Chinese New Year Lesson

I show students our Chinese lion puppet and we choose a name for it. My favorite so far is "Lena" although the boy who suggested "Hello Kitty" got lots of laughs.

Next we read the book, Chinatown by William Low, which is written in first person about a boy who travels through Chinatown with his Grandma. I have each student take a turn holding the puppet on each page. The story has the two walking so the students have to walk the puppet and do what is on the page. I insert the name the kids gave the lion so it sounds like Grandma, Lena, and I travel together through Chinatown. On the page where the main characters meet the cobbler I have the students say "hello" in Chinese and English. At the end we say "Happy New Year" in Chinese and Cantonese.

 The Chinese Librarian, Rose, overheard us and said she wants to expand on the story and do even more with Chinese words with the students connecting the story to the Mandarin curriculum. She explained that the students just had a guest puppeteer and are making puppets in Mandarin classes. Next they will tell stories using the puppet stage. She wants to connect with that lesson. I have quite a few hand puppets - maybe they can make up stories using the hand puppets. I'll have to talk to the kindergarten teachers. Let me know if you have a good puppet lesson. They sure love puppets!

 

 

Book Talks with iTouch

Visiting author, Ralph Fletcher, is coming to our school in two weeks. I had students in grade 5 get into 5 groups and read his picture books. They had to then create a book talk on the book they read. They wrote a script beforehand and then videotaped themselves using the iTouch and students were able to finish in 45 minutes. The first group decided to setup chairs while the second group propped the iTouch on a chair, reversed the screen, and each took turns taping themselves. It was interesting to see how each group did it differently. Make sure you tell students to not be silly with the cameras and stay with their groups. I will play the book talks on the LCD screen outside the library when the author visits.

The example below is the group that proppred the iTouch on a chair and reversed the screen. I downloaded a 2010 PowerPoint template and followed the directions in the notes to create the video below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YuZk_8VFsA[/youtube]

 

Art & Max: story mountains

This lesson involved students creating a story mountain from the book, Art & Max, by David Wiesner. A story mountain is a way to look at the structure of a story and examine how the story has a main character with hopes and desires who gets into trouble or has a problem that is resolved by the end of the story. Grade 4 students have been working on story mountains in readers and writers workshops.

First, I asked students if they knew anything special about this author. David Wiesner has won 3 Caldecott medals and only one other writer has done this in the history of the Caldecott medal. One of the library standards in elementary school is for students to understand the purpose of children's and young adult book awards. In addition, Wiesner is a brilliant artist and I try to show his contributions to literature throught the medium of this work. The story in this book is about the creation of a piece of art and the exploration of the medium. I pointed out to students throughout the story the illustrations shift from acrylics, to pastels, to watercolor. Art also changes at the end and is inspired by Max's pointillism and creating an abstract piece of work on the cactus.

The objective of the lesson is to create a story mountain. To begin, I asked students to describe the two distinct character traits of Art and Max.  (This ties in with grade 4 language arts where they study how characters change from the beginning to the end of the story.) From the first page, Max is high energy and loveable in an annoying way. He flies across a double-page spread running over two assistants and knocking Art's paint brush out of his hand. Max is so excited to see Art paint he's a bit reckless in his enthusiasm. Art is the expert who has three assistants and is a bit of a snob. Art is annoyed with Max in the beginning but changes at the end when Max opens his eyes to new possibilities in creating a work of art.

The structure of this book is fairly easy to follow and the pictures are hysterical. Students were able to recreate the story mountain although there were debates in every class as to what the climax was in the story.  Art lets Max paint with him but tells him to stay out of the way. Max doesn't know what to paint and asks Art. Art replies by telling him to paint him. Max takes Art literally and paints him. The acrylic paint hardens and cracks on Art before exploding off the page to reveal pastels beneath Art. Max is fascinated by what the medium is doing while Art is furious with Max. Excited, Max rushes off the page with one finger in the air indicating he has an idea and that Art should just wait there for him. He comes back with a fan and blows the pastels off of Art who is feeling dry-mouthed from inhaling pastel dust. He asks for a drink of water and the medium turns into watercolors. Art drinks the glass of water and the watercolor washes off him completely leaving only his outline. Completely fed up with Max, Art stomps off the page while Max says "wait a minute" and grabs a hold of his outline. Art completely unravels so that he has disappeared from the page. Max holds the tangled outline in his hands and with a baffled look says, "Arthur?"

Max then sets to work with determination, his long lizard-like tongue hanging out of his mouth, as he concentrates on putting Art back together. His first attempt is quite comical and the students laugh the hardest at this page no matter what age group I read it to. Next, Max puts art back together and the students "ooh" and "aah" as the simple lines become more complex and Art becomes recognizable. Once he is back together Max holds his finger up because he has another idea. (Uh-oh, the students groan, along with the assistants who are shaking their heads). Max comes in with a vacuum cleaner and blasts Art with paint. Art looks completely different covered in dots to represent Pointillism. I then have a slide of famous paintings in Pointillism by Paul Signac and Georges Seurat. Last, I show a 2 minute video that Wiesner narrates about how he writes this book. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuIsAIKiNgY[/youtube]

The last part involves writing a story mountain and we used the Epson projector for this part. I projected a graphic organizer and the students filled in the blanks. The climax was usually hotly debated by the students. Except for the class where the student yelled out dramatically at the point where Arthur has disappeared, "Oh-no! He killed him!"

