Folktales: Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears

One of the stories we read during our folktale unit was Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, a West African tale by Verna Aardema. Students retold the story by creating story sequence strips. After coloring and cutting out patterns of the animal characters in the story, students glued them in sequential order on to sentence strips. Underneath each illustration, students wrote a sentence explaining what the animal was doing.

 

                       details from a story sequence strip

I'm selling this project, along with a two page reading comprehension questionnaire and answer key, and a writing activity in my Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears Unit in my TPT store.

 The link is:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Why-Mosquitoes-Buzz-in-Peoples-Ears-Unit-995614

 

 

 

 

 

Turkeys in Disguise

Hear ye, hear ye! Students' gobbling good work is now proudly displayed on our "Turkeys in Disguise" hallway bulletin board. The children's task was to disguise their turkeys so they wouldn't get eaten for Thanksgiving, then write a persuasive paragraph to convince people why their disguised turkeys really aren't turkeys. This year's turkey disguises included a rabbi, dreidel (perfect symbolism for Chanukah and Thanksgiving which fall on the same day this year!), superhero, old man, glamorous girl, Farmer Dingleberry, and football and baseball players. Below are the results:

 

 

 

 

Centra State Adventures in Health Class Trip

We had fun nose to toes during our class trip to Centra State's Student Health Awareness Center's "Adventure to Health" exhibit. First, the students met "TAM", the Translucent Anatomical Mannequin. As Tam revolved around her body parts lit up and she explained their function. We then entered the theater to watch a welcome video.

 

 It was then time to enter the "inside of a human torso". 18 interactive stations were divided by "ribs" and the ceiling was aglow with a spine and blood vessels curling around the exhibits. The interactive stations included "Germ Attack", where students gripped a "tongue" that transferred "germs" on to their hands. The students then entered a darkened chamber and saw the germs show up in ultra-violet light.

 

 Other exhibits included "Pedal Movers" where students had to pedal at a certain speed on stationary biked to make their bikes on a video screen move while the energy they were using was measured; a set of lungs that demonstrated breathing when we pushed a handle up and down; and "Healthy Highway Drive-thru" where students were sent through a stimulated drive-thru and made healthy food selections, which had nutritional results calculated.

 

 

 

          One of the kids' favorite stations was a giant nose. The kids donned gloves and stuck their hands up the large nostril to feel "mucus and cilia", while watching their hands' travel on a screen.

 

          The other popular station was "Organize Me". Students sat on a large vitamin that traveled through the body thanks to a blue background and computer screen. Along the way we learned the basic functions of the digestive system.

 

 Our trip wrapped up with a movie about the body systems and then it was time to head back to school. We're definitely more organ-wise after our time at Centra State!

 

Spinning Subtraction -n- Poppin' Plural Nouns

We've been spinnin' doing subtraction in math, including learning how to regroup big numbers. One strategy the class learned to help regroup large equations that contain zeroes is called "Squaring Off". The kids loved demonstrating their understanding of this strategy on the whiteboard.

 

 

Another way we practiced subtracting large equations requiring regrouping was playing "Spinning Subtraction" Using laminated spinners, pencils, and paperclips, small groups created and solved subtraction problems. The spinners are easy to make and can be found at:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/256845984968164680/

We spiffed up our subtraction and aiming skills playing "Sponge Subtraction". I wrote subtraction problems on a Dollar Store tablecloth using a Sharpie. Each student tossed a sponge and the class solved the subtraction problem it landed on. Once the problem was solved we covered it with an index card and the next student would aim for a different equation.

 

 

We were also poppin' learning about plural noun in language arts.
We first learned the 4 types of nouns (common, proper, singular, and plural) by making noun foldable books.

Students then demonstrated their understanding of the concept by placing noun cards in the correct type of noun bag.

After learning that nouns that end in x, ch, and sh get an -es and nouns ending in y get the y replaced by -ies we played "Popping Plural Nouns". I drew -es and -ies popcorn buckets on the whiteboard and students had to place their noun card in the correct bucket. We then wrote the plural form under the bucket.



A teacher's day is brightened when he or she hears a student say something cute, funny, or related to what's being taught in class. I had one of those moments today when a student was looking at a textbook and said to me, "Hey, look! This words ends in -es like the nouns we've been learning!" Woot! Okay, time to pop back to the lesson plans...

 

 

 

Battleground Orchards Trip

We had a harvest of fun when we visited Battleground Orchards! Our adventure started with a tour of the apple press machinery and getting to taste apple cider. We then headed to the barn where we learned about the lifecycle of an apple and munched on gala apples. Then, it was off to the orchard. Students got to pick apples after learning how to "twist, twist, twist" them off the apple trees. Finally, we headed to the pumpkin patch where we learned how pumpkins grow and got to pick our own sugar pumpkins.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our 2nd week of class was full of lots of hands-on learning activities. We began our Harcourt reading anthology exploring character traits. After reading Officer Buckle and Gloria, students wrote Post-its about Officer Buckle's outer and inner traits for our interactive chart. Afterwards, we made text-to-self connections by completing an "Officer Buckle and Me" character trait graphic organizer. In Allie's Dreams, we explored what traits help us reach our goals and matched basketballs to nets on a "What Character is Like/Character's Words and Actions" poster.

 

Our poetry writing unit began with us learning about  types of poems such as concrete poetry, acrostic poetry, limericks, haikus, list poems, diamantes, and couplets. We created our own "Fall is..." list poems by first brainstorming things about fall for a fall bubble map and then converting our ideas into phrases using an adjective-adjective-noun-verb format. After writing final drafts, students painted leaf patterns with Do-a-Dot paint bottles that their poems were glued onto. Look for our "Poet-tree" growing soon on our hallway bulletin board!

 

In math, we explored place value visually and kinesthetically. We formed numbers in the 1000's, 100's, and 10's place using number cards. Students used pretzel rods and place value place mats to show how many 1's, 10's, 100's, and 1,000's were in numbers and then enjoyed munching on their math manipulatives!

 

The class also played "Swat It" using a place value poster, hand pointer, and number cards to form specific numbers and identify the place value.

 

In science, we began our human body unit. A volunteer wore a body apron and students identified organs, their role, and placed them where they are located on the apron. We learned the 6 body systems, what our bones and muscles do, and identified bones on real x-rays. The students also created their own bodies for our "We're Organ Wise!" clothesline using face photos, brown paper lunch bags, and organ patterns.

We started our Harcourt language arts anthology learning about sentences, punctuation, and subjects and predicates. Students identified sentence strip phrases as subjects or predicates, placed them on the correct side of a "Subject or Predicate" chart, and then used an Expo marker to write the missing part of the sentence. They also practiced punctuation using sentence strips and food: Cheerios represented periods, elbow pasta and Cheerios were question marks, and straight noodles and Cheerios were exclamation points.