National Poetry Month

What we've been writing:  April is one of my favorite months because it is National Poetry Month!  (Here's how we celebrated last year.)  It was a fun month full of creativity and poetry.  I loved being able to have the girls with us to share and push the boys to be even better poets.

Poetry calendar:  I saw this idea to have a calendar with a different poem a day.  The boys were so curious when I was creating the calendar.  It was fun to practice reading poetry out loud.  We often read a poem and then studied that type that day during writing.  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to expose the students to different types of poems.  Plus, it made a really fun display on the chalkboard wall.

I am - art poems:  We started our first day of poetry with combining writing and art.  The idea came from here on Pinterest.  The kids wrote "I am" poems, and then using oil pastels and watercolors to paint the background.  These turned out incredible!!

Poetry stations:  I had lots of different ideas for short poems.  Since we are always short on time, we made a day of poetry stations.  I came up with some of the ideas from this blog.

• Station 1: Poe-TREE with haiku baggies  The kids wrote haiku poems based on random objects found in baggies.  Then, they hung them on the poe-TREE.  The poems turned out really funky, but it was good to expose them to the poetry form.

• Station 2: Magnetic poetry   Mom gave me some magnetic poetry words last year, and I found a cute magnetic board when I was in the US last summer.  When the boys saw this station, they said, "Wow, so cool."  Christin also had magnetic words.  They took selfies with their magnetic poems. 

• Station 3: Dice poetry  The kids rolled the dice to see how many lines, how many words, and the topic of their poem.  The boys all happened to get one line poems, and then sat there doing nothing for the rest of the ten minutes of the station.  Next time, I would make sure to specify they need to write three or four of these, especially if they are that short. 

• Station 4: Art and senses   I found this amazing art book over the summer, so the kids wrote poems using their senses, focusing on one of the art pieces.  These poems were really cool, and they forced the students to think about art and writing in a different way.  

• Station 5: Magazine poetry  This station could have been a whole day in itself.  The boys created really short poems, and just kind of glued words onto the page.  Next time, I would have this be an activity on another day.  They could focus more, and I could keep an eye on the situation. 

Intravista poems:  I found this awesome book called Friday Poetry Anthology.  It is a great resource for middle school Language Arts teachers.  It has a poem a week for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.  It includes prompts and connections to the Common Core State Standards.  One of their poems was called an intravista poem.  It had a hidden message within the poem.  The boys LOVED writing these.

Sonnets:  We read A Wrinkle in Time during April, and there is a great quote connecting sonnets to life.  Christin led the kids in some structured notes about two different kinds of sonnets.  Then, they wrote sonnets in groups.

from: here

Poetry Party:  Christin and I had the great idea to have a poetry slam and go to a cafe to have the students share the poems they wrote.  We invited their families, also.  We picked a cute cafe downtown and even called to check and see what time they would open.  However, when we arrived at the cafe at 8am, it was not open.  We decided the only other place open that early was McDonalds, which was conveniently down the street.

The kids were so proud of their poems.  They did a great job sharing, and the noise in McDonalds forced them to speak loudly and with confidence.

Corinne also shared a poem she wrote, which I loved.  It was great for the kids to see that people write poetry for fun.  Corinne didn't have a teacher forcing her to write.  :)

What's your favorite poem?  How are you encouraging people to read poems?  Have you ever found a poem that impacted your life?

Con mucho amor.

Bud, Not Buddy

What we've been reading:  We just finished one of my new favorite novels to teach, Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis.  I found lots of resources online that helped me, but I also just love the themes and morals from this book.  It is all about family, growing up, change, and the Great Depression.

One of the parts of the novel that I think is the funniest is all of Bud Caldwel's Rules and Things.  Bud is such a funny kid, and he is smart and innocent.  He has concocted all sorts of life rules that I typed and printed off for the bulletin board.  I would have loved to have time for the boys to create their own.  Next time I teach this novel I will incorporate this activity.

Names are important.  They are our identity.  Bud's name changes throughout the novel, and he talks about the importance of names.  I stole this idea from Miss Christin.  The boys and I looked up what do our names mean.  They had to create illustrations to go with the meaning.

I found a great pdf with ideas that came from a theater who adapted Bud, Not Buddy for the stage.  I absolutely love comparing different versions of the same story, whether from page to stage or screen. One of the activities in the pdf used the text from the novel to compare to the script.  Then, it asked the students to adapt a different part of the novel into a script.  We took the project a step further and acted and filmed the scene.  Here's the link to our version.

The pdf also had an idea to make rock journals.  I just printed off the page and the boys wrote three important days of their lives on the rocks.  It would be cool to purchase real rocks and have them write with a metallic pen on the rocks the memory.

