I asked the student to tell me what a penguin looks like if I can never seen one. As they gave me adjectives, I wrote them down and made a list of ways we can think of adjectives such as size, color, shape, etc. From this anchor chart and partially inspired by another teacher blog I love, I split the class split into four groups that each had two minutes to write one adjective about a picture card. They were to each write down one adjective without repeating what was already there. The students really responded to working under the clock and cheering on each other to come up with new words.

Here are the finished posters. They may not have perfect spelling, but they do show lots of ideas!

All the penguins together on the adjective wall.

James Reeves and “The Wind”: A Common Core Poetry Close Reading Lesson

By now pretty much all states have started the transition to common core there are plenty of resources to help teachers get some awesome ideas like Achieve the Core or Engage NY.  Last month we, as a whole school, decided that each teacher, in every grade level, would try out a close reading lesson from Achieve the Core on the James Reeves poem, “The Wind.”  While this was met with equal parts hesitation and enthusiasm by the staff, it turned out to be a really productive and meaningful lesson for my students. Plus, as a former English major, I was super excited to get to talk about some personification and imagery. Here is the poem:

I can get through a doorway without any key,

And strip the leaves from the great oak tree,

I can drive storm-clouds and shake tall towers,

Or steal through a garden and not wake the flowers.

Seas I can move and ships I can sink;

I can carry a house-top or the scent of a pink.

When I am angry I can rave and riot;

and when I am spent, I lie quiet as quiet.

Here is how the three day lesson basically goes: First, students read the poem (without the title) and try to guess what it is about by finding evidence for their ideas and having a whole class discussion. Next, they sort pictures that represent different lines from the poem into qualities of the wind as either calm (“quiet as quiet”) or destructive (“rave and riot”). On the third day the students individually created a poster where they illustrated imagery from the poem using one line representing each of the qualities of the wind. Finally, they presented their posters to the class by explaining which lines they chose to illustrate and why.

Overall the students really enjoyed the process of taking time to reread, think and defend their ideas. I especially love projects that allow students to practice their public speaking and art skills.

Doing a common lesson had the surprising and pleasant result of creating a common conversation for teachers of all grade levels. It was fun to hear about the successes and challenges no matter the age of the students.

This student chose more than one line to illustrate–can you find them all?

I love the detail with the gentle wind blowing the leaves through the garden.

As you can see, many of the students really related to the line, “I can get through a doorway without any key” as a gentle wind.

This student thought of the most famous sunk ship of all, The Titanic, when he read, “seas I can move and ships I can sink.”

New Year’s Resolutions

Starting off a new year means reteaching classroom rules and procedures, starting new projects and goal setting. For many of the students, the concept of goal setting / making a New Year’s resolution is a new concept. Even if some of the students learned about New Year’s Resolutions last year, they were definitely a little confused about how to go about it.  The process of examining your life and thinking about how you can improve was a new activity–and a perfect transition to Martin Luther King Jr! We started with a group brainstorm and writing notes about general ways to improve in schoolwork, at home, behavior, habits to stop and habits to start.  Student ideas ranged from taking out the trash to finishing all classwork to stopping drinking soda.

After we came up with ideas we wrote a sentence on lined paper to on their hats.  After decorating their faces and adding paper hair, we made party noisemakers out of some scrap paper. The finished project was a successful combination of following directions, readjusting to school and having fun!

Bottom line: While the project does not necessarily show off their wonderful writing academic ability, these cute projects let the students get back into the flow and use some creative juices.