Packaging Parody (George's Marvelous Medicine)
This chapter book and activity fit perfectly together. I was so engaged in the first couple of chapters that we read that I was tempted to go buy the book to see how it ends, so I am sure kids would love it too! George's Marvelous Medicine had elements of humor, mystery, magic, and suspense-all elements desirable to children. What really made a difference, however, was the way it was read. Using different voices for the characters adds a lot to the listening experience. It may be out of the teacher's comfort zone, but how can they expect the kids to embrace acting and drama when the teacher is afraid to?? One fun activity to go along with the book is for students to make their own "magic" food or medicine. To do this, students are shown how to create a rectangular package. They use geometry skills to create the figure on card-stock/poster board, using real cereal boxes as guides, then decorate each side and edge, similar to a cereal box. Students use their creativity to create whatever product they choose. In our class, some people made regular cereal, and others created slime, mud, or magic cereal. We really enjoyed it and I'm also glad I know how to make a package now! :) Kids will love this!!
Folk Museum (Space Shuttle Spoof)/
When I walked into class this day, it was like I was walking into another time. We were not allowed to go into our regular classroom, we were sent to one next-door. The teacher was not being himself. He was acting very serious and mysterious. He was not our teacher, and we were not his students. He was our boss, and we were his secret employees, on a secret mission in space. The class was divided into 5 teams. Each team was given a letter that they were instructed to keep top secret. Each letter had specific instructions (which colors to use, what the mural should look like, etc.) for what to create on a space-shuttle in Hyper space that is being attacked by alien forces. We then were allowed to enter our original classroom, which was transformed into a mural workspace-very cool. We were instructed to paint one of 5 quadrants of the mural. We occasionally met as a large group, with the instruction of the teacher, to suggest ideas or get permission to adjust their parts of the mural. Other than that, we were not allowed to speak with other team members. This ended up being SO cool, and would be an awesome thing to display in a school. It could be done with any theme. It helps students work on cooperation, collaboration, community, and spatial reasoning. At the end, we were left with a beautiful display. I will definitely be doing this in my classroom (several times)!
Designing a Picture Book/Elder Poem
For an introduction to making a picture book, we practiced making one where the pictures tell the story. Instead of using words, we drew a series of illustrations that depicted an action, such as the sun setting, or a car driving out of the garage. We observed and analyzed the effectiveness of examples of this type of storytelling before creating our own. We were read an Elder poem while we drew which added to the creativity and literature flow of the project. I think this would be a great thing to allow students to do while you are reading poetry or stories. It is a relaxing activity that has really cool results. I can see students wanting to do this often!
Reading/Analyzing Picture Books/Creative Vandalism
Each "pod" of students was given four or five picture books to read and analyze. We had several goals. One, was to discover and practice our "reading voice." The second goal was to find the connection between the books. The final goal was to find some text with very visual, descriptive, unique, or powerful language. We then wrote these quotes on sentence strips to post around the room. This is mean to help students get ideas for their own creative, descriptive, visual writing. I can see having a whole room of these at times! It was such a cool display once all the groups had finished "vandalizing" the wall! I will definitely use this!
Getting the Audience Inside the Story
For this activity, students are read several books in a dramatic way, using different voices, volumes, and paces, making the listeners feel like they are in the story. We were then broken into small groups and given a book (see below). Our goal was to find a way to read the book to really get the audience engaged in and inside the story. One group acted out the lines of a poem. Another group created chants to go along with the story. Other groups used repetition and alliteration to get the audience involved. This not only helped us, as future teachers, discover a fun and interesting way to read a book, but also could be a great exercise for students to practice reading books to the class (while practicing drama and acting! A double plus!).
Design Projects:
We were each given a packet of creative art projects from a book called "Puddle Jumpers." Each small group of students read through the different projects, and agreed on one to work on throughout the week. Some examples included making a "Friendly-crow," the opposite of a scare-crow, a magic potion, a bird's nest with eggs, paper plate cards, letters, and more. Our group decided to create Mother's Day paper plate cards. This is a great thing to introduce students, to be resourceful when creating cards or presents for loved ones. I would like to try making the friendly-crow and bird's nest next time. They allowed for a bit more creativity and construction. The paper plate ended up pretty cool, but if I were offering the same project to my class, I might make them an equal amount of work (it is a lot more work to make a bird's nest, for example). I would then introduce the plate craft to the whole class before holidays. I like the concept of having each small group of students design some sort of creation to work on each day. At the end, you will be left with some pretty awesome designs! I'd like to get this book for my classroom.
3-D Creations
We were so excited to finally use the newspaper poles we created! Our original goal was to make one huge geodescent dome to take over our classroom. However, since didn't have the space, each pod group created their own 3D model of their choice. Little direction was given, to allow for creativity. We were shown examples for how to connect our rods, provided with necessary materials (push pins, card stock, scissors) to build with, and templates of 3D models for guidance. Each group created something different. One group made a miniature geodescent dome. Another group made a triangular prism. The third group created a diamond-like structure. We were able to hang these around the room, which looked really cool. This incorporates math, geometry, problem-solving skills, team work, creativity, and design. I know kids will absolutely love getting to build their own shapes, and it made it more rewarding to know that our hard work made the rods. I would love to try to make the giant dome so all students could fit inside!
Interactive Map Creations
The way you teach geography has a big effect on students' engagement and learning! Learning about topographic maps isn't necessarily exciting for students...but it can be! In this activity, we decided it would be best for the teacher to explain elements necessary for a topographic map, and then for students to create their own. This can be done in a picture book or illustration, or using the following activity. Students are given a variety of materials-several rocks, aluminum foil, yarn or rope, paper towel, plastic wrap, bubble wrap, etc. They are asked to use these materials to make a topographic map. A cool way for each group to present their map is by turning off all of the lights and using a flashlight to show the different elements of the map. This seems like a really fun activity for adults and children! If you collected some cool materials, it would have great results, leading to a more authentic, meaningful understanding of maps.
Using Poetry
Introducing students to poetry is very important and beneficial. Poetry helps students write better and express themselves in a meaningful, creative way. One easy way to incorporate it is through poetry chants. There are hundreds of these, just look online! One that we did frequently and enjoyed was The Old Duke of York:
Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,They were neither up nor down.
After chanting this several times, while acting out the rhyme by standing up, sitting down, and standing halfway up, we were instructed to leave out certain words of the poem, such as "up" and "down." This ended up being a really cool chant and we enjoyed repeating it during transitions, which is really effective in a classroom as well. Other ways of incorporating poetry is by frequently reading poems, asking students to read poems, and having students write and share their own poems.
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