Road Map to June

My team met earlier this week to create a road map for the 4th and final grading period that starts a week after we come back from spring break.  It seemed strange to be talking about end of the year activities.  This year has gone by so fast!
I have to confess that a couple of the math topics we have to cover are NOT my favorites: time and measurement. So I am going to have to work very hard to muster up some enthusiasm for these topics. As Dave Burgess explains in his book Teach Like a Pirate, above all, we need to show enthusiasm for what we are teaching.  If you're having a hard time doing that, fake it or change your focus.  Since I am very enthusiastic about teaching problem solving, I'm going to try incorporating as many opportunities as possible for students to use their problem solving strategies into these units.  (Great book, by the way!)

But as we planned out the month of April, I got very excited!  We will be doing some of my very favorite units that month.  Our literacy focus is folk and fairy tales.  I love this unit, and so do the kids.  We read and compare different versions of stories, write letters to characters, practice story mapping and retelling, and identify character traits.  We work on fluency by doing reader's theater, and write our own fairy tales during writer's workshop.  (Here's a link to a math game freebie with a fairy tale theme.) In science, we will be learning about life cycles and will have eggs that we can watch hatch into chicks!  Then at the end of April I always do an Earth Day unit.  This leads into an activity we call Reading Restaurant.  Parents are invited to come to our "restaurant" and listen to their child read from a menu of books.

Each classroom has a restaurant theme that guides our literacy activities for the weeks preceding the event.  My theme is "McNab's Mother Earth Cafe," and I go all out with the 70's feel in honor of the first Earth Day.  I even wear a flower child costume!
Have a groovy day!

Graphic from DJ Inkers