Let's Honor and Remember

Hello Everyone,

This has been one hectic week and it shall continue to be crazy until that bell rings at 2h25, on Friday! Tomorrow my student teacher is being evaluated and we have our Remembrance Day Assembly. It was the only day we could have a veteran come in and speak to the children. Friday is the end of the first term and we all know how crazy that is!!!

With that being said, despite all the running around, like a chicken with no head, we are managing to get in some learning and fun! My kiddies are looooooving my Let's Honor and Remember a Remembrance/Veterans Day Read Aloud and Craftivity Pack! They love to share about how they have family members in the armed forces and are very interested in this subject. They are also very respectful and truly do want to honor our veterans.

We started off by reading the read aloud on the Smart board. I also like to make a hard copy of my read alouds so that the students can refer back to them at any given time. I usually send them off to be printed at Staples (quite cost efficient) and laminate them at home. I even upload them to my classroom Ipads! That pdf app is sure nifty!

We read the story together, using a pointer. I like to read the page and then have the students read altogether. This is when I model correct fluency and intonation. We discuss new vocabulary and circle capitals and periods.

Then, we go back to our seats and read the black and white version of the read aloud. This is where the students play detective and illustrator. This time I ask a student to read the page and then we read it altogether again. This is where those fun "witchy" fingers come into play. I know we all love to stock up on those at Halloween! They just do the trick don't they?!

I also give the students a highlighter, another big motivation for them! We highlight new vocabulary words and theme words. They love it!

These kiddies have to be the cutest artists I've ever met! I love their creativity and artwork. It's amazing!

After we are done with our read aloud, we move on to the writer's workshop and craftivity portion of our unit. First, I introduce the spelling helpers. I find it really important to go over all vocabulary words with the students before we use them.

It's a great way to go over what they learned in the first part of this lesson, as many of the spelling helper words are introduced in the read aloud. Thus, this is the third time the students are being exposed to many of these words.

After going over the words, we decided to create an adjective map to describe a soldier. We brainstormed on the board and the students chose the words they liked best and wrote them on their graphic organizer. This little sweetheart thinks soldiers are REALLY helpful, she wrote it twice!