Celebrate World Book Day on April 23rd with kids! Find fun activities and ideas, including a FREE printable book scavenger hunt!
Today I am brining you the perfect combination of back to school ice-breakers and games for those first days of school! Back to school is a crazy time and we all want to hit the ground running. There are routines and procedures to teach and we are ready to get to them the second those kids walk in the door. Building community and getting to know
My grade 2 social studies curriculum is somewhat "tricky". We are supposed to examine families and learn about traditions and celebrations. Easy enough? Not really considering our classrooms are made up of a variety of family dynamics. So a racked my brain trying to figure out how to cover the curriculum, allow each of my children to feel that their family is special and unique and not add more to their stress level because they have step-parents and step-siblings. Then it hit me like a strike of lightning! Patricia Polacco!!! Her books are fantastic and they are full of traditions and celebrations. Finally I had a springboard for my unit! Yippee!! First and foremost I do NOT claim to be an expert on families. While we all have them – they are complex at best. In many of our classrooms, discussions about family have to be done “carefully.” It is often no longer just about having a mom and a dad. Celebrations, such as Christmas can be stressful for our students has they struggle with spending some time with mom and some time with dad. Step-siblings are a reality for many and this can get very confusing as you talk about family trees. I have attempted to create images of families that capture those similar to our students. I have chosen Patricia Polacco books as mentor texts because I feel her stories can enable us to have many rich conversations about family. This is a list of the books I used: *When Lightning Comes In A Jar *Thunder Cake *In Our Mothers' House *Some Birthday *An Orange For Frankie *Trees of the Dancing Goats *Rechenka's Eggs *The Keeping Quilt Other Books: (not by Patricia Polacco) ~ These three books are fantastic!! *The Matchbox Diary *The Family Book *Throw Your Tooth on the Roof In the unit I have included a booklet/project for students to complete at home with their family. I have included many "interactive notebook" style pages, covering topics, such as different families, traditions and heritage, origins of traditions, and celebrations past and present. We are not finished the unit yet but I wanted to share so pictures with you:) The kids have learned so much about how traditions and celebrations are passed down to future generations. We started out by looking at lots of pictures of different types of families, including same sex families. This sparked a lot of discussion about their own families, too:) Then we did a little follow-up about how their family is similar and different. At the bottom of the page they wrote what they thought was the most important thing about a family. The next day I read the book "In Our Mothers' House". The book is about a female couple that adopt three children so it was a great story to help the children to see that families are not always made up of a mom and a dad. But the story focuses on how they are just like every other family - full of love! The kids completed a Venn diagram flapbook that focused on how their family and the family in the book were different and similar. I read the book "The Keeping Quilt" because it is a wonderful story about how a family quilt is passed down through the generations. It also talks about how celebrations change over time. It's like it was written for my curriculum. After we did a little sorting activity I had the kids colour code each generation. "Thunder Cake" is another wonderful story about how Patricia's Babushka helps her to overcome her fear of thunderstorm. We talked about how our families make us feel safe and secure and we recorded our stories in this little flapbook activity. We also did a timeline activity as a group. The next book up was "Lightning Comes In A Jar". This story was about a wonderful tradition in Patricia's family ~ a family reunion! After the story we made a chart of all the traditions that were talked about in the book. Each child picked two to record under the firefly flaps and then they wrote about two of their own family traditions under the other two flaps. "Some Birthday" is a funny story about one of Patricia's unforgettable birthdays! They kids loved this book! Then we made a flap book to record two of our favourite birthday traditions. I needed to talk about how traditions and celebrations change over time so I thought that Thanksgiving Past and Present would be a good activity to cover that expectation. That's as far as we've gotten so far. We still have two activities about Christmas (traditions in our own family and what countries some of our traditions come from), and we will finish with a fun activity about tooth traditions around the world. Okay I'm done! If you stuck with me to the end ~bravo to you! If you are interested in taking a closer peek at this unit you can click HERE and it's still 20% off until tonight at midnight! Enjoy your weekend! ~Natalie
I was so eager to get back to my kids this week. Eager to hug them and talk to them and let them know I loved them. Coincidence or not, on Friday I pulled my kids together to talk community building and all things family. I have always been so big on building community in...
These worldschooling communities and educational resources will help you ensure the kids learn a few things along the way.
Pick something off this list of family-friendly volunteer opportunities to spread kindness and participate in community service projects with your kids.
Need some help learning Latin at home? That's how we felt when we first cracked open our Latin books. Learning Latin is an important aspect of a truly Classical Education. When you can see the truths about your own language while studying an orderly and systematic language like Latin, you gain a deeper understanding of…
The Field is a joyful soccer story just in time for the World Cup! A girl and her younger brother rouse their community—family, friends, and the local fruit vendor—for a pickup soccer (futbol) game. But will a tropical rainstorm threaten their plans?
When pursuing DEI work, start from the premise that bias is normal, writes Fonati Abrokwa.
