How 3rd Grade Celebrates Saint Patrick's Day the Academic Way!

It has been a busy couple of weeks in Glenolden School! The kids of Room 5 have really been buckling down lately in preparation for the state assessments (PSSA tests). St. Patrick's Day fell on a Monday this year and I wanted to surprise my students with something out of the ordinary...so I created holiday centers in honor of all things green and Irish! :)

Getting to school extra early on a Monday morning can be quite difficult, but I managed to get into my classroom with enough time to spare to setup all of the activities. I sprinkled gold glitter all over the tops of the desks. As students entered the room, they inquired about the glittery mess. I directed them to the white board which explained it all!

 

I wish I had a video of their reactions! They were equally surprised, anxiety-ridden, and grossed out! UNLUCKY DUST?!?!?!? What were they going to have to do to get their luck back??? Within five minutes of entering the room, my 3rd graders were ready for the challenge. 

In partnered groups, the students had four tasks to complete in order to "earn lucky charms and get their luck back". The four tasks included skills that we had been working on in class. I used this opportunity to partner up students based on their mastery of the skills. I grouped students that mostly mastered the skills with students that were still struggling to grasp certain concepts. The activities also allowed for my students to get some cooperative learning experiences. 

The four common core-aligned tasks included:

1.) Students read two passages about St. Patrick's Day celebrations in different parts of the USA. They were asked to compare/contrast using text-based evidence (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.9)

2.) After reading a passage about the Irish Potato Famine, the students identified the main idea and supported it with three key details from the text. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.2)

3.) Without using a passage, students were given sentence strips with directions on how to make Irish potato candy to sequence using only the clues in context. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.3)  

4.) Given four short video clips to watch, students were asked to fill in a graphic organizer using their schema and clues from the video in order to make logical inferences. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.3.2)

 

Be sure to check out my TPT Store in the future for freebies from this lesson! They are not quite store ready just yet!!!