How the world works

I LOVE teaching science, but honestly, sometimes I feel bogged down with how to fit it all in. Especially In the way that flows best for my kids' learning needs and the direction of inquiry.

Before spring break we started our 5th unit of inquiry--how the world works. Our central idea is: Patterns are a natural occurrence.

After brainstorming some patterns we see in nature, we kind of landed on patterns in the sky for a while.

This led perfectly to our provocation--there is no more light! One morning, I kept all the lights off in the room and covered the windows with black paper. The kids were so confused when they came in. At one point we even closed the door so there was only a tiny bit of light coming from the window in the door. It was dark! But we could still see a little bit and one of the kids pointed out it was because there was still some light in the room. I asked them what they thought the world would be like if there was NO sun. I wrote down their remarks in the dark and transferred it to a chart when we turned the lights back on. They had a lot of great thoughts and it led us to some areas to continue to take our learning.

Later that morning when we started our read to self time (and because it suddenly felt so bright in the room!), one of the kids noticed that the sun was reflecting off of the cover of her book. One of the boys pointed out it was a reflection and it was a PERFECT connection to when we read The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons later that morning. The kids really understood how the Moon does not make it's own light but reflects the sun thanks to our earlier demonstration! :)

We proceeded to start tracking the moon phases to notice the patterns there, and we have done a lot more with the sun, moon, light, shadows, etc.

BUT we are not totally done. The kids kept talking about how we need the sun so plants will grow, and I wanted to start growing some stuff, so I shifted us on to plants a little more, just by the books I put out during read to self time etc. It was a little hard to make the shift, but today we finally immersed ourselves in the world of seeds and plants.

Today was one of the days where I felt like I was able to really integrate my science and reading block together. We did shared reading using a  text from Reading A to Z about how seeds grow. During workshop, the kids were reading plant books during read to someone and writing down words worth noticing. There was a group using some books to help make some predictions about what kind of seeds were in the bags, and the writing group was beginning to draw a picture of what the playground would be like with no light (they will start writing in the next day or two).

Then we used our writing block to start our plant journals. We made some predictions, wrote down some questions, made some initial observations about our seeds before "planting" them and making more predictions. You can grab a free copy of our journals {here}!

Because we are in that tricky time of year when attention spans wane, and active levels go WAY up, it makes the need for hands on, engaging lessons so much more important! I want to work really hard these next several weeks to better integrate my ELA standards into our inquiry unit so that the kids are applying their reading and writing skills in more authentic situations.
Next week is going to center around the parts of a plant, so hopefully the kids will learn a lot through the integration and have a fun time learning in the process! :)

Don't forget to get your plant journal freebie!

Composting!

What I love about guided inquiry as a teacher is that I can GUIDE the direction a bit... I've always wanted to try composting-- at home and at school, and after we read the book:

we continued the conversation about food waste and composting, and I was REALLY hoping that someone would suggest we try composting....

Thankfully someone did! :)

So I told the kids that I didn't know too much about it, so we would spend some time researching it in the classroom to figure out how to do it! The kids had some basic background knowledge, thanks mostly to Peppa Pig's episode about composting. Another boy kept saying Worm

s, Worms.... (not going there quite yet!)

The night before I did a little online research to get started, but it was a process that we were really going to do together. In my mind, this was a going to be a "fun" day, off of our regular schedule. Little did I realize how this "fun" experience was really an authentic learning experience that allowed us to apply a lot of skills that we have been learning in the classroom. As I think back I probably could have planned out those moments better, but now I know and plan to do a lot more of this in the classroom!

We started the morning talking about how we research (CCSS W.1.7) We talked about how we could can use the internet or the library. We googled our question "How do you compost?" and started watching videos, reading some websites, and looking at images to find information (CCSS RI.1.6).