I had a student videotape me giving this lesson and there were several things I would do differently. I should drop the Pointillism slide. It takes away from the story mountain. While the students found it interesting I think it was distracting and made the lesson too long. Children's picture books and how it relates to fine art is a personal interest of mine and while it adds to an appreciation of illustrators it muddied this lesson and the objectives. Also, I should have had students turn and talk to a partner before they came up to write on the Epson interactive whiteboard with the story mountain worksheet . In another class the answers were way off and I think I should have intervened with the correct answer sooner. It can be a challenge mastering the "art" of teaching.

Here's some highlights from the book when I was reading it to the students. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9UzJEPC1nE[/youtube]

QR Codes

QR codes or Quick Response codes were developed during the 1990's but have only recently become popular with the increased use of  mobile phones. This lesson involves publishing book reviews and applying the QR code to the book so it can be read by other patrons. 

Fifth graders wrote book reviews in the classroom and saved them in Google docs or Word. I had students put the reviews on their blog, generate a QR code, and put the QR code on the book in the library. Using an iTouch, the students scan the QR code which then goes to the URL with their book review. 

• Lesson Activity

Materiels: laptops, scissors, tape, iTouch, QR code example

 To begin, students put their reviews on their blogs. Many copied the URL incorrectly on this step. This only happened when we published the blogs and created the QR codes on the same day or during the same 45 minute lesson. Many students copied the preview page of the blog or didn't hyperlink to the book review page. I taught this lesson to six 5th grade classes and once I required students to check with me after publishing their review did the errors go down to a manageable amount.

The second part of the lesson involved students opening a QR code generator at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/. (I used DyKnow to push the URL codes to the students which saved time.) There are many codes available, I just chose this one because the Jeff Utecht, instructor of our technology class, suggested it. This QR code generator has the http:// already in the link. Make sure students delete it. Many pasted their URL in the box and had two "http://"s which caused the code to not work. Also, tell students to choose the "S" for a small code. When printing choose the box "Pages 1"; otherwise two pages will print and quite a bit of paper is wasted. Have students who finish first help other students. I saw some nice peer mentoring going on with this lesson.

Make sure students check their QR code after it is generated. This is when they find out whether or not it works. Then students can search for the book, cut it out,  and paste it on the book .

To build on this lesson I'm thinking of having 4th graders find the QR codes on the books and read 5th graders book reviews. I will have to set-up stations for this because I only have one iTouch. According to Jeff Utecht's blog on QR codes, I could download a QR code reader that works with a webcam.

Below is a 30 second video showing students using the iTouch, finding their book, and taping the code onto the book.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNz7Yb8wWWk[/youtube]

Some Dog

This lesson is like tossing a bone of a different flavor to a dog over and over again.

After three years of trying it every which way, I'm not going to do it anymore. I will continue to do the beginning as a mini-lesson but enough with trying to turn it into a project. I read the book, Some Dog, by Mary Casanova to grade 2 students. The book is a good mentor text with a strong character and a clear beginning, middle, and end to the story. I read the book and we discuss the character traits of George and Zippity. We also talk about how the character changes from the beginning to the end. This part of the lesson goes well every year and ties in with the language arts curriculum.

Then I try projects. And, they never quite work. 

The first year I tried having students make videos. They had a blast with it, but it was too hard and not much learning was going on. They didn't have the technology or small motor skills to run a web cam. I ditched that lesson and tried the next year to integrate with the IT coordinator. That time I tried a summary frame; something taught to our staff by Bob Darnell, a consultant who came to the school for professional development. This was too hard for the students to do and the lesson got dragged out over months. It didn't work well with 10 day rotations and 5-6 classes. The IT teacher had the kids make posters and I made an oversized ABC book that displayed their work (photo above). However, this year the IT teacher is subbing in the classroom and I tried a mini book. The lesson has covered about 2 months and 3 sessions. Again this is too long. One teacher liked the lesson and said he would like me to do it with his class but have his students choose a "just right" book and tie it in with one they've studied and are familiar with. So I guess I haven't completely dumped the lesson idea. If part of the writing is done in the classroom then it might work. After 10 days the students can't remember the story they are writing about. I wonder if I've dumbed down the writing too much. It would be good to work closely with a grade 2 teacher to find out what they think.

Here's the lesson:

Lesson 1: Read the book and go over on white board character traits and how the character changes from the beginning to the end of the story.

Lesson 2: Read the book and write a rough draft. (Drop this and go to lesson 3. Rough draft confused them.)

Lesson 3: Fold a sheet of paper in half that has a box for a picture at the top and lines to write on below. Have students read the book and follow the outline on the sheet below. Have them mark the page number in the book that shows which picture they want. Have them write the story and print off the pictures for them to glue on.

Try to keep your sanity ; )