Penguin Music Program and Earth Day

After being sick, it was a hard week.  I was so glad we only had four days.  Friday was a furlough day.  Each day I had trouble with losing my voice.  It's just not all there and I'm still coughing from the bronchitis.


I have a very active, noisy group of first graders.  I work with them all the time on how to behave and follow the rules.  Things were getting better until I got sick.  I think after being gone for a week and a half and having 3 substitutes the kids have gotten worse.  I had to spend a lot of time this week working on their behavior in the classroom and in the hall.  I hope I can get them back to where they were before I was gone soon.  It is exhausting!  


The first graders had their music program this week.  The songs were all about penguins.  It was so great since we are studying penguins in the classroom, too.  I taught the kids a poem called "Doing the Penguin" for the program.  We have three first grade classrooms.  Our music teacher is awesome!  She made some very cute vests for the students to wear.  

After the show - most of the kids had taken

off their costumes

The program was on Tuesday.  It was a busy day.  We had a fire drill.  Then we practiced in the morning with the risers for over an hour.  In the afternoon, the students performed the music for the whole school.  Their final performance was that evening for their parents.  They were wonderful and had lots of fun!

We learned about Earth Day while reading the book Arthur Turns Green by Marc Brown.  This book came out last year.  The kids loved the story.  We studied Marc Brown earlier in the year, but I saved this book for Earth Day.

We made a chart to go with it as the students learned about problem and solution in a story.  The chart was in the shape of a recycling bin.  We started using our ELD sentence frames and will continue next week with the speaking and writing parts.  The students are learning about contractions with this book, too.

The students also took a district writing test this week.  The state cancelled the writing test this year for fourth graders due to funding.  So, instead, the district is testing every grade in writing from kindergarten on up.  I think it was hard for some kids to do.  They were given two writing periods to do the test.  I'll be grading them soon and then our first grade team will look at some of them before we send the grade to the district.  Testing is stressful on first graders.

I'll be starting next week's lesson plans today.  I'm thinking about starting a poetry mini-unit.  In reading this term, we are to teach a poetry mini-unit and teach realistic fiction.  Maybe we can spend a couple weeks on Poetry and then return to realistic fiction for the remainder of the school year.

Returning to School and Arthur Turns Green

     I've been off school for 6 days from having bronchitis.  Two days in one week and four the next plus a furlough day and two weekends.  I'm ready to go back to work.


     I drove over to school yesterday to pick up a book so that I could write lesson plans for the next week.  I want things done a little earlier so that I'm not up so late tonight.  With Earth Day coming, I decided I wanted to read Arthur Turns Green and use that as my mentor text for the modeled reading and ELD lessons this week.


     I was at school briefly.  While I was there, I read the substitute's brief note.  This substitute was there for the last two days.  She's been in my room before.  She was there the first day that I was sick.  Her note said that she couldn't find any lesson plans.  I couldn't believe it!  I was so organized.  I put a bright pink binder together and put a title on the front that says "Substitute Plans and Notes".  How could she not see that?  I actually cleaned my desk the day before I got sick and it looks pretty nice.  This notebook is sitting on top of the desk.  Next to it is my Sub Tub with all of the books and papers that will be needed.  I drove over to work on Wednesday evening to drop everything off and left it all organized.  It was still there when I got there on Saturday.  


     I don't understand why someone didn't call me.  I could have told her where the plans were or e-mailed them.  I sure hope she didn't tell the principal.  I don't need more problems from her.  I'm going back today (Sunday) to get things ready for tomorrow.  I'm going to take a picture, as evidence, to show how organized things are.  


     I've written up my ELD plans using Arthur Turns Green.  I'm going to introduce contractions to the students and have them using them.  

I've come up with a form that I think I like for planning out the lesson.  It takes a lot of work to plan these ELD lessons, but I want to make sure I teach all of the important parts especially for my ELD students.  I have one student who doesn't speak much English.  He's Russian and in his first year of school.


I'd attach my ELD plans, but I'm not sure how to do that.  I only know how to attach photos.  Hmmm.  Something for me to learn how to do for another time.


Well, I'll take pictures of what we do this week and write later about how it goes.  


Last year Marc Brown's sister, Kim, came to my school.  She showed us the sketches of this book before it was published.  She talked about Marc and how he wrote his books.  She was in town for Marc's son's wedding.  Marc Brown's son now lives in Portland.  How exciting! Anyway, this is a great book for teaching about protecting the Earth.