Our big finale luncheon!

We had a wonderful celebration of the Arts Bridge program and many that presented, drove home the fact that arts integration WORKS!

I loved all the success stories and enjoyed getting TONS more ideas of things I can do. I found myself thinking, "why didn't I think of that, I am totally going to do that in my class."

For part of our presentation at today's luncheon, I shared this "movie trailer" for a fake movie. I used photos of our final day together when I brought along 10 animals. We learned 4th grade science. I made them promise not to make the other 4th graders next year feel bad that they already had learned this... HOW TO CLASSIFY ANIMALS like a scientist.  I reminded them that clear back in November they learned about the Musk Ox from the Arctic Tundra because... I brought with me a pelt of one of these BOVINE animals (different than a buffalo and bison). Here's a picture of one:

I'm telling you about this because I told the students, "whenever it is worn like a wig, it changes your voice. watch this" and preceded to put it on my head and talk like a surfer dude. They all wanted to try it but then.... "HEY! It doesn't work!"  I had to wink and say, you need to do some acting! Come on! I'm an acting teacher! Don't you remember anything I taught you! And we had a fun final day together. So, here's the "movie trailer" for a movie called "Animals Everywhere".

Look for both me wearing the Musk Ox "wig" and the white dry erase board at about 24 sec. after is says "CAN YOU CLASSIFY?" the diagram on the board that helped 3rd graders learn 4th grade science!

https://youtu.be/10IDGlgYvks

Thank you for reading my blog.  If you're having trouble posting comments, feel free to email them to me!

DavidShipp@byu.edu

Friday the 13th of March

Made a "final" visit to Foothills but I still want to go back again. I brought with me ten animals from the Beam Museum. A cougar, a bobcat, a great horned owl, carp (in a jar), River Otter, porcupine, Red-tailed Hawk, Ptarmigan, Musk Ox (pelt), and an Arctic Fox.

We got some great photos and video. I will need to post it later. 

First Visit to learn about Space Exploration

I wore my one piece ski jumper to try to look like an astronaut but was told, maybe if I wore a helmet I would've pulled it off. The class agreed I didn't look all that much like an astronaut.

We tried a new "I have... Who has?" activity but it didn't go that well because we hadn't learned much about the moon yet.

We read "Starry Messenger" by Peter Sis.  Here is the book's description from amazon.com:
"In every age there are courageous people who break with tradition to explore new ideas and challenge accepted truths. Galileo Galilei was just such a man--a genius--and the first to turn the telescope to the skies to map the heavens. In doing so, he offered objective evidence that the earth was not the fixed center of the universe but that it and all the other planets revolved around the sun. Galileo kept careful notes and made beautiful drawings of all that he observed. Through his telescope he brought the starts down to earth for everyone to see."
http://www.amazon.com/Starry-Messenger-Galileo-Peter-S%C3%ADs/dp/0374470278

We then did a few tableau and I did some thought tracking. And the students were super awesome at this.

Pictures... coming soon!

Many visits... and behind with the blog.

I've been many times to teach about THE MOON and I'm so far behind in the blog posts. My first visit I wore a ski jumper to look like an astronaut. The kids were honest and said I don't look that much like an astronaut but that they could pretend a little bit. Then someone said, "It would've really helped if you had an astronauts helmet. That would have been really good."

I've only got one last visit. Also, next month we've got the big celebration... so I figured, I might as well get some of the finale type presentation materials together so I'm also able to share them with our class to recap lots of the cool things we've done and learned.... so....

Here are a couple "Movie Trailer" videos I've put together.  And like I said, I'll be using these in the big finale luncheon presentation next month.  

This first one is highlighting the Habitats lessons we did at the end of 2014 before Foothills went off track for the winter break.  I would like maybe do another to really highlight the day we did the centers and I'll post that next week sometime with lots of photos too.

Habitats video:
http://youtu.be/61n1-XFnRoQ

Then I put together a quick video about the moon readers theater work we've been working on and you can see that here:

http://youtu.be/_U4W9HE5jFM

Finally... for now...

Here is a photo of everyone in our wonderful class. No one was absent this last Friday and

we did the cheer I learned in Ms. Reader's class last semester: 

"Hip hip hooray 3Xs... Everyone is here today!"

Habitats Lesson Four

We started the lesson with this voice thread after explaining...

.... "I am the Arctic King and am throwing a party. You will choose one of 16 different animals. You must become that animal and approach my throne. You must tell me what you can bring to the party and if I like it, you may be allowed to enter my palace for my awesome party. If I don't like it, you must go back a try again!"   We continued to tell the class, you make take a few notes as you learn about these 16 animals that are in the Arctic Tundra Eco System so you can know what you might say to the king to get into the party!

