Flower Theme Writing And Craft

Hello again! This week we started our plant theme. Sometimes it is hard to find new and engaging things for my kids to do for writing. Of course I use writing prompts that I think they'll find interesting, but they struggle to write a paragraph about any topic. Just simple things such as writing a complete sentence with capitalization and punctuation is still hard for them. Coming up with ideas is also challenging. I've also been trying to teach them about adjectives. The concept is so abstract to them... they just can't understand what I'm saying when I talk about "describing words." If you ask them to describe something, or tell you about something, they'll tell you a bunch of nouns related to the item, they'll tell you facts about the item, they'll tell you things the item can do, and they'll throw in some random words for no apparent reason... but it is so hard for them to come up with actual adjectives!

So for this project, we pre-cut flower pieces for them. (They got to choose the colors of the petals for their flowers.) They had to do the writing for the project and then assemble their flowers. First they wrote their names in the middle of their flowers. (In this picture I've covered up their real names.) Then on each petal, they had to write a sentence describing themselves. Robin came up with, "I am silly," "I am smart," "I am nice," "I am kind," and "I am friendly." Three of those are pretty much similes (nice, kind, friendly.) The other two, I really had to drag out of her. I gave her choices such as, "Are you serious or are you silly?" Brant came up with "nice" and "good" on his own, but his other petals ended up as 2 nouns and something he likes. Even describing themselves is challenging!

The rest of the flower parts were a little easier for them. On each leaf, they wrote something they liked. (Robin likes her mom and dogs, and Brant likes recess and lunch.) On the stems, they wrote something they wanted to do. (Robin wants to have fun, and Brant wants to go camping.)

For Teal and Towhee, who are only in first and second grades and are still struggling with just writing alphabet letters, I simplified it a little. They only had to write single words.

Here are two of the finished products. We hung them all out on one of our bulletin boards, with a background of grass and sky and sun, and the words "Watch us grow" above them. Feel free to use the idea, if you like!

Two Simple Chinese New Year Activities

Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well! In my little class we had an exciting week! We started out celebrating Valentine's Day and the 100th Day. (We ended up with a snow day on the actual 100th Day/Valentine's Day. Where we live, they shut down the town if we get one snowflake!) Then on Friday we did some Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year) activities. 

I am not completely sure how Lunar New Year works. I know that it lasts for 23 days, but I am not sure if Friday was the first day or the last day. I am pretty sure it is the first day, which means you still have time to use these activities if you'd like to. If its the last day. then maybe you can remember these activities for next year!

Anyways, I enjoy celebrating different cultures, and incorporating cultural holidays into our learning. Someday remind me to tell you about the Sight Word Dreidel game I made! For now, the first thing I'd like to show you is two different versions of our Yut Nori game. 

Yut Nori is a board game traditionally played in Korea, especially during Korean New Year, which is less well known than Chinese New Year but falls at the same time and is based on the Lunar calendar. I first learned about it when I was a caregiver for a child who was part Korean, and I wanted to help her and her siblings embrace her culture. I've heard that it can actually be as complicated as chess. If you want to learn more about the actual game, this website is a good place to start. It actually seems kind of similar to "Sorry." 

I simplified it quite a bit for my little friends, to benefit our varying amounts of time available and their short attention spans. I decided to use the game for math. I made two different versions. For the first, second and third graders, who are working on Touch Math Addition, I made a Touch Math Addition game. All I did was draw the game board on a poster board, write a Touch Math addition problem in each circle, and decorate one side of 4 craft sticks. (It is important to only decorate one side of each stick, and leave the other side blank.) 

The fifth graders are working on Touch Money, so I made a Touch Money Yut Nori for them. I wasn't sure how to make this, since I can't really just draw realistic looking coins. We have a huge tub full of fake coins that have come with various math curriculum kits over the years, so I decided to use those. I used a Sharpie to add the Touch Points to all of the coins, and then I hot glued them to the board. 

Here is how we played it. Each player puts their token in the blank circle in the bottom left corner. When it is your turn, you throw the four sticks into the air. (When I taught them this I was sure to show them the correct way to toss the sticks gently onto the game board instead of whipping them across the room!) If just one stick falls with the decorated side up, you go one space. If two, three or four sticks fall with the decorated side up, that is the number of spaces you go. If all four sticks fall with the blank side up, you go five spaces! The students had to solve the math problem on the space in order to stay there. 

Some people play the game using the rule that if you land on a space where another player already is, that player has to go back to start. For my kids this would cause a lot of tantrums. Good sportsmanship definitely needs to be addressed, but during math time my goal is for all of the students to actually do the math activity for as long as possible, so I changed the rule a little... if you land on a spot where another player already is, that player goes back one step. Going back one step is a lot easier for my kids to cope with than going all the way back to start, and we are more likely to keep everyone playing the game instead of having to stop and discuss the unfairness of it all. 

If a player lands on one of the spaces that leads to a path going across the board, they can take the short cut. The winner is the player who can get back to start first. 

The kids all enjoyed playing this game, and even requested to play it during their Independent Work time. I'd say that is a success! They also concentrated and paid attention the entire time. I was even able to get the third graders to circle the first number of each addition problem while saying the number, and then "count on" with the second number. (Usually they insist on counting every single dot on both numbers. No matter how we do math... using manipulatives, Touch Points, tallies, our fingers, etc... they really struggle with the concept of counting on.) I'd say it was a successful lesson!

During writing, we wrote about our New Year wishes. I explained how it was a little different from the New Year's resolutions we wrote about in January, because those were about improving ourselves and these were going to be about making a wish. The little kids just had to dictate and copy one sentence about their wish. The third and fifth graders had to write an opening sentence about their wish, three details, and a closing sentence. (The third graders mostly dictated and copied. The fifth graders had to at least try to write as independently as possible, although they need lots of help with spelling.) Each of them also drew a picture to illustrate their wish. We glued the pictures and paragraphs onto sheets of red construction paper. 

I also went to this site, where you can look up the Chinese symbols for your name. I looked each of the students' names up, copied and pasted them into a document, and printed them out. The students glued these to the tops of their papers. I added a gold string to hang them by. I wish we could have hung them outside, but it is cold and rainy here. So we hung them in the hallway instead. I think they look pretty cool! (By the way, you may notice that this writer claims that cats play video games. I was a little confused because he was actually wishing to have a cat. I asked him if he already had a cat and was wishing for another one, but he said that he didn't have a cat yet. Then one minute later he told me that his cat could play video games. I'm not sure if the video-game playing cat is the one he is wishing for or if he actually has a cat who can play video games. Remind me to ask him later.)

I hope you liked these two Chinese New Year ideas! Next week we'll be doing some President's Day activities and then delving into Black History. Check back soon!