Continue to remind your students or let them know, if you haven’t already, that they not only have to think about what they can do, or simply know about what they can do, they have to actually do it. Same thing with our hopes and dreams. We have so many dreams about what we want to do, or what we wish we could do, yet we never really do stop to think that if only we actually started, we could do it! Tell you students this, each and every day. If they want to do something, they have to do it. If they have dreams, they have to begin acting on them! In doing so, you will begin to hear more ‘I CAN’ as oppose to ‘I wish, I dream, I can’t’ !
Click, print and post! Most importantly, reflect !
Over the next few weeks, The Tuesday 12 will be taking on an environmental twist as we look at various activities focused on the environment. Just click on each link below!
1. Earth Day Canada: A great website that has tons of resources to get you focused on celebrating Earth Day! There are activities for kids, classes, and families, so you can find everything you are looking for in one place.
2. Earth Day Network: An international environmental movement group that provides tons of articles, activities, resources, action plans, and initiatives for everyone worldwide.
3. Think Green: Tons of Earth Day resources for teachers organized by grade level and are cross-curricular.
4. Environmental Protection Agency—“Pick five for the environment”: The EPA has a section of their website devoted to taking environmental initiatives in your life when you “pick five” and become committed to protecting the environment. The resources are divided up into home, work, school, shopping, the community, and on the road. Each category then has tons of resources to help you become more green and committed to making a change.
5. Saskatoon Public Schools: A huge list of teacher resources for Earth Day, including literature, lesson plans, and printouts.
6. TeacherVision: A great collection of lessons, printables, and resources covering every curriculum area. You are able to view seven resources at no cost, but then you must subscribe for full access.
7. TeachersFirst: A very comprehensive collection of classroom resources from a variety of websites like The Nature Conservancy, Disney, WWF, National Film Board of Canada, etc.
8. EducationWorld: I love so many of the ideas on this list! So many resources that would be great in the classroom, like planting seeds/growing plants, various garden activities, math projects, upcycling art, and social justice projects!
9. Kaboose: This website can help you complement your classroom, home, and family initiatives with its range of resources.
10. DLTK’s Crafts for Kids: Not only does this site provide a great breakdown of the history and purpose of Earth Day, but it has links to tons of resources that would be great in the classroom.
11.TES (Climate Change Resources): If you are teaching high school students, tes connect has tons of primary and secondary resources that can be used to learn about climate change.
12. Earth Day Worship Resources: For those who want to look at the religious aspects of Earth Day and being stewards of creations.
Don’t forget to check back next week for another edition of The Tuesday 12!
One of the novels that I absolutely love to teach is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I have yet to encounter a student that did not love this novel!
Since the story is set in the 1960s, I go through various activities to help my students understand what life was like in the 1960s. We usually begin with a whole class discussion where students share anything that they know about the 1960s and we record contributions on the board. As more students share their ideas, we begin to build a concept map where we attempt to categorize the contributions and make connections between ideas. When students begin to struggle, I use prompting questions to get them to discuss possible answers (e.g. “Do you think students had calculators in the 1960s?”). Once we have had a great discussion, we work on two main activities: group and individual presentations.
The group presentations are pretty straightforward: students work in small groups to create a multi-media presentation on one aspect of the 1960s in greater detail and then present it to the class. We determine the topics for the presentations from the concept map we created during our discussion. This year, our topics were: fashion, politics, entertainment, television, sports, music, cars, and technology.
The individual presentations integrate drama into Language Arts. I had my students research influential people from the 1960s and each student had to choose one person to research more in-depth. To keep things interesting, no two students were allowed to research the same person. Once they researched and chose an influential person from the 1960s, students were then to “become” this person and be interviewed on a talk show. Students were given about three weeks to prepare for their interviews and they were to focus on content, costume/props, voice and delivery, gestures, and presentation. I provided students with a graphic organizer to help them record their research and prepare for their presentations.
We had our talk show on Thursday and it was amazing! I wish I could share pictures to show you all the fantastic and creative costumes by students came up with! This was such an engaging experience and both my students and I had a wonderful time and learned so much!
