We are in the third day of our poetry unit and this is what our students came up with when I asked them to write about nature. I was smiling ear to ear for how proud I was of them.
I taught my group of second graders that poetry is very abstract. There is no right or wrong way to do it. They have to put on their poet eyes and look at the world through a different, creative lens. We were specifically working on line breaks this day. Placing them in strategic areas where they want the reader to pause their voice. At the end of writing we have a poetry slam where they share their poems, practice reading, and making sure their line breaks fit. As you read their work you will see that they ran with this idea and did great! Proud, proud teacher!! :) Leaves By: Jaimeon Jumping in leaves orange and green pointy bottom and curly tops the middle of a leaf they have straight lines. Birds By: TJ The sound of chirps When I wake up. Hearing that Is not as annoying as the dogs next door. I wake up on my birthday Hearing chirps of birds I don’t know What a happy spring day Will be like If birds chirping Never existed. Clouds By: Anahli you make shapes and I make shapes. We’re just alike. Birds By: Jayden Trees. Nests. Tweet, Tweet. Meow... Gone. Sky By: Kayla The sky Is blue and refreshing It’s bright every day The Sky By: Jineen The sky is blue like an ocean for birds When the breeze comes the clouds move And you see the blue Sky. Trees By: Anthony Makes you breathe Makes you stay alive The Moon By: Valerie The moon is brighter Then a night light brighter than a Lamp A lamp is like a Moon a shining Star is like A moon. The Grass By: Evan The grass as green as glass. Like seaweed in the sea. What grass can be, is what we see. Animals By: Alonso Animals are important animals eat meat leaf and fish. Some animals have fur like a blanket some animals have scales. Moon By: Tony White black a big circle. Bigger then a tree and a big planet with astronauts In a rocket. Birds By: Sarah Tweet, tweet, tweet. The birds chirp. It is a song. The birds sing all morning long. The birds chirping a song. It is short, relaxing but sometimes it is long. Every morning the birds sing a song. Whenever I am walking I hear the birds chirping a song. My dad whistles back and and they whistle back. Playgrounds By: Jayla Playgrounds have shimmer In spring and winter kids play On the playgrounds to have fun On the playgrounds They can see the sun above them From the playgrounds Grass By: Jayden Grass is poky Green and sharp Messy Uncomfy and boring Dirty and weird Pencil By: Nathaniel A magical wand To a magical place A place that Is a dream That dream is imagination.
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The last unit in writing is Poetry. We wanted to give the students a chance to explore fairy tales in writing before we moved onto that last unit. We also wanted to revisit narratives. The students have not written a narrative since the beginning of the school year, we thought it would be great to integrate narrative elements into writing fairy tales. We started off by having students analyze different fairy tales using a checklist for fairy tale elements and narrative elements. (Pictured below). Once they understood the connection between the elements and how different writers intertwined them, we introduced their task: To write their own narrative fairy tale from another character's perspective. First, we started off by letting them pick a fairy tale they enjoy. They had to analyze the fairy tale using the graphic organizer, noticing if this writer included all of the elements of a fairy tale and the elements of a narrative. Next, students planned the beginning, middle, and ends of their story. Second graders struggle with having a strong, detailed middle. They usually do well starting their story off, but they end it too quickly, assuming the reader knows more then they do. By forcing them to plan out the B/M/E, they are reminded to add in all those parts using detail. They used a B/M/E graphic organizer to write down the most important parts from the B/M/E and a section to draw that part. (Pictured Below). Then, they had to choose a character who was not the main character. We noticed during Literacy that when the students analyzed the characters feelings and traits they understood the characters more. They could predict how the character would react in different situations. We thought this would help them in their writing as well. Students filled out a web diagram with their character in the middle, using the web to describe the characters actions, looks, feelings, and how they talk. (Pictured below). Finally, it was time to write! As the students wrote I gave mini-lessons on what I thought they needed extra support in. They all struggle with adding in detail to expand their writing and giving their writing VOLUME. To help them with this I gave lessons on figurative language, adjectives, adverbs, strong verbs, dialogue, and dialogue tags. As they wrote, they also had all these graphic organizers out in front of them so they could refer back for help. I would leave a picture of a modeled student up on the board. This would visually show the students how their desk should look when writing. (Pictured Below). Friday was the last day to publish. The students work turned out great! I will share some of their work below. I hope you enjoy their writing as much as I did! Happy Writing! Some Student's work:Lights, Camera, Action!
