Grilling Season is Here!

It's officially grilling season! Guess who is a wizard with the grill? Not me. Look elsewhere! Lucky for me, my boyfriend is quite the grill master. On Sunday, while I sat back and enjoyed the beautiful weather, my boyfriend tackled the grilling. 

One of my favorite summer dishes is grilled corn. We covered the corn in butter, salt, and pepper. To add a little extra flavor, we added chili powder and lime juice to each cob. We wrapped the corn in foil and grilled them to perfection. 

Summer

The past week was filled with many emotions and oodles of hugs. On Thursday, I wished all of my students a happy summer and made them promise to come back and visit. For the time being, my alarm has been shut off and I'm going to take full advantage of what summer brings. :)

Enjoy the end of your school year teacher friends! 

A Moment (Again)

About a month ago, I shared a moment that occurred in my classroom while reading the book Wonder. I had another moment with my students, but this one wasn't so... umm, well, I don't want to give away the whole story. 

Brace yourself. This was one of those brain farts (for lack of better terms). 

We are studying the states and capitals in social studies for the remainder of the year. I was all jazzed up talking about the Northeastern region and calling on kids left and right. We came to the state of New York and I said, "Bob (pseudonym for obvious reasons), what's the capital of New Yorrrrrrk?". Yes, you can imagine that I was singing it like Alicia Keys. I like to add my (non-existent) musical talents to my teaching.  

He confidently shouted back, "New York City!!!"

I replied, confidently, "YEP! You GOT IT!"

.........oops.

No more than 5 seconds after I shouted the wrong capital, 98% of my class shouted, "it's ALBANY."

Let's hope that my face was calm, cool, and collected as I cheerfully responded, "Oh good! You're all paying attention! I was just testing you."

I mean, really! All you can do is laugh. 

Book Hall of Fame

As a little end of the year activity, my class voted on a Book Hall of Fame!

Students were given the chance to nominate ANY book they read this year or in previous years. We compiled a huge list of titles on the computer. Once I had everything copied and ready, students voted on their top five choices. 

Our classroom TOP 3 winners were:

Wonder by R.J. Palacio 

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Drizzle by Kathleen Van Cleve

Now, I have a bulletin board ready with book suggestions for next year's students! Hopefully, my students next year will use the billboard when selecting books to start the year. 

What bulletin boards do you have planned? Do share! I'm a planner. :)

Civil War

Happy May! I cannot believe that school is winding down. Someone will have to grab me a box of tissues if I keep thinking about it. Since state testing is over for the year (wahoo!), we're able to go back to having fun in the classroom again. On Monday, we kicked off our Civil War unit. Instead of using our social studies time for this unit, I'm using my Communication Arts block because we're tying in so many reading strategies and skills.  I decided early on that I wanted my students to participate in the Civil War simulation by Scholastic. Side bar: it's currently $5.00 as an e-book!!! 

Have you done a simulation before? This will be my first attempt, but I'm really excited to get the students talking and writing about Civil War experiences. Before diving into the simulation, I wanted my kids to have a little background on what caused the war, important people, and common vocabulary. 

To begin, I divided my classroom into the North and the South. The simulation has students assume a roll of a Union or Confederate solider - I decided to tie in a little geography as well. 

I assigned each table a region of the United States. I know what you're thinking! Yes, we used a modern map to assemble our regions. Considering many states nowadays were not states in the 1860's, this led to a great conversation! 

As a small group, students had to cut out the states in their region and assemble them like a puzzle. I put three regions on the northern side and two on the south. I needed the Union to have more students, so the west was flexible. :)

Region... Assemble!

After small groups assembled their region, I laminated and hung them above their tables. If you've been a follower of my blog, you know about my pods. You can read about those here.  In short, I like to name my pods, or groups, terms that I want the students to remember for-ev-er. 

Now, we have 5 regions of the United States hanging in our classroom and we made a HUGE red, white, and blue paper chain that cuts the classroom right down the middle. The picture below was taken during M.A.P. testing and prior to the regions hanging. Trust me, the classroom is a more cheerful place now. 

Pre-Regions Hanging - During MAP testing, yuck!

Whew! Are you still with me? 

