Harry Potter - Chapter One - The Boy Who Lived

I had to take a deep breath before uttering those words - The Boy Who Lived. I could go on and on about the amazing storytelling ability of JK Rowling and amaze over the subtleties she thought out from the very beginning. But this isn't about my love for her writing. It's about the students.

They all cracked open the cover of their brand new books and turned to chapter one, page one of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And we began... As we savored every word there were many gasps and "Oohs" as they recognized important details Ms. Rowling sprinkled throughout the book that would become major plot points later on. Now this is why I wanted to do this unit. The literary comprehension is catching on. They are seeing how an author establishes character traits and builds up backstory without giving everything away from the start.

The writing activity is flowing so naturally from our reading. They have been so enamored with their wands they can't seem to put them down. So asking them to think how this wand came to be was so easy. We spent one day on collecting details about how our wands looks, feel, and even smell. We brainstormed a list of woods to choose from and delved into magical creatures that might have donated an item to the wand's making. My class is pretty creative already with personal narrative writing, but this is the first time this year I've delved into the fantasy realm with them and they are blowing me away. Their stories are sequenced naturally and include details from their plans. Plus they are having fun with them and want me to read each one before they finish.

Normally I tell them I won't read the whole thing until they turn in their Final Drafts, only the section they feel fits in with that days lessons. But these are too fun not to read as they develop. To keep them quiet and working I've taken to playing the audio version of the book read by the amazing Jim Dale (another donorschoose item!) while they write.

During the day when I find a free moment or two, I find myself throwing in some wand lessons. Of course we started with

1.) ONLY point your wands away from people
2.) Keep your wands to yourself, this includes hitting, poking, or touching other people's stuff
3.) Keep your wand in a safe place. If it ends up on the floor, don't be surprised if someone steps on it.

Harry Potter Unit 01 - First Years Arrive

They arrived. Dragging their feet and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, but they arrived. All 24 of them. 19 days away from the routines and procedures of school were clearly evident as they chattered like magpies over a few bits of string. Then they caught sight of their teacher who was dressed in a black robe and wearing a tall pointy hat. In his hand was a stick he kept waving around (think swish and flick) as they approached. Now, understand, these little ones have grown used to their teacher's eccentric moods, but this one was waaay beyond.

They greeted their teacher and may have passed a small word or two about the new year. Then they got to their desks. Quips of "What's this?" were used often when they located the folded bit of parchment waiting for them. It was addressed to them so they could open it. Confusion was the first response after reading this letter, but it soon dawned on them as they put the clues together. Their teacher was UP TO SOMETHING!

Like I mentioned before, there are only three days of school this week. I decided NOT to start reading the book until next week. But there is certainly tons of things that we can do before reading a book, right? I handed out their individual copies of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (thank you Donors Choose) and we discussed what they already knew about this character. They knew a lot, let me tell you. About 7 of them had already read the first book. We read the summary on the back and applied it to what we knew. I gave them some background on the author and chatted about theme and genre.

The next day we jumped on the train of character traits. There was some work to be done about separating out what is a trait and what is a feeling. We also thought about how these character traits could be collected in order to make a judgment about the person as a whole.

The third day was all about decorating our wands, so there was very little academia involved.

I had them paint the wands all black first in order to bring out the texture of the glue and then add new colors. Word to the wise: lay down paper before you let them start painting. Saves on TONS of mess. They had so much fun choosing and painting their wands. Many wanted to start using them already, but I told them they couldn't use them until they've passed the Wand Use 101 class. I was SIRIUS!

Another thing I did during this short week was have them work with their new housemates on a few projects to get them used to each other. I thought with it being the start of a new year it was perfect timing to get to know each other a little better. I had them fill out a survey with each other to get them talking.

They also had to take the concept from our character trait study and apply it to themselves. They needed to come up with three traits they all share and then design a house crest to hang above their seating area. This was an interesting conversation to listen to.

 

 

 

Here are a few more shots from our week:

 





Harry Potter - First Day Jitters - Harry Potter set up

Okay, I think I'm ready.

I've got my costume set for tomorrow. The door is set up as Platform 9 3/4. It's a recycled Christmas decoration from another teacher. I removed the stockings. I might put a cauldron in the fireplace for the Floo Network, but that doesn't come about til Book 2.

 

 

I created all of the school folders needed for their Hogwarts Packets. 

 

I've got all of my stash out and ready for the Sorting Ceremony tomorrow. I've collected a few HP mementos over the years. Don't judge.

 

We've got this weird three day period this week to start off the new year. Not enough time to start anything new, so we'll be doing a lot of review with some fun projects thrown in. I found a foam friendship wheel (they last longer than the cardboard ones) for creating bracelets and figured out to do the easy stripe pattern from this picture.

