Third Grade Language Arts Lesson: Antonym Diamante Poems

This was an active, fun lesson that I did with my students towards the beginning of the school year. We had been reviewing nouns, verbs, and adjectives and I wanted to review synonyms and antonyms. After making sure that the students understood the difference between synonyms and antonyms, I gave each student a card with a different adjective on it. Their job was to find someone who had either a synonym or an antonym to their card. After finding their partners, I introduced the Diamante poem by showing students a sample, we then created a class poem (I wish I had taken a picture of that - it was pretty creative), and then we brainstormed different topics we could use for our Diamante Antonym Poems. This lesson ended up taking two periods because students had to write their poem and then they illustrated it. There were some really interesting subjects. I always love seeing what my students minds can come up with!

It's not clear because we cut the paper out to put it on construction paper, but the format was:
Title
Noun 1
2 Adjectives describing Noun 1
3 Continuous Verbs describing Noun 1
2 Nouns related to Noun 1/ 2 Nouns related to Noun 2
3 Continuous Verbs describing Noun 2
2 Adjectives describing Noun 2
Noun 2 

Here is one student's poem about ice and fire. I love the descriptive words. It really creates an interesting tone.

This student chose a unique topic: The Giants and The Tigers. This was right after the Giants won the World Series, so she was showing some team pride :) I like how the picture looks like they're hugging.

Antonym Diamante Poem Lesson

Third Grade Math Lesson: Word Problems with Addition

Last fall, at the beginning of the school year, we spent a lot of time working with place value and exploring place value with base 10 blocks. After a few weeks of using base 10 blocks in various ways, I decided that it would be a good time to use what we had learned about place value to write our own word problems and solve them. In this lesson students wrote addition word problems of their own using two numbers that were between 200 and 500. Students drew pictures of their problem and then had a partner solve it. It was fun to see the different topics that students wrote about.


Here's the sample that I used to show the students:

Here's what one of my students wrote. It was still over a month until Halloween, but candy was already on her mind! I love the way she represented the candy corn though!

 

Word Problems with Addition Lesson

First Grade Language Arts Unit: Bats

In the first day of this two-lesson unit, I read an informational text Bats by Carolyn MacLulich to a First Grade class that I was working with for a class assignment. Before reading the text, we used a KLW chart and discussed "What I think I know about bats." I was really surprised by how much the students already knew about bats. One student said that bats use echolocation and another said that bats are nocturnal! During the reading, I instructed students to be thinking about new information that they were learning so that we could put it in the KLW chart. As I read, I modeled how to use the pictures and mine the text for information.
In the second lesson, we reviewed as a class what we had learned from the bats book in the previous day's lesson. Again, this group really surprised me. I didn't even have to bring out the KLW chart because they remembered everything! After we reviewed the information, we brainstormed as a class different ways to start sentences to share what we learned. For example, "One thing I learned was..." or "I never knew that..." Then I modeled how to use the information from the text to complete the sentences.  I told students that they could write anything they wanted to, but that it should be something about bats that they learned from the book. Some of the students really got into this activity and wrote pages! As I said before, I was really impressed with this first grade class. Luckily, I thought ahead and took some pictures of their work and the KLW chart.

These students sure knew a lot about bats!
 

Luckily they learned a lot about bats too!
 

They had some interesting wonderings!


 
Here are some of their writing samples:

This student wrote 3 whole pages and it's so creative! I also like the picture of him hanging upside down :)

This student did a great job trying to spell echolocation. She had a good memory of the text too!

Bats Lesson Day 1
Bats Lesson Day 2

Kindergarten Science Unit: Seed Germination

In this unit, my Kindergarten students explored seed germination. In the first lesson,  students learned about what seeds need to grow by reading the book The Surprise Garden by Zoe Hall. Next, students planted Lima bean seeds in Ziploc bags for easy observation. I chose Lima bean seeds because they are some of the fastest growing seeds and we all know you can't make Kindergarteners wait too long! Each student got to pick where they wanted to put their seeds in the classroom. The students observed their Lima beans for a week and drew their observations in their Plant Growth Journals. At the end of the lesson, students used pieces of string to measure their Lima Bean plants. We taped the strings to a piece of butcher paper and discussed why some seeds grew more than others.
In the second lesson, we used the butcher paper to review the different factors that affected seed growth. Next, we reviewed the variables that seeds need. Students chose what variable they wanted to change and then planted their Lima Bean seed as before except they changed one variable. Again, we observed the seeds for a week and at the end of the week we measured our plants. We filled in our KLEW chart and discussed what we learned about seed germination. It was a really fun experiment. I wish I had taken some pictures to share with you!

Seed Germination Day 1
Seed Germination Day 2
Plant Growth Journal Cover
Plant Growth Journal Pages
KLEW Chart

Kindergarten Math Unit: Measurement

This is a two-lesson unit I taught in which Kindergarten students explored the concept of measurement.
Prior to the first lesson, students already made their name using unifix cubes and a sticker on each cube for each letter of their name. In this first lesson, students used their length of unifix cubes to compare the length of their name to that of their classmates. Students found 2 classmates whose names were shorter than theirs, 2 classmates whose names were longer than theirs, and 2 classmates whose names were equal to theirs and wrote their answers on tri-folded paper.
In the second lesson students explore the need for standard units of measurement. Students used unifix cubes, orange cuisenaire rods, and straws to measure their journal, a marker and the table. Students also chose 3 other objects in the classroom to measure using the same materials. At the end of the lesson, we had a discussion about the differences between the measurements. For example, "Why do you think the journal is 2 orange rods in length, but only one straw?"

Measurement Day 1
Measurement Day 2