At the beginning of the novel we created Bud's suitcase together.  We talked about the symbolism behind each object in his suitcase.  Then, I had the boys create their own suitcases.  I asked them what symbolizes them.  They wrote reflections on the back of their suitcases explaining each object.

I loved how this unit turned out.  I hope that I will get to teach this novel again someday.

Con mucho amor.

Superhero Writing

What we've been writing:  My mom got me these awesome superhero word magnets.  I wanted to figure out how to incorporate them into a writing assignment.  We also studied homophones this week.  I combined the two into a fun creative writing assignment.

The boys used the magnets as inspiration for their stories.  They loved making crazy sentences with the words.

Then, they wrote their stories and we also spent a day revising them together.  They were so excited to share what they wrote.  Andrew asked me, "We are sharing these, right?"  Here are their stories.

Avengers by Andrew

The most powerful heroes fight day and night, but what do they do in spring break? They go have fun at the beach or that’s what they thought. As Tony and Widow played volleyball the most unexpected thing happened. Angel and Superman came out flying from nowhere. Tony was astonished and worked fast to get his suit, but then he remembered that he forgot it at home. Angel was fighting Superman one-on-one, but that didn’t last long. Next thing Tony knew was that Angel was thrown at him, and he was knocked out. When he gained consciousness Black Widow and Wolverine were at each other’s throats.

All of the X-men which were made up of Marvel characters were fighting the DC’s. The battle was a hard one… for the X-men. “Those X-men people aren’t that strong and would only get in between us,” Superman announced. “The only X-men guys that put up a fight were Magneto and Wolverine. Like come on, one guy is immortal and the other can move metal with his mind. They’re the only ones that we consider the upper class of Marvel characters.” So with the weaker Marvel characters gone, the battle with DC was to finish that spring.

 (Two weeks later) The battle is still going on with the strongest of both sides still fighting. The fighters on Marvel are the Hulk, Wolverine, Venom, Loki, Magneto, DeadPool, HellBoy, and Thor. And the strongest of DC are Superman, Orion, DarkSeid, Wally West, Hal Jordon, and Doomsday. One after another even they started falling like fly’s. Loki and Thor the gods in Marvel were fighting Orion and Superman the gods in DC. For even the immortals from both sides were tired out. The gods battled it out until superman was thrown into a restaurant and landed into their supplies of mussels. Superman looked at the faces of the terrified people and then got up. He flew up to see the others fighting and with a voice so strong the flour on him came off, he got their attention and then pointed down to the city. Then the four gods looked around and saw the destruction they caused and from that day on they would never fight a war this big again.     

Captain America's Spring Break by Isaac 

Spring break starts and I decide to go relax before I have to fight in the Civil War. I drive to the beach with my brand new t-shirt, and Bucky tags a long with me. My head started hurting so I was too tired to go swim. I lie on the sand and see kids playing with mussels then I close my eyes. Suddenly I open them for a split second. I don’t see Bucky at my side, and I get up as fast as I can. I look around and see that no one is near. I don’t know what to do at first so I call out,

 “Bucky??” Of course no one answers. Just before I know it I hear gun shots nearby, and I grab my shield and take cover behind a lounge chair. Then I see that it’s Bucky so I smile and walk towards him with no fear. Bucky uppercuts my chin and I bite my tongue and fall to the ground bleeding.

 I’m confused. Why would he do such a thing? My tongue hurts so badly, but I manage to look up seeing Bucky with a gun pointing directly at me. Right when he’s about to shoot I lift my shield up and block it. I get up really fast and kick the gun out of his hand. Bucky took out his knife and threw it at my leg. It hit my leg, and it started to sting majorly. I took it out and threw it back, he blocked it with his metal arm and took out another gun and started shooting me. With great speed I lifted my shield up blocking all his shots. I summersaulted into the sand behind a boat on the shore.

Why was Bucky acting so queer? What happened to him? Slowly peeking over the boat I don’t see anyone. I slowly walk towards the exit of the beach, but when I reach the exit, Bucky is standing right there in front of me glaring at me. He punched my face and kicked my chest, and I fell to the ground. Grabbing my aching chest I groaned and managed to say,

“What are you doing?” He got on top of me and started to choke me like a bear. With one his other hand he was stabbing me with his knife on my leg. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t and before I knew it I was…

 “Steve, you okay there?” I opened my eyes, and I looked at Bucky who was looking at me in a strange way. Everything was perfectly fine I looked at my leg, and it was in perfect condition. Looks like I just had some messed up nightmare.

“I’m fine, “I said slowly with a small grin.

