Biomes, Adaptations, and the Magic School Bus. Oh, my!

I realize I have not posted in a week.  I came down with a cold last Tuesday night, and since then it has taken all my energy to get through a work day and then go home and nap.  I also slept the entire weekend.  Apparently, this cold told me I needed rest.  I am ready to get back into my workout routine and even get back to blogging, etc.

I guess for this week, I am going to say my Tried It Tuesday is a thematic unit. We have been studying biomes in Science and English the last couple weeks, and so far it has been one of my favorite things we have done all year.  We have used lessons from Science, we have done a webquest, we have done projects, and we have done a lot of reading nonfiction.  I have been creating handouts to review all of the nonfiction Common Core Reading Standards while they read their book. We will do a major informational report next week after all of their research and reading for some more writing.  (Hopefully in the next couple days I will have a whole Biome research unit to post in my TpT store.  I am almost done with it.)  After this, we will spend the last couple weeks of school immersed in Westward Expansion.  I found it was too hard to do the Westward Expansion and Biome activities, so I decided to just focus on each for a couple weeks.

This is our last week of studying biomes. It really has been a fun unit.  I have loved watching my students practice their nonfiction reading skills, research skills, and the creativity they have shown.
For their final project on the unit, I gave them a menu of options. Their projects are due next Monday.  One of my students made a commercial for his biome (the temperate Deciduous forest) using iMovie.  You can click here to view the video. One of my goals this summer is to play with iMovie and Garage Band more to think of fun ways to use them next year.

Yesterday, we were talking about adaptations.  They spent some time reading their nonfiction biome books and looking for at least 5 plants with descriptions of the plant and the adaptations.  They had to make a 2 column chart.  You can see a picture of mine below. I usually try and do some of the same assignments they are doing.  I am reading about Grasslands and Prairies.



Then, we watched the Magic School Bus episode "All Dried Up."  The episode talks about adaptations and conditions in the desert.  In the episode, Arnold who is usually terrified of field trips is prepared for once.  He has created a field trip survival guide and survival kit.  I thought this was an awesome idea and felt totally inspired. Here is a copy of the episode:



My students are still reading and taking notes in their books about adaptations.  Tomorrow they are reading about animal adaptations. They will be creating their own field trip survival guides for their biome (just like Arnold did in the Magic School Bus episode).  I made a little booklet for them to fill out.  You can get a copy here.

Arnold made one for the desert, but each student will make their own guide for the biome they have been studying.

Today the students had to make a habitat for a polar bear that lives in a zoo in Arizona.  They had to create a model of their habitat and write a paragraph about it.  They had the option of drawing it, designing it on the computer, or trying to make it 3D.  Most of them opted to make it out of paper. This is one of my favorite student made polar bear habitats:



Make sure you check out Holly's 500 Follower Giveaway.  There are so many prizes, I got tired reading them all!  I am contributing $15 to my TpT store.

Like everybody else, my TpT store is on sale for 20% off today and tomorrow.  If you enter the code, TAD13, you can save up to 28% off.  What are your favorite thematic units for upper grades?

The Olympics as a Theme

I started training at my new teaching position this last week.  I am very excited about this new opportunity and this upcoming year.  By the end of the day though, I was exhausted.  Sometimes, I really am amazed kids still have energy at the end of the day.  Sitting and absorbing information all day wears me out. 

I will be teaching a 4th and 5th grade combined class at a private school and will be teaching with a more thematic approach.  I have decided that the Olympics would make a great first theme of the year.  I will be able to work with a theme for a couple months so not everything will directly tie to the theme, but I intend to use the themes to help guide some of my literature choices, activities, projects, etc.  For the Olympics, there are already some wonderful products on TpT.  I definitely intend to make some purchases.  Anybody already purchase any of the Olympic products geared at grades 3-5?  Anything you recommend?  I plan on doing some research for picture books, novels, and nonfiction that will tie well into the Olympics.  I definitely think I might do a Biography unit while covering this theme.  Biographies of various Olympians seems an obvious tie in to me.  Such great potential for discussing the ancient history of the Olympics and different cultures.  I do intend to put together some writing prompts and research and project ideas. 

What ways do you plan on incorporating the Olympics into your classroom?  My mom and my brother live in Utah, and my brother used to go to a charter school that is located at the venue where they did the the cross country skiing in the 2002 Olympics.  Every January, the school has their own Olympic games with various skiing and outdoor events.  I got to attend a few years ago.  It was pretty fun to watch. Different teams are made up of kids of all the grades and are supposed to represent different countries. 

Now, most students are not in a position to be able to participate in something that elaborate.  I have been struggling myself to find a balance in my life and make fitness and eating better more important.  I actually think while discussing the Olympics you also could very easily tie in some great discussions on health, good habits, and fitness.  I try to go to yoga consistently and have been trying to get into a running routine.  My husband and I just purchased better bikes and tonight went for a 7 mile bike ride.  I really need to start incorporating some weight training into my week because I have no muscle whatsoever.  Not even a little. 

