Thankgiving take-home project idea for a real world application assessment

I can't believe my first semester of my PhD is almost over. It is almost over, but there is still so much to do. Tonight I just have a quick post.  I want to share a Thanksgiving Break take-home project idea.

I have been thinking a lot lately about wanting to give my students more authentic formative assessments with real-world application.  Last week my students were learning about speed in Science.  Our curriculum wanted them to understand the formula for speed being a relationship between time and distance.  I could have found some problems online and printed them out to practice the calculations.  I decided though I wanted to give them something that might have personal meaning to them.  I told them the assignment was to plan a day trip their family could take here in Texas. They had to pick a city here in Texas that they could drive there and back in a day. We then got on Google Maps and they plotted directions from their house to the city. Even though Google Maps gave them an estimated time to get to their destination, I had them compute the time using the formula for speed. 

For students who picked locations with an hour, they just used an average speed of 40 miles per hour to compute the time to reach the destination. For students who chose a city further away they assumed a highway speed of 60 miles per hour.  We talked about how choosing a lower estimate allows some room for traffic and slow downs. It gave them a chance to practice computing the relationship between speed, distance, and time, but they also thought about what it would be like to plan for that in real life. Students who wanted extra credit then planned out what they would do on their day trip while visiting.

For my students in Math grades 5 and 6, I wanted to give them a take-home project for Thanksgiving that would allow them to think about real-world math applications.  Many of my students are studying fractions, so I thought that Thanksgiving recipes was the perfect at home real world application. Before giving the project, we did a Math warm-up today answering some questions about a recipe. I got the sheet from this Thanksgiving Math pack from the Lesson Lady.  I am using her math sheets as warm-ups all week. She has a variety of skills covered, so it has turned out to be an easy way to get some themed math practice in when I don't have much time this week for more elaborate games and task card activities.

I typed up the directions for the project today and handed it out to my students.  I gave it as extra credit.  They are going to choose a Thanksgiving recipe.  They then have to transform the recipe for a different amount of servings (i.e. double recipe, triple the reciple, or cut it in half).  I told them to really think about their family's needs on Thanksgiving.  They then have to compute the new amounts for the ingredients based on the new serving amounts. The final part is to make the recipe.  They will either video themselves making the recipe or take pictures of themselves making the recipe and type up the directions to the recipe to go with their picture. You could easily turn this into a Math and Language Arts project.  I just assigned it for Math.  Many of my students seemed excited about it, so we will see how many choose to do it. You can get a copy of the directions I handed out here.  They are just simple directions in a Word document, but you can edit them as you need.

What are some ways you try to incorporate authentic assessments with real-world applications?

Writing Inspiration for Thanksgiving and Poetry

I have been a little absent the last few days.  We finished up school on Friday.  The last day before a break is always chaotic.  I thought I would magically get packed Friday night, pick up some stuff from the store for when I got back, clean my house, and you know...write some posts to schedule for my break.  I flew out Saturday morning to  Vegas. (I am here visiting with my mom and brother.  My mom lives in Utah, and I live in Texas.  We decided to meet up in Vegas for a few days.) I did pack and the house got vacuumed.  That's all.  So the laptop came with me, and I sit here in the Starbucks to give a brief post.

If you need some other last minute Thanksgiving ideas (not that you haven't seen a million of them by now).  If you are like me though, great ideas get tagged in your google reader for next year.  Here are some fun things we did last week related to Thanksgiving. 

We read the poem "Thanksgiving" by Edgar Albert Guest.  It is a great poem for this time of year and discussing mood and theme.  It is a relatively simple poem.  We read through the poem and underlined unfamilar words.  Then we discussed what the words might mean using context clues.  Then we labeled each stanza with the main idea of the stanza.  We followed up by using a graphic organizer I had created called "Poetry Accessories" to analyze the poem. We looked at things like visualization, sound, comparisons, mood, author's purpose, and message. It is from my Analyzing Poetry pack. My students then had to write a paragraph to show their analysis of the poem using the elements of the graphic organizer.  We completed these tasks together.  Going forward I am going to analyze our weekly poems in small groups as more of a guided reading lesson.  I think they will get more out of it in small groups.  Poetry is hard, but it really can be fun with elementary and middle school students to see them open up to thinking more metaphorically. I would like to follow up with writing more poetry.

I am trying to get back to my weekly writing inspiration series on my blog and with my students.  Each week I want to analyze a poem, quote, and picture.  Then, they use each of those items to inspire their writing.

For our quote last week, we used the following quote:

Source: heartbeatoz.tumblr.com via April on Pinterest

We used a form I had created to analyze the quote. They had to copy the quote down, write what they thought it meant, write how the quote made them feel, and write any connections they made to the quote. You can get a copy here.  After analyzing the poem and quote, they use the ideas from them to inspire their own writing.  They can write essays, poems, personal narratives, creative stories - all during their journal writing time.  I really like how our journal writing is going.  I am still struggling to figure out how often I want to publish pieces and really edit.  I have been using a lot of computer resources lately, so I am thinking we will save these more for publishing.  I am trying a lot of free technology resources right now, so they can learn how to use them.  Over time, they will have more choice and then I can conference more with them to work on the editing and revising.  Sometimes, technology is hard because you are having to teach the content as well as the technology.