In case you are reading a novel with your students that is set in the 1960s, I have included the worksheet here for your use. Just click on the link!
As promised yesterday, we have samples of what students manually created for the Easter Subway Art. These samples show how students can develop meaning and understanding through an artistic approach, by hi-lighting key words and concepts. Furthermore, students can express their thoughts and feelings in a variety of fashions. Lisa’s students did a fantastic job! Take a look!
For many the Easter season is a very important time of year. I have found that many of my students understand Jesus’ passion, what the significance of the season is, but do not know what the connection is to some of the symbols used throughout this season.
For example, many students think that the Easter egg is not really a religious symbol. Granted it has morphed into a commercialized egg but the symbolism is very important.
I hope the following helps your students understand some of the Easter symbols and their significance.
Easter Eggs & Baby Chicks: Eggs and chicks symbolize new life. Eggs have been a symbol of Spring since ancient times. An egg also is a symbol of the rock tomb out of which Jesus emerged when he arose again. The chick, hatching out of the egg, symbolizes new life or re-birth.
Easter Bunny: The rabbit, or hare, was a symbol of abundant new life in ancient times, and reminds us of Spring and new life.
Easter Lilies: The white blossoms symbolize the purity of Jesus. Lilies, emerging from the earth in the spring, also symbolize new life and the resurrection of Christ.
Palm Branches: Represents when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday and people waved palm branches, welcoming him.
Hot Cross Buns: Hot cross buns have a cross of icing on the top to remind people of Christ.
Easter & Spring Flowers: Daffodils and tulips bloom in the spring, and symbolize spring and new life.
The Butterfly: The whole life cycle of the butterfly is meant to symbolize the life of Jesus Christ. The first stage, is the caterpillar, which stands for His life on Earth. Second phase begins from the cocoon stage, portraying the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. The third and final stage is the butterfly, representing His raising from the dead in a glorified body and peace.
There are many more symbols, but these are the usual ones. Leave us a comment about the symbols you have discussed with your students.
Today with the grade 5′s, I decided to let them explore with different fonts, styles, colors, etc. They keep asking about our monthly subway art posters (virtue of the month) and how it is done and if they can try. We have tried wordle and even tagxedo (both great sites to check out!!!) but we haven’t tried subway art. We mostly see subway art on the computer and yes, it would be fun just the same to have students create them using some of the many programs out there such as picmonkey (the one I use), but I decided for today to have them do it hands on! I showed them various examples which demonstrated a number of different fonts they could choose from or colors and sizes etc. We brainstormed a bunch of great words in connection to the season and occasion – they came up with fantastic words, and this truly helped them get started! I will definitely take pictures of the finishing product and will post some in the next few days. Down below, I have included one of the examples shown to the grade 5′s in which they really liked and used many of the styles from! There’s still time left to squeeze in that fun and easy art activitity!
Loriana posted a bunch of great activities in last weeks Tuesday 12, one of which I found really neat and decided to do with my class for Easter. I refer to it as string art! This activity is great for students of all ages. Simple, fun and a great finishing product. Although you can google images and find plenty of examples on the one and only ‘Pinterest’, you can definitely go anywhere with this activity, not only for Easter but other occasions and holidays as well. For Easter, the simple string art activity can be turned into a really interesting and creative activity. From wrapping string around a balloon and popping the balloon, leaving you with a string egg, a great extension would be to create something out of this egg. For example, add some ears, nose, mouth, feet and other details to create a chick or bunny. Possibly cut out an opening to create a small basket for chocolates or candies (such as shown in the picture). Another great idea is putting wrapped chocolates in the balloon so that once you wrap the string around the balloon and pop it once dry, you are left with a string egg with chocolates inside. I’m telling you, the possibilities of this simple activity are endless. There are so many ideas out there! As for tomorrow, I will be starting this activity and will begin with the simple egg design (wrapping string around it, waiting for it to dry, then popping the balloon); But I am almost certain there will be plenty of students who are finished and want to move on to something else. This is where the extension comes in! Add details and create a fun, cute looking animal, basket or treat shaker! It really all depends on the students, grade and ofcourse, their interest! Try it out!