My students will have a shorter day than usual and some of my students will be involved in outside athletic activities.  I will not really have a scheduled PE and recess because the kids will get a lot of physical activity outside of school.  However,  I do want to find fun ways to break up the day and get us moving. (As last week showed,  I get tired from sitting all day. ) I know kids need to move around if I need to move around.  Our building and outside space is a little non-traditional, so I am trying to think of some physical activities we could do that are inexpensive and easy.  Another teacher at my school suggested hula hoops and jump ropes, which I think are great suggestions.  I have seen other bloggers mention like fitness youtube videos they use in their classroom.  I've thought about trying to use some yoga.  What ways do you incoporate fitness in your classroom?  I was thinking this would make a fun liny party - sharing ideas about using the Olympics and fitness as a theme.  What do you think?  Is this a linky party you would be interested in?  Some of my other attempts at linky parties did not really go anywhere, so this time I thought I would ask your thoughts.

Don't forget about my Thirty One Giveaway for participating in my online party and my 300 Follower Giveaway.

Thematic Teaching

I have seen a couple really good posts on teaching thematically lately.  I think this seems like such a fun and interactive way to learn.  I wish I had done more of this when I was teaching.  I know thematic teaching is very common with PreK, Kinder, and 1st Grade.  I have also seen on TpT some teachers have made some really cute thematic center activities on the ocean, Kentucky Derby, farms, camping, etc.  The natural way to select themes is often based on seasons or holidays.

For older grades, thematic teaching often focuses on a concept related to History or Science.  I really want to develop some thematic teaching units and activities geared at grades 3-6.  Thematic teaching seems like a great method to give students opportunities for project based learning and applications for subjects they have learned.  I have been trying to brainstorm some ideas for themes that would be interesting for older elementary students. 
Starting with other ideas everyone could possibly relate to:

v  Shopping or the grocery store
v  Neighborhoods or communities (which is usually a focus in 3rd grade anyway)
v  Nutrition and food
v  Forms of technology like computers, TV, or video games
v  Amusement parks or roller coasters
v  Planning a vacation
v  Moving, going to a new school, or starting a new grade
v  Everyday heroes
v  Superheroes
v  Sports
v  Toys
v  Shopping for a gift
v  Making friends
v  The playground or a park
v  Outdoor activities like swimming, biking, or going on a picnic (Cold weather activities will be less applicable to everyone, but could always look at cold weather activities).
v  Board games like Monopoly and Life

If you do Science related themes, you could always do things like weather, water cycle, plants, animals, rocks, etc.  The theme would be based on the content of the Science curriculum.  You also could study the different biomes and then look at the ecosystems, weather, and features of each biome (I actually think this would be a great set of themes to cover).

For History/Social Studies themes, I have a few ideas on how you could structure themes:

v  You could organize themes geographically.  Students could study particular regions of a state or the US, countries, or continents.  For each region, you could look at landforms, climate, animals, culture, history, etc.
v  You could obviously just study particular periods of History and tie in other subjects to each period studied.
v  Instead of just looking at all aspects of a historical period, you could study different aspects of history in isolation.  (For example: Study how transportation changed throughout history, forms of communication, fashion and ways clothes are made, methods of printing, ways children play and spend their time, agriculture and food production, Sports, and the list goes on by industry or types of inventions.)  You could study each of these aspects of society one at a time and see how they have evolved. 
v  You could just focus on studying inventors or famous people.
v  You could use Historical Fiction as a unifying theme. 
v  You could use Current Event related themes like the Elections or the Summer Olympics.
v  Different types of military and what they do

An obvious set of themes that actually even tie into the Common Core Standards would be to look at fables, fairytales, folktales, and culture myths.   Along this same line, you could look at how societies are structured, how they record their history and stories, their guiding principles, and even discuss utopian societies.

You could always do an author study for Reading, but then find curriculum connections based on the content of the author’s books. 

Anyway, I want to develop some thematic units for my TpT store and would love some feedback on what teachers might be interested in as thematic units for grades 3-6.
My initial thoughts for each unit would be to include:

v  Vocabulary and related activities

v  Word wall words for the vocabulary

v  Suggested picture books that tie in to the theme with graphic organizers or activities

v  Suggested nonfiction texts

v  Printables to explain various aspects of the theme

v  Writing prompts

v  Task cards or tic-tac-toe menus with research ideas or writing or critical thinking questions

v  Suggestions of possible chapter books that might tie in

v  Grammar activities

v  I definitely want to tie in Science and Math, but how would depend on the theme

v  Each theme would probably include some sort of list of project ideas to allow students to do some cooperative learning and inquiry/research

Do you use thematic learning in your classroom?  How do you choose themes?  In the past, I focused more on a literature unit as my theme or a period in history. I absolutely love Historical Fiction, so this is one of my favorite ways to learn history.

Also, I found a really neat website when doing some research called eThemes.  It is a few years old, but it looks like it would have some great online resources for thematic teaching.