What Not to Wear Day!

Yesterday was our What Not to Wear spirit day at school. It's always exciting to see what ideas the students (and teachers) will come up with!

We made our switch from exploring the observable characteristics of plants to the characteristics of animals. We read From Head to Toe by Eric Carle, which allows the students to role play a variety of animals through body movement. It also has a simple enough pattern that most students will be able to read it up on their own, so I hope they will pick it up during one of our reading times.

We took to our Smartboard to Google some images of animals that students wanted a better picture of in their mind, such as donkeys, gorillas, sea sponges. We also looked at images of the ocean, as our morning question was "Do you like the ocean?".

Next, we brainstormed all of our thoughts on what we know about animals and got into a little bit of what we want to know and learn.

We ventured to the library and found a giant book, Amazing Sharks, that had a lot of really interesting facts. We also did a see/say/spell of our new PWIM words and read a book called The Ocean together. That book was a Level A reader, so it was easy for the students to follow. For example, it read "the ocean, the shark, the seaweed". Since students showed me that they could read, their next task was to show me that they could also spell! I explained that when we begin writing, sometimes we have to do invented spelling because we are really guessing how to spell the word using the sounds that we hear when we say the word.

So, I used a simple sentence of "A _____ swims in the ocean" and used pictures of animals to fill in the blank. Students were given white boards and their job was to take their best guess at how to spell each animal name. They did a great job!!

 

We finished off our ocean/animal talks by singing Baby Shark, by the Learning Station. It's been on replay in my mind ever since!

Before ending the day with a school wide Raider of the Month assembly, we practiced colouring leaves like the ones that we will be painting for the school mural project. Students are asked to use bright, bold colours and patterns on their leaves. I allowed the students to use my special, colourful markers so this activity lasted longer than anticipated!

 

A random highlight of my day was when I mentioned Bananas in Pajamas and the whole class chimed in to singing the theme song from the show! Then, of course an in depth conversation of Bananas wearing pajamas ensued.

 

I love my job!

 

Have a fantastic weekend everyone.