Predators & Prey

Now that things are returning to normal after my whirlwind of a weekend -- I have some fun things to share.

I decided to switch up the bulletin boards and include some things that I thought were important, like these comprehension sentence stems.

This saves me from making a bunch of different anchor charts -- and condenses them in a truly aesthetically pleasing way.  If you're interested in the signs/seeing them up closer -- I found them here. I am in love with her blog and have definitely found some AWESOME ideas! :)

We've been working hard on developing good ideas and stories for personal narratives -- which I love, because I love to tell stories and the kids are SO good at it. I also found these posters on the YoungTeacherLove blog and love how they condense my anchor chart down!

Today we worked on practicing different types of leads and I am, as always, amazed by what they write down. I have been working right along with them, writing about my most recent car accident as my narrative. I created example leads, after reading mentor texts examples. Mine were as follows:

Dialogue: 
"Have a safe drive home, " shouted Ms. Chamberlain as I walked to the parking lot.

Action/Onomatopoeia Lead:
Swish-screeech, Swish-screeeech went my wind shield wipers as they cleared the rain from the glass.

Surprise/Setting/Jump Ahead Lead:
Spinning your car off the road is nothing like you see in the movies; no stunt doubles, nobody around to yell 'CUT' when it's over -- in real life, it's just scary.



They had the easiest time with the dialogue leads -- really understanding the purpose. One of my boys wrote,
" "I'll be back soon, son," said my mom as she walked out the door."

I told him that gave me chills because I feel like something bad is going to happen.

The setting/surprise/jump ahead lead is always the trickiest -- but I had one boy write,

"Crossing people isn't the game, it's playing your best that really matters most."

I truly love teaching writing -- Lucy Calkins was so right, It's not desk work, it's life work. :)


This week's reading skill is determining Author's Purpose and as always, I love to tell them it's all about PIE. Many of my students got SO excited that we were going to eat PIE! ... sorry to disappoint -- but I love the posters.

I've created a nice little wall of THINGS READERS AND WRITERS DO -- which has become so useful.

Lastly, in science we have had to say our farewells to Geoffrey. Our time spent learning about the human body is over and we are moving on to Evolution, Fossils, and Adaptation. Evolution is not nearly as exciting as the human body...but I needed to do something that would get them to connect to it. I thought about playing a tag like game with predators and prey -- but that seemed a little wild for the introductory - I knew that it would be difficult for them to make the connection (and even more difficult to get them back inside..). So instead we set up a simulation, in our very own forest. Each student was given 2 M & Ms that told them what colored bug they were.

(Here are the M & Ms sorted by color).

I chose 3 predators who got to hunt our bugs. The predators drew an M & M out of the green cup and got to then eat every bug that was that color. However, my crafty little bugs had options -- some were blessed with a peanut butter M & M -- and by paying this to the predator they were able to escape death. If they used this option -- they had to explain how their bug stayed safe -- some said they hid, some said they camouflaged themselves, one girl even said she sacrificed another bug to escape. When the predators collected their prey -- the remaining colored bugs were able to reproduce and continue their species -- and then the process started over.

At the end we counted up how many of each color were left and discussed what happened. It was SO fun! They loved being able to make a choice and were able to explain what they did. As an exit ticket -- they had to explain in their own words what Evolution and Natural Selection were -- using the simulation as an example.

Science for the win.
Tomorrow we head off to the nature center on my very first field trip. Should be phenomenal -- I can't wait! 75 degrees with a light wind -- sounds like June -- not October. :)

Stay golden