 

 

 

Or you could try the 4 model without the wheel.

 

 

 



And we'll be making plastic mesh bookmarks in our house colors from this pinterest idea:

I cut the plastic mesh 7 holes across by 42 holes down. One sheet of 7.5 by 11 sheet gave me 16 bookmarks. I'm making a model and will let you know how it turns out.

Wish me luck!

Harry Potter - Wand Making 101

Today went a lot better than I expected. If you, like me, as a teacher have prior experience with a hot glue gun, you know my fears. When Amelia suggested that I buy large sized bamboo skewers and decorate them with hot glue I was a little frightened. But it worked!

I also thought it would take all day to get 24 of these things done. But it took less than half an hour to dribble hot glue down, around, swirled up, and across each of them to make them unique and special. The best part was figuring out how to use some leftover craft foam as a stand for them as they dried. I'm thinking I might use this later as a place to store them as they paint them as well.

I have tons of paint and glitter from my crafty scrapbooking days and can't wait to let the students loose on creating their own wands.

I have an inkling that we'll need to have a serious discussion about PROPER WAND USE before I let them use these. If you have any suggestions on how to keep this more controlled without any stabbing or poking of eyes, I'd sure appreciate it!

For another idea on how to make your own wands, you could check out this board that my newest buddy, Tina shared on her Harry Potter Pinterest board. MyLitter.com

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Saving Fred - 4 out of 5 ain't bad

If you don't know who Fred (the amazing Back to School Ice Breaker) is, check out my earlier post here.

I really wanted to do this activity much earlier in the school, but there was so much to do Fred was a little forgotten.

Today we had our county mandated pretest in Language Arts to supply base data for the year. After an hour of testing, my little ones needed to get up and move around to release some pent up energy. This is where Fred came in and saved the day!

I had five groups all working to put Fred's lifejacket on before he drown. I tried to tie it into our Social Studies unit on the Inuit tribe by making Fred be the bait to lure seal and walrus in so the Inuit could survive a long winter. Fred, being Fred, thought he was just too good for a lifejacket and even went so far as standing UP in the boat. Of course it capsizes trapping Fred's lifejacket underneath. Silly Fred.

We are still working on using our Inside Voices, but for the most part they did a great job working together. There were no arguments, no tears, no one sitting off in the corner by themselves. Only one group lost Fred to the swift Arctic currents.

I tried something else this year in order to get more of them interacting with each other. I had each group split up and go sit at someone else's desk so that there was at least one  person from each group together in a brand new one. Then I had them share how their group managed to save Fred. The technique was amazingly similar and they were all participating.

Once again Fred revealed a lot more about my group than I would have learned without him.

Thanks Fred!

Monday Mentor - Math Lit Connections

Today was a teacher workday, which translates into we were in meetings all morning. First we had an ESOL check up to make sure we were following our little darlings closely and adjusting curriculum to hit their weak areas. A lot of mine have problems in listening and speaking. I don't see much of a problem with their talking, they do that very well. But I digress.

Our next meeting was with our Literacy and  Math coaches to plan out the next nine weeks. I can hardly believe the first quarter is done and gone. This second one always flies by. This year is going to be even worse because I literally will by flying by on Week 8 to Australia!! But I digress. The math coach did an awesome job collecting a ton of books for each teacher to have in their classroom. Each title addresses some math concept in fun new ways.

We had to pick from the bucket of goodness and come up with ways that we could use the book in our classroom. We could make mini lesson, whole group instruction, or station idea suggestions from our book. I grabbed this neat little book called Mystery Math: A First Book of Algebra by David A. Adler. It's October and this cover had all those perfect little ghosties and ghoulies on the cover. I used to love Halloween growing up but it seems to be squeezed out of the school system now.

This little nugget starts off teaching students what an equation is and why the two sides of an equal sign need to be balanced. Then it goes into variables and how to find the solution to algebra equations using all four mathematical operations. Mandy and Billy foolishly stop by a haunted house and have to solve the algebraic riddles to make it through. They count ravens on the wires, bats inside the belfry, and the obligatory skeletons in the closet. It's done in a simple and manageable style that I can't wait to try out on my students and make this a station for them to design their own story problems.

Hope you enjoy!

Monday Mentor- I am AESOP-lutely FABLE-ous

I love finding new lessons that just make teaching that much more fun. My grade chair fearless leader, Jennifer, showed us all this super cute lesson on teaching fables to our fourth graders. This fits perfectly with our study on THEME and author's purpose.

We started out the week reading tons of fables, such as the Lion and the Mouse, the Tortoise and the Hare, the Fox and the Crane. We also discussed each lesson the author wanted us to learn. The themes of the short tales were easy to pick out. I went a little deeper and asked them why they thought Aesop would have picked this particular animal to represent in this fable.