A Super Vacation by Joseph

Boom! Hulk crushed an alienbot. Hulk turned his head to the right and was already on his target before a penny could fall out of a pocket. Hulk crushed. Smashed. Crushed. Smashed.  They wouldn’t stop coming. Hulk didn’t want to admit it, but he needed help. He gave a very loud roar, and Thor was smashing bots with Thor. This still wasn’t enough power so Thor called Tony who was in his mansion in his Jacuzzi. Tony quickly put on his armor and flew to help. After a long time all the others superheroes arrived to fight.

A couple hours later the Avengers finally defeated all the bots. Hulk was still ready for some action. Everyone else including Thor was very tired. The Avengers all sat at Stark Industries resting. Hulk was outside at the work out gym. He was carrying 10 tons of metal. Meanwhile the others were relaxing. Tony finally got up and said,

“You know we fight crime too much. We could use a break.”

 Thor got up and said, “What about Hulk? I think we all know Hulk can’t stop smashing.”

Tony replied, “Well, we could always ask if he would want to relax on a big boat. That ought to get him quiet.”

Thor then said, “Well who is going to keep the city protected?”

Tony replied simply and said, “Well I guess I’ll just have to turn on all of my iron man suits and put them on auto pilot.”

Everyone stopped and stared at Tony who was sipping coffee. All of the Avengers said together, “You can do that.”

Tony simply said, “yes” and started telling them about how he has accomplished getting so much power for his suits. Slowly the Avengers left their seats so they wouldn’t have to hear him speak.

A day later the Avengers were on a private cruise. Hulk had his anti-smash room. Thor’s room was near the generator were he kept it powered up. Everyone else was doing their own thing. After a week of vacation Black Widow received a call from Nick Fury. It said that the city was under attack, and the iron men suits have failed. The Avengers rushed to the city of New York, but there was nothing there but ruins.  This is why superheroes can’t waste their time having vacation when on the job. Sadly they’re always on the job.   

How are you incorporating student passions into the classroom?  What are you doing to inspire student writing?

Con mucho amor.

A Year Down Yonder

What we finished reading:  Last week we finished reading A Year Down Yonder.  It is a sweet squeal to A Long Way from Chicago.  This book is about Mary Alice spending a year at her grandmother's house in the country.  It takes place during the Great Depression and tells the tale of Mary Alice changing in a year.  

This website has a list of fun ideas.  I would have loved to do their suggestion of writing letters back and forth between Mary Alice and her brother/family.  We just don't have enough students in our little class of 3 to do that project.

The project we ended up making was a group calendar.  Each chapter of the novel breaks down what happened in a particular month of the year.  The boys each took two months to illustrate.  They wrote on the back what Mary Alice learned through that chapter.  They struggled a little with the writing part.  They wanted to just write a summary of the chapter, but I challenged them to take it a step deeper and write what the main character learned.

How are you pushing your students to think deeper?

Con mucho amor.  

Pirating up the Week

What I've been teaching:  This was a "ruff" week.  The boys were more restless than normal, talking and not paying attention.  I had shorter patience because I have been busier.  I have been fighting off sickness and this stupid kidney stone.  Part of the way through the week, I realized I needed to "pirate" some of my lessons.  I hoped this would engage the boys more and improve my attitude about work.  

Teach like a Pirate (prior blog post about it can be found here) is all about being a purple cow in a sea of black and white ones.  The book encourages teachers to be creative and think outside of the box through different "hooks."  

from: here 

The Safari Hook:  Wednesday we moved to the roof for reading time.  There was a beautiful breeze, and we sat in the shade while reading Long Way from Chicago.  There are so many different places in our apartment complex that I should take advantage of and use.  Getting outside of the four walls of the classroom helps keep them engaged.

The Mystery Bag Hook:  Thursday I placed these three mystery bags on my desk.  I purchased some freeze-dried "astronaut" food over the summer.  We are currently studying outer space and the solar system.  I wanted the boys to be intrigued.  They could feel the bags.  Rice cakes, cookies, and paper were some of the guesses.

We ended week 22 of the Reyes Academy with worship, prayer, and a fun little selfie photo shoot.

How are you mixing things up in the classroom?  What are you doing to keep students engaged?

Lego Movie

What we've been doing: A month ago my mom found these awesome Lego character sets.  I had been wanting a bunch of Lego people because I thought they would be perfect for acting out war battles, or scenes from books.  She sent one superhero and villain set, and one set that had normal people.

The boys finished a novel called Dragon's Gate by Laurence Yep.  It is about a young boy, Otter, who is from China.  He makes a journey to the US to help build the transcontinental railroad with his dad and uncle.  This is their Lego movie based off the book.