Then we wrote down some of our notes and findings:

Then we took a trip to our library. There we talked about where we should look for our books about composting--in the Fiction or Non Fiction section. The kids all shouted out nonfiction because we needed real books and ones that give information. (CCSS RL.1.5) That was good for my heart to hear that all those conversations about fiction vs. non-fiction were helping them apply it when they needed it! Then we learned more about the dewey decimal system and went in search of some books!

When we got back to classroom, I told the kids that I didn't want to read the whole book to see if it talked about composting and wondered what I should use to figure it out... That of course led us to nonfiction text features! (CCSS RI.1.5) I students suggested I look at the table of contents, but when that didn't give us enough information, i suggested we look a the index. That was a feature they had trouble understanding the purpose of, but after this experience, they definitely understand how that will help us! If the book didn't have either feature, we did a quick picture glance to find out the info.

 Then we started focusing on the recipe for composting and we found out we needed some browns and greens. The kids got a little confused when thinking that the object did not have to be brown or green to count as that kind of material, but they worked in groups to make a list of some things they could start collecting.

We collected food scraps from breakfast and lunch over the next couple days. We also gathered pine straw and dead leaves from outside. 

I found this resource that was helpful to me in figuring out how to do this small scale (classroom bin instead of an outside one). We do have a composter bin at school, but I am not ready to go large scale yet. 

Friday we made the compost recipe! 

We did a little bit more brown materials-- I read that it would help the smell not be so overwhelming. Every couple of days we need to stir it up a bit. I have no idea how it will turn out and really hope that it doesn't invite a lot of bugs into the classroom this weekend, but it was a great learning experience!! I am excited to see how this helps us change our thinking about food waste over the year. Once challenge is the fact that we are collecting a lot of the same types of food, so that can affect the balance. 

If anyone is an expert in composting and wants to share some advice, we would love to learn more!

I'm excited to incorporate more authentic learning experiences into our weeks. It is so important to help the kids see why what they learn is important and they were all so engaged I did not have to have some of the behavior conversations that I normally did!

I'm curious to find out on Monday what kind of conversations they will have with their families about the experience. In the days we have been focusing on food waste, I have been a lot more conscious of all the compostable materials I am throwing away! We are never too old to keep learning and reflecting!

When it all comes together...

You know when you are teaching and you know the way you WANT to teach, but then you are handed a textbook and you feel stuck... I felt like I had the tools, but wasn't sure how to use them...

UNTIL NOW!!

YAY!!

My district created an amazing curriculum guide to help us have a well balanced literacy block and its the first time that lesson planning has been FUN.

Yep. I said it. Lesson Planning is FUN! :)

(at least reading...math on the other hand... still working on that!)

The first full week of school we settled into our read to self and writing workshop routines.

A room full of reading kiddos is about the cutest thing ever!

They were so excited to get spread-out spots!

We are working hard on writing books as we start writer's workshop! I love starting with blank books to see what the kids choose to write about. It is so interesting to see who stays on topic, who likes to draw, who likes to write... I learn so much about their writing from it!

This week we started word study in full force! Blending, word building and word study stations!

For ages I had all these little letters that were in a plastic bag and I never used them. But this year for word study I'm making sure I do a better job with word building so I used the letters, some file folders and zelcro to make some word building folders! I LOVE them! at this point. The kids put the letters we are using down on the lower strip and then take them off to build the words 

(the stretchy snake cards are from Deanna Jump's guided reading packet)

 Last year our school bought us some more letter tiles so I organized those in bead cases from Michaels! There are not enough little sections for the letters, so I had to double some of them up. Each box has enough letters for two kids!

We started word study stations this week...

and taking it VERY slow! 

I love how Daily 5 has everyone learning the routines for the station at the same time, so I start with a couple of different easy stations to help the kids build stamina for working quietly. 

We have started with rainbow words (using short A lists), building our sight words out of play-doh, word family games, and stamp a sight word (you can find it here)! 

There was so much more I wanted to get done this week, but we are still busy getting to know each other too! More on this week's teamwork time in the next couple of days! :)