Week 7
Lesson Plan:
Read aloud, introduce Christmas books for the final round of holiday researching for this year.
Read aloud, introduce Christmas books for the final round of holiday researching for this year.
What happened:
On Monday, I read aloud a green level book about Christmas. Then, students continued their researching. A couple of students finished their reports on Thanksgiving. Two students began researching Hanukkah! (Yes!) Everyone was working so hard. They were working so hard it started to make my head hurt just watching them concentrate for so long. One student went from book to iPad to computer in order to research cheetahs and there was still some information left to be gathered. I noticed that several students still needed practice with the mechanics of writing multiple paragraphs. They understand the first two-finger indent, but the second two-finger indent was a challenge for several.
On Monday, I read aloud a green level book about Christmas. Then, students continued their researching. A couple of students finished their reports on Thanksgiving. Two students began researching Hanukkah! (Yes!) Everyone was working so hard. They were working so hard it started to make my head hurt just watching them concentrate for so long. One student went from book to iPad to computer in order to research cheetahs and there was still some information left to be gathered. I noticed that several students still needed practice with the mechanics of writing multiple paragraphs. They understand the first two-finger indent, but the second two-finger indent was a challenge for several.
On Thursday, I had five Research Monsters arrive ready to work. The play rehearsals began in the school and several of my monsters were cast in the play. The monsters that did arrive worked so hard today. I began by reading a green level book about Deserts which prompted an excellent conversation about the four types so deserts in the world. They were so fascinated with this concept and we talked about the pictures in the book after reading it. I am still trying to get students to research an ecosystem. Sometimes they can shy away from it because they are really not sure what an ecosystem really entails.
The rest of the day consisted of two students researching Hanukkah. Upon presenting me with their completed holiday research template, we had a quick talk about the main difference between researching Thanksgiving and researching Hanukkah with the Holiday detail template. The main difference is that Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday so the bottom two rows of the research template did not need to be completed. Hanukkah is a religious holiday so there was information to be gathered to complete the bottom of the template.
A big shift in the room today was the level of independence researching. Students took more initiative to switch resources, login to a computer for a little bit, move to another resource, request the iPad, etc. to finish their gathering of information. Students were also more familiar with the process and took ownership of their projects so I did not need to support them in ordering paragraphing and sentences. It was a really great day for researching!
The rest of the day consisted of two students researching Hanukkah. Upon presenting me with their completed holiday research template, we had a quick talk about the main difference between researching Thanksgiving and researching Hanukkah with the Holiday detail template. The main difference is that Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday so the bottom two rows of the research template did not need to be completed. Hanukkah is a religious holiday so there was information to be gathered to complete the bottom of the template.
A big shift in the room today was the level of independence researching. Students took more initiative to switch resources, login to a computer for a little bit, move to another resource, request the iPad, etc. to finish their gathering of information. Students were also more familiar with the process and took ownership of their projects so I did not need to support them in ordering paragraphing and sentences. It was a really great day for researching!
Week 8
Lesson Plan:
Nonfiction read aloud to develop an interest in another topic for researching, the week before Winter Break, I hope they come and just want to research.
Nonfiction read aloud to develop an interest in another topic for researching, the week before Winter Break, I hope they come and just want to research.
What Happened:
It is definitely the week before Winter Break. On Monday, I had 4 monsters arrive at my door after school ready to work. I usually had about 13. The monsters that did arrive worked really hard and tried new subjects. First, I read them a green level book about Japan. Then, they began researching. Two students each researched a different animal independently with some teacher support on the blue level. Two other students researched at their reading level on the red and yellow levels. One of my students asked to research Christmas. Since I didn't have anyone researching that topic to support this student and I didn’t want to discourage them from trying this topic. Since I opened the topic up to all research levels, I had her complete 6 boxes and write a sentence for each box completed. I received one completed report today.
It is definitely the week before Winter Break. On Monday, I had 4 monsters arrive at my door after school ready to work. I usually had about 13. The monsters that did arrive worked really hard and tried new subjects. First, I read them a green level book about Japan. Then, they began researching. Two students each researched a different animal independently with some teacher support on the blue level. Two other students researched at their reading level on the red and yellow levels. One of my students asked to research Christmas. Since I didn't have anyone researching that topic to support this student and I didn’t want to discourage them from trying this topic. Since I opened the topic up to all research levels, I had her complete 6 boxes and write a sentence for each box completed. I received one completed report today.
A completed research report from the yellow level.
On Thursday, the last full day of school before winter break, I had one little monster that still wanted to research. This little monster stayed until 4:00 and worked very hard. We sat together and reviewed the sentences he had written and talked about the little tricky words in English, such as with, on, and in. It was a nice time to get to know this researcher before the official break.
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