Monday's Agenda
Jump Start!
Think about your favourite fairy tale. In 10 words or less, explain the entire story to your Pod!
Literacy Component: Jump Start is a consistent part of the student's schedule. Each morning students will be greeted with a new Jump Start activity to complete. Today's activity gets the students thinking about the Fairy Tales they know. This is linked to literacy because Fairy Tales are often associated with story books. This activity encourages students to highlight the key descriptors of their favourite story. Most students will explain their favourites from the protagonists' view.
Teacher Role: Once the students have been given time to reflect and share with their Pods, the teacher will invite the class to discuss the process. Using assessment AS learning, the teacher will ask the students to show using the thumbs up, thumbs down approach whether they found the activity difficult/challenging or easy. The teacher will then ask students to explain what strategies they could use to make the activity less challenging (example; pull out major characters and themes to describe the story OR describe the beginning and end only).
Intro to Point of View
This lesson introduces students to Points of View; first person, second person, third person limited, third person multiple, and third person omniscient.
Literacy Component: This lesson supports the curriculum expectations in each of the language strands in relation to 'Point of View'. The overview to this unit is critical in providing a foundation for students to understand the varying perspectives that can be both heard and seen in stories.
Teacher Role: The teacher will lead this lesson using co-created anchor charts. The teacher encourages a discussion, prompting students to come up with examples from fairy tales and other stories for each of the points of view.
Read Aloud: (as part of the Intro to Point of View lesson)
"The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!" By Jon Scieszka
Literacy Component: Read Alouds encourage attentive listening and help students to reflect, and visualize the story. Reading the story aloud helps the students to hear the different voices throughout the book. This story specifically helps the students to hear the story they know and love from a different perspective.
Teacher Role: The teacher will read the story aloud, modelling voice and expression. The teacher will prompt the students to inquire about the role of the wolf and his perspective throughout the book.
Guided Reading & Literacy Centres
Activity 1: Interactive Exploration: Students will create their own Fractured Tale using the online platform.
Activity 2: Writer's Corner: Write a letter to A. Wolf in jail! What questions do you still have? Do you believe his side of the story? What about Granny?
Activity 3: Read and Retell! In partners, choose a fairy tale from the class library. Before reading, decide what character (other than the protagonist) could tell the story. As you read the story together, use sticky notes to change different parts of the story to highlight the character of choice's point of view.
Activity 4: Word work: Create a word cloud with as many fairy tale related words as you can!
Activity 5: Guided Reading
Literacy Component: Inspired by the Daily 5 model, our classroom portal's daily Guided Reading and Literacy Centres offer students the opportunity to rotate through different activities that promote comprehension and writing tasks. During this 40 minute block, students are expected to complete 1 of the activities. Each day they should choose a new activity. Some activities are individual while others will require partner or group work. The teacher will select 1 group each day to work with in a guided reading circle. Each group works on a rotation.
Teacher Role: The teacher will need to plan and prep each literacy centre activity prior to the beginning of each day. The teacher can then leave out the centres with their written/visual explanations for the students to read through. The teacher should explain each of the centres at the beginning of the week. During this time, the teacher will lead a group in a Guided Reading circle. The levelled books chosen should have a fairy tale theme.
Math: Perimeter & Area
Students will complete a math challenge in their pods. The students will be given riddles that omit the area or perimeter of each of the 3 little pigs homes. Their job is to determine, using the information they have, the answer to the riddles. The final question is to determine whose house what the biggest. Students will share their findings with the class in a Math Talk.
Literacy Component: This activity directly correlates with the Fairy Tale theme as it uses the story "The 3 Little Pigs". Vocabulary and words to add to the word wall are also an integral component to literacy development and this lesson on perimeter and area.
Teacher Role: The teacher will begin the activity by providing each pod with the riddles. The teacher will also provide students with chart paper, rulers and markers. The teacher will then read aloud each riddle and explain the activity. The teacher should check in with each pod sporadically and support when necessary.
Art
Students will work in their pods to create the 3 Little Pigs homes using limited materials including straws, paper, cardboard, toothpicks, glue, tape and scissors.
Literacy Component: This activity directly correlates with the Fairy tale theme as it uses the story "The 3 Little Pigs". It is also important to discuss artistic vocabulary such as the elements of design.
Teacher Role: The teacher should prepare the materials for each pod ahead of time. The teacher will distribute the materials and explain the activity. The teacher should monitor each pod and ensure scissor use is safe and appropriate.
Social Studies
Students will compare two different photographs; 1 from a First Nations Community in Canada in the early 1500s and another from a present day urban centre in Canada. The students will be asked to complete the "I See, I Think, I wonder" (Edutopia, an Artful Thinking Routine, 2012) activity page. You can view this page here.
Literacy Component: This activity is linked with the Point of View unit as it gives the students a chance to engage in perspective. They are asked to first See the photographs, Think about the photographs, and Wonder or ask questions about the photographs. This invokes personal bias and perception to come to the forefront. This is a foundation for the next activity where they will be asked to Claim, Support and Question the same photographs, giving more thought to the perspectives of those involved in the pictures.
Teacher Role: The teacher will need to select the photographs to be used for this activity and then provide digital as well as print copies for the students to view. The teacher will explain the See, Think, Wonder activity and encourage a discussion on each of these components for each of the photographs examined.
Ten Minute Tale
This is a consistent end of day routine for the students. They are asked to write whatever they choose for 10 minutes in their personal journals.
Literacy Component: The students may choose to write about a lesson they completed that day or be prompted by the Fairy Tale and Point of View themes to create a story of their own.This activity promotes writing practice, encoding strategies and brainstorming.
Teacher Role: The teacher should remind the students that this is a free write period for themselves. Nobody will be reading these messages, stories, lists or doodles. It is simply an opportunity for students to engage in the act of writing.