I gave them two options.  They could either recreate a chapter, or they could recreate a shorter summary of the whole book.  They chose do to the whole book.  It was taking really long, though, so we had to cut out some scenes they had planned.

If I were to reteach this assignment I would have them focus on a theme and pick out scenes that represent the theme.  Or I could have them focus on a character and pick out events that changed that character to give the project more depth than just a summary.

We used a free app called My Stop Motion to create the movie.  It was easy for the boys to figure out how to use it.  I liked it much better than Flipagram because we could save directly to the camera roll.  The boys added sounds and voices in iMovie.

The boys loved creating the movie.  There was some bickering between brothers throughout the process, but overall they had a great time.  I snapped this picture of them adding the voices to the movie.  They were smiling and giggling.  

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Here's the link to the Youtube video.

THANK YOU MOM for always sending me exactly what I need.  Even from many miles away you help and serve me so very much.  I am forever grateful (and so are the boys, even if they do not express it). :) 

#bannedbookweek

What we've been doing: Last week was Banned Book Week.  I did not do anything last year to celebrate this week, but this year I saw Tracee Orman pinning lots of interesting ideas on Pinterest for the week.  I decided to join her and celebrate it with my students.

Day 1: We started off banned book week with a series of Youtube videos.  The first one we watched was a cute stop animation of what happens at a book store at night.  You can find it here.  Then we watched this man explain the history of banned books.  Lastly, we watched this video that showed many banned or challenged books and why they were challenged.

Day 2: These 11 quotes from authors on banned books provided a great discussion about the reasons behind banning books.  Next time I would use these quotes as a starting point for a class discussion where they would be graded.

Day 3: On Wednesday we went through a PowerPoint of these crazy reasons why 12 picture books have been banned.  Reading and discussing the reasons behind banning children's books really put things in perspective on the crazy reasons people don't want books shared.

Day 4:  The students took a "how scandalous is your reading history" quiz.  Then we looked at these images of banned book character's mug shots.  We spent the next hour drawing our own.  I drew Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, but it's not good enough to post on the blog.  :)  Here were the final products of the rest of the kids.  We had Captain Underpants, Little Red Ridinghood, and even Gatsby!

Day 5:  We have never done a debate before as a class, so we decided to take on the challenge to end Banned Book Week.  Before starting, we talked about debates, what they look like and how you should talk and react.  My coteacher found a video of one woman doing a mini debate, representing both sides of the issue.  She tackled school uniforms.  We had the kids draw from a hat which side they would represent.  We gave them only five minutes to prepare for the debate.  Overall, it went well.  The side agreeing with banning books had much stronger arguments, but the side disagreeing with banned books had a better rebuttal.  It was a decent attempt at a first debate.

Next year I would love to create book covers with reasons why the book was banned.  It would be neat to have an interactive bulletin board, or bookshelf display.  It is a little more challenging to do in my tiny classroom.  I love dreaming and thinking about how I will change these lessons in the future.

International Dot Day

What we've been creating/doing: September 15th is one of my favorite days of the year.  DOT DAY.  Here is how we spent Dot Day last year.  This year I wanted the kids to be able to share the experience with others.  My friend teaches 2nd grade at a nearby private school that my kids used to go to.  We spent an afternoon sharing with them.

A few weeks early the kids created their own dots and spent time practicing reading aloud.  We displayed their dots on our clipboard wall display that I love.

The kids started by introducing themselves and reading the story to the second graders.  They did a great job projecting their voices and speaking up.  That was the main goal academically for this adventure.

Then, we split into small groups and my students asked questions about the message of the book.  They talked about what you can do to help and serve others.  Our main question was, "How can you make your mark on the world?"  Their ideas were adorable.

The last activity we did with them was helping the students create their own dot.  We had paint, magazines, markers, colored pencils, and more for them to use.  There were a few spills, but mostly laughter and creativity flying around the classroom.

It was a wonderful day, and my teacher friend even said we should come back again to do something with her class.

I also got to create Dot Day for two other groups of people.  Each Tuesday I go to a girl's home in Santiago.  Back in September we celebrated Dot Day there.  The girls loved the story and sticking their post its on the giant orange dot.  They did an amazing job creating their dots.

I also went to New Hope in La Vega and did Dot Day with the girls there yesterday.  It was a late Dot Day because I couldn't figure out how to get there.  :)  The girls struggled with the theme.  Some of them said their dots were ugly, or they got frustrated in the creating process.  But overall, the girls enjoyed doing something different on the weekend.  My favorite dot was one that said, "Jesus died for you, for me, and for the world."  It touched my heart.  There's a way to make a mark on the world.

Con mucho amor.