We've Got A Diem to Carpe

in-backyards asked: We start around the middle of August, if that makes you feel better :)

Ehh kids go back like August 20th so not really :P our school year is 199 days. Ugh.

• I hate gardening
• I don’t know how to garden
• I’m not an artist/painter
• I can’t make this a class project since there’s no way I can take 24 kids outside while like three do the work (the box is like 2ft x 2ft)
• Meaning I have to do it on my own time
• I’m not staying after school to plant and paint
• I’m not going to home depot on a bus (don’t drive, remember) to buy flowers and stuff
• I’m not.
• Why am I being such a brat about this?
• It’s just like when I tell my non-artistic kids in class to draw a picture with their assignment and they put their head down and complain how they can’t draw and I say I’m grading them on if they try, and not how perfect it looks EXCEPT I am being judged on how perfect it looks

One of the girls in my class was being defiant, as usual. I asked her approximately 37 times to stop throwing her eraser. She didn’t, so her name was moved down on the behavior chart.

So… she undid the TONS of braids in her hair and took out all the beads and threw them all over the floor.

Seriously, the sight of this girl just undoing her hair (that she got done over the weekend) and beads flying EVERYWHERE was too much.

All I said was, “The worst part about throwing things when you’re mad is that you have to pick them up later.” And she did. And it was hilarious.

That is all.

I’m starting to piece together some locations, but I get them all mixed up. 

Okay, I’ve been planning my lesson and here’s what I’ve got. I will have about 45-60 mins of observation. The entire lesson will take longer than an hour, but admin will see enough to understand.

The lesson is for third grade, and we will be reading Diary of a Worm.

After reading the story and using Questioning the Author strategies throughout, students will work on a sequencing activity. At their group tables, they will be given an amount of sentence strips with the events of the stories written on them. They will need to put the strips in order. I don’t want to spend long on this, so I might make it a race amongst tables. I might scrap this part altogether.

Then, the students will begin working on their own unlikely diaries. We will discuss point of view, and review the parts of a letter. Students will have to create their own ten day diary from the point of view of an unlikely character. We will discuss how the author used facts about worms in her writing, so students will need to research facts about their creature of choice to put into their writing. I’m not sure if I will have pre-printed articles about various creatures OR if I can reserve the laptops for students to do research on. It will take extra planning for the pre-printed articles but will run smoother in class - however the laptops will give students more choices on the creature they want to research, though it will cause some “downtime” while handing out the laptops which my admin would probably comment on.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

I’m curious about your goals/objectives. If the sentence strips don’t fit your objective, I would definitely scrap it.

Edit - My Goals:To survive this lesson since it occurs in a TWO DAY week (Monday and Thursday are field trips, off on friday) and on tacky day. But - since my curriculum is done, I’m just reviewing things we’ve learned from the year. So, sequencing could fit in. The main focus is obviously point of view and parts of a letter for the journal aspect, with some science crossover with the research. I think I’ll have the sequence thing ready depending on how fast we get through reading the story.

Edit Edit: I’ve scrapped the sequencing, though I will have it available for early finishers. I need to create some templates (suggested by mrsjdr) for the diary for time’s sake. I’m scrapping the laptops and will have the information sheets available to students. I’ll need info on maybe 10 different creatures so students can pick. Does anyone know of kid friendly animal info sites that I could use?

• Woke up earlier than planned due to being FED UP, MAN with the nightmares last night (I thought we were past the nightmares?!)
• I just started Season 1, Episode 1 of The Office at 10am. How many episodes will I get through between now and 7:30 when the Pens play, if most episodes average at 22 minutes? This will be my math brain question tomorrow. Must factor in Murphy breaks.
• That’s it.