Brown Bag Book Club: main Idea focus

We just finished reading: 

and have been revisiting Main idea and details

After some blog stalking for follow up activities I came across the Brown Bag Book Club from 

thefirstgradeparade and knew I had my activity.

I passed out brown bags to my students which had a set of cards inside. The cards had details and the main idea from the story on them.  Students then got into partner pairs to discuss and figure out which card contained the main idea and which cards held the details.  Using the book for support, they did a fabulous job in their groups reasoning through why certain cards were just details and not the "big picture". 

They then glued their cards in the correct places on their bag and decorated their bags with visual representations.  While decorating they had to also discuss parts of the book they liked, how they felt when reading the book, etc to tie in the whole "book club" feel. 

They loved it.

getting the groups set up

 our completed bags

another added bonus of the brown bag book clubs is that while discussing the books you can fill the bags with popcorn.

This idea can obviously focus on various comprehension strategies and I plan using it again in the future. 

Martin Luther King JR shout out

For our TDR recently to focus on non-fiction text elements as well as bring in some Black History we read the following

After we read through each chapter students summarized 4-5 important facts they learned about M.L in their reading notebooks.  

Once we finished the book the students then typed their facts into their student blogs via

which by the way is a fantastic blogging host for your students to have their own blogs. Probably my favorite. 

Please click the links below to experience the events and facts our class felt were important. PS: we love comments. It helps fill our buckets as well:)

NG's blog on Martin Luther King Jr

JW's blog about ML

KS's blog about Martin

For another follow up assignment I had students select 4 events from M.L's life.

then we headed over to 

and the students created their own event timeline via comic. They loved it.

Here are the links to some of the completed timelines

Timeline 1

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=24461200C635886

Timeline 2

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=2564225C635837

Timeline3

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=2154054C635848

Timeline 4

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=14358212C635859

We love Martin Luther King Jr and are grateful for the steps he took to bring change

Don't give up on us.

I promise we are all alive and breathing and soaring through our school year. 

I have slacked on my teacher blogging posts and upkeeps and I do apologize to anyone who has been wondering why so quiet over there in the Hawk's nest?

I did update my layout since clearly it's no longer Christmas and I think that's a good start.

Stay tuned for updates, photos, and a better blogging Hawk.

Please,

don't give up on us.

Craft alert: Magazine Christmas trees

The 2 days before we got out for Christmas/winter break, our guidance counselor came in to do a super sweet Christmas craft with us. Magazine Christmas trees! 

All you need for these super cute trees is the following:

*thick magazines (the smaller ones will not make a full tree and you may have to combine 3-4 small ones to get the full look)

*time to fold

*spray paint

*adhesive spray

*glitter

 There are 3 different folds for the Christmas tree but they are not hard at all.  The part that can be tiring is folding all the pages.  My students were troopers and the lesson tied in for guidance was "perseverance and completing a project" 

 Once all steps are completed your tree will look like this

wa la

 Then you get to glam them up with spray paint and glitter 

The best part about our trees is that we talked about keeping them for themselves, or giving them away as gifts.  All of my students decided to give them to someone in their family for Christmas. Such giving hearts. 

Spreading Christmas Cheer

Our school adopted a local nursing home (the Lutheran Home), and our December project was to make them Christmas cards.  We went with the bright and festive papers and got busy with some thumbprint and fingerprint action.  Super simple. Super cute

We also discussed giving and the rewards of blessing others.  My students really got it and it made my heart smile when they said "can't we get them more things than just a card"? They wanted to do more. 

They turned out wonderful don't you agree?

 My Christmas tree card

 Tree number one in our room is pink. The kids love it as much as I do. It's right beside our bucket fillers so I think the tree feels pretty special:)

 lights off it shines so pinkly

 these are blue lights around the dry erase board right by the door. 

 ornament wreath hanging in our classroom

our second small green Martha Stewart tree.  

They take decorating these trees rather serious.

Me on the Map (a little late)

Found this fabulous idea for finding our location on maps on Pinterest and knew I had to do it with my students during our geography unit. 

They turned out amazing as anticipated:)

 Displayed in the hall . We received lots of compliments

Our school

 Our county: Forsyth

 Our state: North Carolina

hooray for pinterest! 

hooray for Me on the Map

Multiplication Songs

will be showing my students these for multiplication