Cooperative Learning through Problem Solving contains sets of cards that encourage students to work together to solve the given problem. All of the problems
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled a school district justifiably dismissed a science teacher on grounds of insubordination who kept a Bible on his desk and taught his religious beliefs in class, but the majority in the 4-3 opinion was scolded by a dissenting justice for evading the constitutional issues presented by the case. The majority…
Ein Waffenschmied werden. Waffenschmiede sind geschickte Metall- und Holzhandwerker, die gelernt habe, Waffen zu bauen und zu reparieren. Manche Waffenschmiede verdienen mit ihren Fertigkeiten ihren Lebensunterhalt, während andere das...
Share Wildflower Ramblings! I am thrilled to bring you a list of living books, by week, for American History that can be used with Classical Conversations Cycle 3. I love the relationships and community that my family has been so richly blessed with from our Classical Conversations community. It has taken me a while to...
Blogger Richard Curwin looks at improving the sometimes dysfunctional dynamic between teachers and parents by having them respect each other's efforts and put the student first.
There are similarities between crisis-schooling and homeschooling, but there are many differences as well.
Happy Friday! (Don't you just love the summer when you forget what day it is?) I am linking up with Cara from First Grade Parade and her weekly Favorite Pins Friday to share some of my recent Pinterest finds! Favorite School Pins: Completely agree, although I do love the Target Dollar Bins this time of year :) :) :) Love this chart from Using My Teacher Voice for the first week back to school! Favorite Style Pins: Chevron nails? Yes, please :) Currently obsessing over polka dots and chambray! This color combination takes my love of all things teal/turquoise and brightens it up! Love it :) Favorite Quote Pins: Yup! My besties, teammates, and husband probably think this is my personal motto ;) This is *by far* my most favorite quote If you don't already, be sure to follow me on Pinterest to see a whole bunch more! Have fun checking out the rest of the great finds over at The First Grade Parade! ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ I am *EXTREMELY* excited to announce a new collaborative blog I am a part of for 2nd and 3rd grade teachers!! Owl-ways Be Inspired is filled with some of your most favorite 2nd & 3rd grade bloggers and we are all so excited for the opportunity to collaborate and share with you! Best part? There is a gigantic Grand Opening Giveaway that started today filled with a *ton* of back-to-school goodies! Head over right now to check it out and be sure to follow us on Bloglovin', Facebook, and Pinterest! Have a wonderful weekend, friends!!
Lesson 1 Resources: Download the Lesson 1 worksheets to follow along with Andy. Practice declining nouns in the first declension with this worksheet. Print the Lesson 1 flashcards (review vocabulary with the video at the bottom of the page). How to decline a noun in the first declension. (Henle p. 8) Identify the forms of these…
Raising a child with a disability is a challenge to most parents. The study explored the experiences of parents of children with disabilities in Bulawayo. The specific objective was to determine the challenges which parents of children with disability encounter at home and community, which may hinder them from living life the way they would wish.…
Information on the social-ecological perspective and how it can help children, young people and families who are experiencing poverty.
Share Wildflower Ramblings! I am thrilled to bring you a list of living books, by week, for American History that can be used with Classical Conversations Cycle 3. I love the relationships and community that my family has been so richly blessed with from our Classical Conversations community. It has taken me a while to...
Hi everyone. It is Sunday evening. Thankfully I already have my clothes ironed for tomorrow! That is always a bonus in the morning. I also worked on doing some organizing in my craft room, while watching Netflix. I love watching shows that I remember watching in my youth. Currently, I am going through an "Adam-12" kick. Does anyone else remember this show? I had to laugh because as a child I remember trying to figure out what they were saying on the police radio when Reed and Malloy got a call. I always thought it sounded like "Seated Man" and I never could really understood that. Now when I watch I know it is saying "See the Man". . .LOL In first grade tomorrow we are reading a book called "Franklin's Neighborhood". I have a lot of Franklin books but had not heard of this one . . .we realized it is one of the older Franklin books and in fact it is only available used or through second party sellers. Anyway, it follows Franklin as he works on a project in which he tries to decide the best thing about his neighborhood. . . Click here to see it on Amazon After we read the story, I am going to have my class do this: Click here to download and print Have a great Sunday evening and fun Monday!
Try out these 27 chatbot prompts for families and share your favorites with your school community before the next vacation break.
Free online education resources for all ages. This free education resource archive is the product of months of research into educational resources for anyone seeking to take online courses or work with their children at home or as an addition to traditional learning. This list is extensive and covers the best we've found including a wide range of topics and levels of classes/courses with options utilizing videos, tutorials, lectures and more.
More than 4,000 people are homeless on the streets of Portland. Upwards of 11,000 more people are dangerously close to being homeless. Here is our “7 Myths About Homelessness” infograph…
The EYLF is a guide which consists of Principles, Practices and 5 main Learning Outcomes along with each of their sub outcomes, based on identity, com...
Is it a reflection of a warm school culture, or a subtle way to get teachers to work even harder? If you suspect it's the latter, it's time to push back.
