Seeds, Kid Quotes & Rain

We are in the middle of a unit on plants.  We've planted some flower seeds and we are watching them, hoping against hope that they will sprout but we have some overzealous gardeners and I think they may be over watering.  In talking about the different parts of plants, we read the book A Seed is Sleepy.  The illustrations in this book are beautiful!  Not to mention, it fits right in with the work we've been doing with adjectives and it's filled with interesting facts about seeds. 

This particular page led to some funny second grade quotes.

After thinking for a few minutes, one little girl said, "That's really inappropriate."  Another little boy offered, "My sister can sew it some clothes."  Funny, funny little second graders.

Speaking of funny kid moments, you may remember Microwave Man, the little first grader who desperately wanted to use the microwave at the beginning of the school year.  He was back again this week.  I saw him standing in front of the microwave with his fully popped popcorn on a plate.  "You aren't trying to warm that up, are you?" I asked, "because you don't need to."

With a disappointed look he responded, "Well, it says popcorn (on the microwave)!"  Ha...we don't exactly know about microwaveable popcorn around these parts! :)

And now for the rain...

Sitting in my classroom after school yesterday afternoon, I was surprised by the sound of rain on the roof.  I hadn't noticed that the sky had been overcast but when I went out side the rain was definitely coming down.  It was just enough to wet the dry ground and plenty to provide a little time to dance in the rain and start a game of barefoot soccer in the rain.

Oh, Yes He Does...

...have a snowboard here in Niger!

Oh, Yes She Did...

...take that whole plate of grasshoppers with the intention of eating it all!

Celebrating Our Unique Cultural Heritage

Friday was Multicultural Day at Sahel Academy.

We began our celebration with a Parade of Nations. 

There are 22 countries represented in our student body and that's not counting the students whose parents come from two different countries.

Niger

Cameroon

Congo

Nigeria

Mali

Chad

Benin

Togo

France

Switzerland

England

Italy

Sweden

Iran

Pakistan

India

Korea

Australia

New Zealand

Brazil

United States
and

Canada

Our students were dressed to the nines in traditional clothes from their homelands.

They got to enjoy traditional foods from a variety of countries - things like sushi, grasshoppers, maple syrup, chin chin, grits and apple pie.

The students got to enjoy or participate in dances from a variety of countries.

Here's the Africa group breaking it down:

In each room the students learned interesting facts about the countries represented.  They saw a variety of artifacts from the countries and they got to participate in games or activities unique to those countries.  There were wrestling and taekwondo matches, a type of Korean jacks, a fashion contest, "snowball fights" and even a chance to get a little henna on your hands among other things.

Here the Swiss kids sing a song about a Cuckoo Clock:

 Celebrating the amazing mix of cultures at our school brought a smile to many faces!

Desk Love

Remember how I covered up my desks like this so my kids could collect interesting words for their poems.

Next week we'll be taking a standardized test so we uncovered them

so that the desks can easily be moved apart. 

This was an amazing moment for them! 

Apparently, they have missed their desk tops. 

They couldn't stop going on about how beautiful they were.  

They were hugging them. 

Yes, that's right - hugging and kissing them! 

One was waxing poetic about how they had been

passed down

from generation to generation. 

 

I think next time I won't even bother passing out skittles for graphing and eating 

since uncovering one's desk is far more exciting!

Adjectives & The Old House

If you've never been exposed to the books of Pamela Duncan Edwards, you are missing out.  She is the queen of alliteration with books like Dinorella and The Worrywarts.  However, the focus of the book we read this past week, The Old House, is not alliteration.  Rather it was chosen as a great way to introduce a study of adjectives.    The house goes from being a rickety, lonely old house to a beautiful house, full of life and love.  My students were fascinated with the transformation.   After reading it, we made a chart using adjectives to describe the old house before and after its renovation.

Then the kids made acrostic poems using adjectives beginning with each letter of their name to describe themselves.  This idea has been floating around pinterest and is definitely not orignial to me but my kids sure had fun with it.  I also gave them the Awesome Adjectives book (a little dictionary of adjectives) from this unit to help them think of words.  Here's the longest name in our class:

She did a great job choosing and thinking of words on her own including the word itchy!  A few weeks back I wrote down a funny quote from her where she proclaimed that she was so hot that her elbows were itchy.  You don't hear that every day! :)

And here's the newest addition to our class. 

She is from Sweden and doesn't speak any English at all. I told her she could do it in Swedish but according to the lady who is interpreting for her there aren't many adjectives in Swedish so she went for English instead.

 

Well, there you have it - we learned a lot about about adjectives and something interesting about the language of the Swedes!

Put Something In

It's been back to school this week after two weeks of break.  Before the break I was thinking about where to head next with my students in Writer's Workshop and I was reading this awesome free book which inspired me to tackle poetry for only about the third time in my teaching career.  I have a fascination with it but I'm intimidated by it at the same time.

Since the First Graders join my Second Grade Class for Writer's Workshop, I decided that we needed to begin with exposure. So we spent the first day reading and exploring all kinds of poetry books.  Then we came together at the end of Writer's Workshop and made a chart recording what we had discovered about poems - some rhyme, some don't, they are short and usually have capitals at the beginning of each line, etc.  Some of the students chose a poem they really liked and shared it with the class.

On day two we read the poem Skimble-Scamble (from R is for Rhyme) and Put Something In (from A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein) and we talked about how poets have permission to play with words - to enjoy the way they sound and maybe even make new words up.  I had covered the tables, desks and walls with paper and I invited them to spend the time reading again but this time to collect words that intrigued or inspired them, words that sounded serious or made them laugh.  They loved this!

The next day I used the poems Pencil Sharpener and Ceiling both by Zoey Ryder White to talk about how poets try to look at everyday objects in new ways.  Then I sent the kids off for the first time to try their hands at writing poetry.  It was great!  Some kids tried using the words they had collected the day before.  One student wanted to write about the fan but he said he couldn't hear it very well so I turned it on high and then he went to town and wrote this poem.

Thursday night, I decided to get in on the action.  The shoe picture I posted inspired me and I wrote this:



I shared my poem on Friday and then I let my poets go outside if they so desired.  The trees and rabbits directly outside our classroom inspired these two little gems.

Leaves

I think when

The wind blows

The leavs run

Away from the

Trees runing dashing

Till the wind stops

Usually I leave spelling alone but this poem is so great I'm fixing it for ease of understanding.

The Runt Rabbit

Little runt rabbit!

Little runt rabbit!

Little runt rabbit

Hungry little runt rabbit!

Runt rabbit, stop eating

I am hungry too

I'm a runt like you!

I love the way these ones are exploring.  I hope that in one way or another all of my little writers will be able to experience the joy of putting something in...

Put Something In

By: Shel Silverstein

Draw a crazy picture,

Write a nutty poem,

Sing a mumble-gumble song,

Whistle through your comb.

Do a loony-goony dance

'Cross the kitchen floor,

Put something silly into the world

That ain't been there before.