The most compelling moment of the lesson came as I explained that Aesop was a Greek slave who's master taught him to read. One of my boys raised his hand to answer my question about why Aesop chose a lion to explain this lesson. He was thinking that the lion could actually stand for Aesop's master and that Aesop was in fact the mouse. Aesop could have done something big to help his master out and that's where he got the idea for the story.

GASP!  What insight! I had to hold my breath for a bit, but thanked him and told him that is probably the most intriguing idea behind the Lion and the Mouse ever told. He smiled and we went on.

After reading tons of fables, we were ready for the next step. I posted three posters around the room that included the title of the fable and its moral.

You can get all six posters Here. I cannot take credit for this file. The images are from Microsoft Clipart and the idea was borrowed. The frame is mine, though!

The children were to walk around and sit near a fable that they have a connection to. They were to write the title, moral and their connection on paper. At the end of about ten minutes they turned and told an Elbow Friend about their connection. This way they could see how many different versions of the same tale could be told. I then explained that through the years, the tales have been retold with different characters.

Here's information from Wikipedia I shared about the Wolf and the Lamb:

The fable also has Eastern analogues. One of these is the Buddhist Dipi Jataka in which the protagonists are a panther and a goat. The goat has strayed into the presence of a panther and tries to avert its fate by greeting the predator politely. It is accused of treading on his tail and then of scaring off his prey, for which crime it is made to substitute.^[7] A similar story involving birds is found among Bidpai's Persian fables as "The Partridge and the Hawk".^[8] The unjust accusation there is that the partridge is taking up all the shade, leaving the hawk out in the hot sun. When the partridge points out that it is midnight, it is killed by the hawk for contradicting.

We did it again the next day with three more fables. Sometimes it was hard for students to make connections to fables, so I had to get broader in my description. I suggested things like "have you ever had a friend who wanted something of yours" or "you procrastinated on a chore or assignment?"

 Since it was now Friday, I told them that next week we would be creating our own fables. Over the weekend they were to think about a lesson they have learned in the past and what character animals they could use based on their traits to teach this lesson.

I will give out this recording sheet for them to organize their ideas.

And then this writing paper for them to write down their very own fables.

You can get this file from Here. Just remember this is in no way my design, I'm simply sharing a resource!



Next week we are going to delve into Greek Myths (part of our curriculum) and tie them into the concepts of fables. Should be much easier to get this across to them having set up the FABLE-ous groundwork. 

Thursday Tutorial - QR Codes

Hello again,
I found something I've been meaning to figure out for myself and now have some time to focus on it. There has been rumors at our school about the coming of TABLETS. This idea opens up a whole different can of worms as to the logistics of using them in a classroom. That journey is going to take a while to implement.

One thing that I've noticed tons of teachers who are already using tablets mention in their lessons is the use of QR CODES, or quick response codes. A QR code is  "a specific matrix bar code ( or two-dimensional code ), readable by dedicated QR bar code readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, URL, or other data." Now, I've seen those weird looking squares all over the place and have no idea what they do. They're on the bus, at the movies, on the table tents in restaurants, and even on candy bars. I think it's time I figure out these little buggers.

Here's a picture of one:

This one has to do with Altrex range of aluminium access towers and access to a user manual. Umm, o-kay. 

So, how are they useful for students to use on an iPad?

I raced over to Google - again - and searched for how to use qr codes on worksheets. They had an amazing suggestions on the first site that popped up. Can you imagine sending kids home with a math worksheet that has a qr code the students can read on their parents smartphone that will lead them right to a video tutorial about the main points in the lesson. For real?

In order to create and use these on your worksheets, you are going to need a few things. You'll need a qr code, a qr reader program with an internet connection, and a site to send them to. Thankfully all of this is free. There's a site called QR Stuff where you go through three very easy steps (type of data, url info, and color choice) before you are presented with your very own downloadable qr code. 

You can download several different qr readers for either iPad or Android devices. I just downloaded one called QR Droid, such an inventive name! 

Here's the rub, you need to decide how to use your qr code. What information do you want to present and how do you want to deliver the information? Do you want your students to access a short youTube video that goes back over the pertinent info regarding simple subjects, or do you want a homework cheat sheet that students can read back over to remind them what you taught earlier. Once you've uploaded your instructional tool, copy the url and use it to create your very own qr code. 

Angie Sigmon over at iPads in School came up with an amazing interactive way for her Open House. She was able to get 30 iPads for her classroom and had one out on each student's desk. They went around on a scavenger hunt to find out information about their new teacher and things they will need for the year. This sounds so amazing. I wonder if I can use one Samsung Galaxy tablet in the same way. 

I'm going to have to play around with this a little longer and create a classroom hunt on my own. So stay tuned next week when I share my results!