We did a lot of letter writing last week.  On Friday, we read You Wouldn't Want to Sail on the Mayflower.  Then, we watched the Charlie Brown version of the Mayflower voyage on the "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" DVD. They followed it up by writing a letter from the point of view of a pilgrim describing their journey and the first winter.  The funny thing is that my students are doing fabulous with RAFT writing tasks where they write from another point of view, but really struggle with a basic summary.  So, I am thinking our next approach will be to write a summary from the point of view of a book character or person in history or something.  Not sure.  How is your writing workshop going?  Okay...back to Vegas.  (I know this post was not that brief. Mine rarely are. Hopefully, you don't mind too much.  If I am going to share an idea, I feel the need to explain it).

Nonfiction Fun Texts on the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and the First Thanksgiving

Today, we read Balloons over Broadway by Melissa Sweet.

The book is about Tony Sarg, the original puppeteer who got the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade started in 1924.  The illustrations are beautiful and very life-like.  It has a very collage-like feel to it.  I actually think this would be a fun follow-up project to the book to have the students create a biographical collage of text and pictures about someone of interest to them.

We read the book and created a character trait map on Tony Sarg. (Here is a Character trait map from Laura Candler.) He was very inventive, clever, and creative.  There are tons of examples of his creativity and inventiveness throughout the book. After reading the book, they researched the Macy's Parade and designed their own balloon.  My students really loved reading about the parade route and looking at the pictures of the balloon line-up on Macy's website. If you go to Melissa Sweet's website, you can download a discussion guide and activity kit for the book. I used the maze and the "design your own balloon" page from the activity kit.

I first read about this book from the blogs: Kid Lit Frenzy and Teach Mentor Texts.

Tomorrow we are going to read You Wouldn't Want to Sail on the Mayflower. 

It describes life for the pilgrims, but focuses on all of the gross and unpleasant parts.  Students always love it.  I am going to follow it up by having them write a letter back home to England from the point of view of a Pilgrim describing their journey and that first winter. Once again here is the interactive letter writer from Read Write Think.  Here is another one from abcya.com.

Disguised Turkeys, Newspaper Articles, and Persuasive Writing

I am going to actually finish all of the products I start one of these days.  Oh, well.

Today we presented our disguised turkeys.  Last week we read Letters from the Campaign Trail: LaRue for Mayor by Mark Teague. 

The vocabulary is fabulous, and the text structure really challenges students.  The story is presented half through persuasive letters and half through newspaper articles. This would be a fabulous story to discuss fact versus opinion and look at differences in newspaper articles and persuasive writing.  You also could look at the differences in opinions between Ike LaRue (the dog) and Mayor Bogwort on the mischievious behavior of dogs in Snort City.

We used this book as our segway from the election to Thanksgiving.  Just like Ike LaRue ran for mayor to represent the interests of dogs, we discussed what a turkey might do represent the interests of turkeys. My students had to present the viewpoint of their disguised turkey.  I gave them the option of writing a letter, writing a story, or writing a newspaper article about their disguised turkey and what he/she does to convince others not to eat him. Now, this is an activity I would like to work on expanding.  We will go more into the features of letter writing, persuasive writing, and newspaper articles.  Today I let them jump in and experiment.  We used the Read Write Think interactive tools to help us. Here are the links:

Those writing a story used the Interactive Story Map to plan out their story.  Those writing a newspaper article used the Printing Press tool.  Those that wrote a letter used the Letter Generator.

For my students who wanted to plan their articles on paper, I used graphic organizers that I had created for a product in my TpT store called Create a Novel Newspaper. (It is an activity I created to be a culminating activity on a class novel, but the graphic organizers could be used for any writing activity where you want your students to create a newspaper article or editorial.)

Here is a picture of my disguised turkey named Turbob, who is disguised as a cowboy or "redneck."



Here is a picture of my newspaper article on Turbob. 



I also am going to write a letter tomorrow from Turbob to juxtapose the letter and newspaper article just like Mark Teague did in Ike for Mayor.

If you are looking for some additional persuasive writing lessons and resources, click here for several fabulous lessons from Read Write Think. There are printables, Powerpoints, lessons, and interactive technology tools.

Persuasive Thanksgiving Writing Ideas

Here are a couple Thanksgiving writing ideas:

Writing Fix has a lesson I love called "Turkey Protests." It is based on the mentor text My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza where a pig convinces a wolf not to eat him.

The idea of the lesson is to write from the point of view of a turkey convincing humans not to eat you.  The lesson includes ideas, student samples, and graphic organizers for you to print out.  While doing this lesson, I like to also look at other persuasive texts or discuss things like examples of persuasion in media or billboards. Think of Chick Fil A and the cows convincing you to eat chicken.  You could draw posters of turkeys saying "Eat Beef" or "Eat ham."

We are going to use the interactive Persuasive Map at Read Write Think to help us.

I also am planning on doing the disguise a turkey assignment.  Even though it is meant for younger grades, my fifth graders have always enjoyed it in the past.  Here is a link to a free one on Teachers Pay Teachers. My students will write a paragraph describing their disguised turkey. You also could write a biography of the disguised turkey or a creative story about the disguised turkey. You could incorporate the disguised turkey into the Persuasive "Don't eat me" assignment.