The paper chain thoroughly intrigued my students and they were DYING to know if they were in the North or South. I was mean and made them wait through Spring Break before I told them. 

This week, we have been A Classroom Divided Against Itself. Well, for an hour and half every day then things go back to normal. :) Our week, prior to the simulation, has consisted of these activities:

• Jigsaw of important and influential people from the Civil War: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Frederick Douglas, etc. 
• Video of the causes of the Civil War, afterwards we completed an Cause & Effect diagram
• Mapping out the union and confederate states on a map

I've also read aloud a few picture books about the Civil War. I LOVE reading aloud to my students and now I feel like we have the time available. Some of the titles we've read and plan to read are:

The Silent Witness

Pink & Say

Abe's Honest Words

On Monday, we are going to put together our Civil War journals for the simulation. Look for an update next week complete with fun pictures and feedback from my students. 

What have you done in your classroom to study the Civil War? Do share! 

25

Do you hear that? Listen closely...

It's the sweet sound of the END of state testing! When school resumes tomorrow, things will go back to normal - well, as normal as they can be during the month of May. 

Last week I celebrated my 25th birthday. Are you familiar with the movie Miss Congenitally?  My birthday's claim to fame is a line from that movie!

(Pardon my screenshot from my iPhone - oops!)

Since it was my golden birthday, turning 25 on the 25th of April, my sweet boyfriend made me a golden cake to enjoy! It was even polished off with gold sprinkles. 

All day long I received lots of sweet messages, cards, and goodies from my friends and family. I was certainly spoiled on my birthday as well as the entire weekend. 

To round out the festivities, we celebrated with my family in my hometown. My cute (almost) 4 year old nephew was more than willing to assist in the candle department. 

... as you can see, I didn't quite think that one through. The look on my face, my Dad's face, and BDE's face cracks me up. 

Now that we're doing with the MAP test, my creative juices are flowing again. Tomorrow we're starting THREE brand new units in Social Studies, Communication Arts, and Science. For a few weeks, I felt like I was swimming in a pool of test prep - not anymore! 

Happy Monday :)

Dear America & Prezi

With all the madness of standardized test prep, I wanted to give my students a little shift in our classroom tone. I felt it was time to implement book clubs, but I wanted to challenge many of my readers to stretch outside their comfort zone.  A small percentage of my readers engage in historical fiction and I wanted to expose others to the greatness as well. First, we started with an introduction to what historical fiction is: 

Bless Pinterest for the assistance I needed with this anchor chart. Although, I can't quite find the source at the moment. I'll keep hunting!

Then, I went to the library and checked out almost all of the Dear America series of books. We have a wide variety of male and female diaries that cover a vast timeline. Immediately, I thought about the incredible conversations students can have across topics. How is WWII experienced from a daughter of a newspaper editor? How is that different from a solider? How about from a resident of Pearl Harbor? I presented the books to my students with great excitement. I let them check out the books and their synopsis with their small groups and approve my selection. I wanted the students to be interested in the subject matter and not feel like I'm forcing them to read them. Surprisingly, all of my students kept their books. Now that they're finishing the stories, I have several students swapping titles. :) I can also thank the 4th grade teachers in my building who read the Oregon Trail book to my kids. 

While students have been reading, I've given them time to chat within their small group about the plot, setting, and most importantly: perspective. Since we're reading "Wonder" right now, we've had great discussions about the power of perspective writing and reading. 

So many titles - So little time!

As a final product, students are creating presentations in Prezi. I gave my students a mini tutorial on Prezi and warned them that at times, it is easy to get frustrated, but to stick with it! Each book group was given a Prezi Planning Guide. If you want a copy of my planning guide, email me! [jordon.furnell@gmail.com] The planning guide helps students draw out themes, character traits, historical events, golden quotes, and so on. Several groups finished their novels today and got started on their planning guides. Also, the project can be modified to create power points or poster presentations instead.

One of my girls finished her story, "Early Sunday Morning", on Friday afternoon. I was a little alarmed when I heard, "WHAT! IT'S OVER?" from across the room. I walked over to chat with her and she was very distraught over the ending and how the author could just leave her.... like that. It was obvious she was extremely invested in the story and her character, Amber. 

How's everyone else out there? Swimming through test prep like us? 

Woof.