Our students project to end the fairy tale unit is to create a movie for their chosen fairy tale. There are many layers to creating this movie and it will take the students a couple weeks to complete. They have to study their script, and parts by analyzing their character. Record their voices using expression. And act out the fairy tale using props and their creativity. Our first step was to have them analyze their lines by putting an emoji by each line representing how that character is feeling. This will help them to remember how they should read it aloud and what expression they should use. Second, they practiced reading the script through with their groups. It is really difficult for them to follow along without getting distracted AND remember to read with expression. I think with practice they will do great though! Third, they will record their script by taking turns on Garage Band. We gave them sandbox time to play with Garage Band the week before so that they are familiar with it. The narrator is the recorder and videographer. They are in charge of clicking record, pause, stop on Garage Band for the group. When they are done recording their script, as a team, they will go back in to edit. This will include cutting, trimming, and adding music to the background of their audio. Once they are done editing they will save the audio as a file to their iPad. The next, and almost final step, will be to upload the audio to iMovie and act out the script! This is where their creativity can shine through. They will be able to bring in props and dress the part. They will play their voices and act out the script using a pre-made scenic background. Once they are done acting each scene they will cut and edit their videos to match them with the audio. We will give them time to add any final touches and then share them out with the world! I am so excited to see what they create and so are they! Kelly Will, my teammate, came up with an awesome new approach to our fairytale unit. Kelly wanted to integrate more technology. With the help of Justin Gonzalez, our District 100 iCoach, we have made this happen.
Every day our team unpacks the standards and plans out our lessons. We have long discussions about what we think will work best for what our students need. In the past, I felt that we would have these amazing lessons, but struggled with creating fun activities assessing the students knowledge. This has all changed now that Justin has been helping us create activities to use in our lessons. It is absolutely amazing how Justin takes our lesson and turns it into this fun, engaging, assessment for the students. They have had an activity to complete during centers almost everyday through keynote and numbers. They have a blast analyzing the fairytale we are reading and it is easy for us to assess what they learned. We now format our lessons through Numbers. We have the "Teaching Point" at the top, the "Why" following, our "I can" statement, and then the step by step process of the lesson. The activity for that day is attached to that page so we know which we are using. It took some getting used to, but now it is simple to follow and fun to add too. We have been integrating Numbers and Keynote into Writing as well. Below I have screenshotted our overall bend, a single session (or lesson) and a sample activity. How fun does this unit look to teach!? I am so thankful for our iCoaches and my AMAZING team! :) "J.... come on up to my table, it is your day to blog!" I call one of my students over. A smile appears on their face. They quickly shuffle over and sit right next to me. They get started typing right away. After some time, it differs for each student, they say, "Ms. Emrich, I'm done!".
I scoot close to them and move the iPad so that we can both see it. I ask them to read it aloud to me. As they are reading, they naturally start catching their mistakes. If they do not catch something like a capital letter, or misspelled word I will stop them and discuss the error with them. I love that I have one on one time to conference with the student about their writing. It is not forced. They genuinely want to hear my feedback and are motivated to make their post (writing) better. When we finish reading through it once to edit, I ask them if they introduced and concluded their blog post properly. They seem to naturally introduce their writing, but forget to end it. We discuss different ways they can conclude their post. I think this has been sticking with the student. They have been remembering to introduce and conclude their writing in class. I remind them they can add in some figurative language to help describe things in their post. I help them to finalize it. Before you know it, they click PUBLISH! I show them what it looks like on our website and remind them to show their parents at home and comment on others. I think everyone should be blogging with their students and/or blogging themselves. It is such a reflective experience, I see no negatives. Next year, I will definitely be starting a class blog earlier and hope you do too! *Below is our class sign up page for May. We signed up this week and every single one of my students is thrilled to be continuing the blog. They can't wait to post again! As our Narrative Biographies are coming to an end, I am starting to reflect on what I liked and what I want to do differently next year. I loved letting the students choose whether they wanted to create a narrative biography or an informational biography. It pushed them to work harder on their writing because they chose which to create. It also proves to them that there are many different ways to write a biography. By giving them the choice, they get to practice the style they are interested in and are motivated to write.