Here is the voice thread:  https://voicethread.com/new/share/6414770/

I would have liked to include the sounds each animal makes as well during the voice thread, I added in a few at the end.

There were the pictures of each of the 16 animals on the walls spaced through out the room for them to stand under to know which animal they would like to play. We limited the groups to no bigger to four students. 

We then "played" the "Arctic King" game. Only one group "The Arctic Wolves", had to go back a try again. One of them said they would eat ME!  A few of the groups I could have sent back but I just kept asking, "Well what else can you bring to my party?"  (photos to come)

To end the class we played the "I Have... Who Has" habitats game again from the previous week.  (video to come)

Habitats Lesson Three

One week ago today, we used four learning centers (Math, Language Arts, Writing, and Art) that used habitats as the base of the information.

• For Math it was all about the animals in the Serengeti - as well as students beginning to learn about fractions.  Click HERE to see the PIE charts we learned from. 

• Students at the Language Arts center had to read a page of information about the Arctic Tundra to find the answers to a page of questions they had to answer.  I used TeachersPayTeachers.com to find this awesome Arctic Tundra packet of lessons and activities. 

• For the Writing station, students went through a Power Point over view of the Desert to then write just three things they learned using a page with a picture to color at the bottom of the page of the desert. This one went so quick, so I luckily had an extra activity, I had this group sort pictures of plants and animals into labels of four different habitats: Desert, Rain-forest, Grassland, and Arctic Tundra. (many thanks my fellow Elementary Education colleague for letting me borrow her beautiful presentation)

• The Art center was cutting and pasting the names of many habitats. Then after matching the names of the habitats, they got to color the pictures. 

After everyone had finished their first center, we took a quick break to "play" short game and talk about acting. I reminded the class as actors, we add information to a scene typically in three ways:  VERBALLY (by talking, the lines of our character), EMOTIONALLY, and SPACE WORK (the props we use and how we interact in the space on stage or on the movie set).  I taught them briefly about "Life Coming In" and that the characters we play in a performance don't just magically appear as they make an entrance but something happened just before they enter and sometimes maybe years ago something had happened that is still influencing that character's life and behavior and view points (opinions) in that very scene. I asked them to each make an emotional choice and have a "back story" about the card they had to play the "I Have... Who Has" game with a Habitat Theme. I wrote "Happy, Sad, Fearful, Angry, and Loving" on the board to remind them of some powerful emotions for some suggestions.   This was a huge hit and the class wanted to play it again immediately once we were done.  They would have to wait a week to have another go at it as we played it again today.

Once we finished all our centers, we then played a final game to end the class called "Barn Yard". 

There are 3 animals from each of the Serengeti, the Desert, and Arctic Tundra. All the animals make distinct sounds. 

We printed just 3 copies of this page. 

Each person is given the name of an animal with 2 other people having the same animal. We spread across the room. No one was allowed to tell which animal he was. At the signal each person made the noise of the animal and moved like the animal that he had been given. When we found all of our animals in your group and we sat down until everyone found their group.

Habitats Lesson Two

Went to Foothills Elementary on Friday afternoon 12/12/14.  Lesson objective: to be able to sort organisms that use different types of camouflage.

Because we had the gym for a limited time, we did the lesson a little out of order. We played some theater games after reading through this awesome lesson that is on-line. Much of it was review but there were also some new vocabulary and content to enhance what we learned on my first visit.

In the gym we did a mirroring exercise with music. I told them one of the four categories of camouflage is MIMICRY where animals will look like something else that is poisonous, dangerous or tastes bad to avoid being prey to other animals.

Then we did a theater experience where we were FLOCKING to music. Click HERE to see the video I took of our flocking. I think Mrs. Webster's video will be better and will post it soon. Before we began, I told them for those that are leading, be willing to fall back and allow someone else to have a turn to lead. After the song I taught them that in acting (especially improv) you need to "feel" when it's your turn to lead and when it's time to follow. There must be "give and take" and when it's your turn to take - TAKE IT! but when it's time to give, be willing to give. Often you must just "feel" this and trust your partners on stage.

We then played a game of tag where those that were "it" were "predators" and those trying not to be tagged were "prey".   To become "camouflaged" a "prey" just had to stand on one foot with arms out stretched. But you could only stay like that for 5 seconds. I forgot to tell the "predators" that there is "no guarding" allowed and it looks like a future lesson (around Valentine's Day) will be about RESPECT and KINDNESS.  :-)

Back in the classroom we very quickly (too quickly) went through this power point I put together to learn about the four different types of CAMOUFLAGE. We then used three different versions of a quiz to see if they could identify each of the four different kinds of camouflage. Here is a link to the a PDF that includes all three (3) quiz's.

The kids really liked many of the photos the animals in the Power Point.