I think it was extremely helpful having my team on board, and rotating classes. Mrs. Will and Ms. Berkowitz took students who wanted to write an informational, while the students that wanted to write a narrative came to my room. We got to focus on mini lessons that pertained to their chosen writing format. I focused mostly on narrative lessons. I gave lessons on dialogue, adjectives, transition words, figurative language, etc. As my mind is jumping to next year, I wish I would have showed all of my students MORE examples of narrative biographies and informational biographies. I wish I showed them a video biography on Clips versus a chapter book biography in Pages. I think this would have helped them to get more creative and visualize the end goal. The biggest struggle I had, and I think my team had as well, is when to "cut them off". I would love to work on their writing for a long time, there are always things they can add to make it better, but with students working at different paces it gets difficult sticking to a deadline. Our students work at different paces, you cannot change that. To avoid having everyone at different places we tried to have them complete a writing task, such as the beginning, on one day. When they are done they can free write. The problem with this is what if a student is absent, gets pulled for additional services, or is having an off day? They are bound to get behind. Because of this we, as teachers, try to give these students extra time resulting in an endless cycle of catching up. We are to the point now where we are asking each other, when should we "cut the cord" and give them a deadline? I hate the feeling of depriving students of that work time. In a perfect world, I would have one on one time with each student helping them push their writing to the next level... Unfortunately our world is not perfect, and I just have to try to give them my all when they do have that half an hour of writing time. I would love to hear thoughts, feedback, and any recommendations of what works in your class when you come to this problem. If you don't have this problem in your classroom, why do you think that is? I will be sharing some of their final products by the end of the week, stay tuned!! I think that Tuesday is the perfect day to continue with my blog. I have Monday to settle in, but it is still early enough in the week where I am motivated enough to continue with my writing.
Update on life:
I cannot wait to share how the rest of our year goes. I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday! It is 4 a.m. and I am heading out the door for St. Pete Beach, Florida.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to blog the last day in March because I will not have my computer with me. Thank you to everyone who has followed along. My vacation officially starts when I hit the post button. I am signing off... but just for now! I will be back :) I hope everyone gets the recharge they need and has a Happy Spring Break! This whole experience has been an incredible one. I am beyond proud of myself for trying something new and forcing myself out of my comfort zone. I have learned lessons I never thought I would if I never participated in a Slice of Life.
I think it is important to express what you are doing in your classroom to help other teachers, and to reflect on your own teaching. I have learned so much about my own teaching through my posts. For example, I see myself writing about being patient, then think to myself, “I need to do this more in class with this student”. It forces me to get my thoughts down and then act on them. Writing in this blog also gives me a chance to share my ideas with anyone who wants to listen. In teaching, you hear teachers say, “we need more TIME”. It is so true. I constantly feel like I am catching up or trying to quickly explain an idea to my teammates. Blogging gives me a chance to express myself and share my ideas/thoughts on my teaching. Lastly, blogging gives me the opportunity to reflect on my life. Believe it or not teachers have a life outside of school. I try really hard to keep the stresses of my personal life at home, but it is really nice to be able to just write about my feelings. It is the perfect journal. Then, hearing everyone's confirming, kind responses warms my heart and lifts my spirits. There are so many benefits I have found and honestly, not one negative! I thoroughly enjoyed this whole experience. I challenge you to join A Slice of Life next year! I have decided to keep blogging about my teaching moments, teaching tips, and the people that I love so much. I will probably only post once or twice a week, but will tweet my posts on Twitter if you want to keep following :) Thank you to the support of my coworkers, principal, and family throughout this experience. Twitter : Ms_Emrich All students are special.
They are each unique. I treat them all with respect. I am their greatest critique. They are perfect in their own way, I learn something about them day by day. They grow in so many ways, I love to see them soar. Why am I writing this poem? To show you they are more. |
AuthorI am a second grade teacher at Irving Elementary School in a co-taught classroom! Archives
May 2019
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