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!!! 

Compare & Contrast Practice with my 3rd Graders

Hula hooping champion of the 4th grade...that's me! Why wouldn't I find a way to incorporate these hard colorful plastic rings of fun into my lesson on comparing and contrasting?! Before expecting my scholars to be able to dissect and analyze similarities and differences between two FULL text passages by the same author, I thought it would be good to break it down into more manageable chunks for my kids.

I intro'ed the skill to the whole class using the anchor chart below and by using the passages I created (that are available HERE) to model, guide, and eventually release the application of comparing and contrasting.

The steps listed gave the students an opportunity to covertly and overtly tackle this task. As soon as I would go to Step 2, students would immediately raise their hands. It is important to actually wait it out fora bit to teach them that "thinking" should take time. We will often put on our best "thinking faces" when getting to these "think" steps of any process. This also kind of forces them to stop and think before raising a hand to answer. By waiting it out, you also give the slower processing students what they need to work it out and feel successful before giving them the answers.

Using my Promethean board, I completed the "I DO" part of my teaching delivery (note the I DO, WE DO, YOU DO, & YOU DO sign next to the board) where I modeled and students gave me the 3 L's (look, listen, and learn). We then practiced the steps together in the "WE DO" stage. During this stage, it is SUPER DUPER important to make sure ALL students are working with you and not just sitting there picking their noses, playing with their shoelaces, or daydreaming of snow days ;). I made sure to color code my markings when working through the passages, to match the anchor charts and steps we referred back to so frequently.

Working in partners and small groups for the "YOU DO" stage, students used another short passage to fill out information in a life-sized Venn diagram. I walked around, giving immediate feedback, challenging my higher students, and helping my struggling students. I also grouped them so that I had stronger students mixed in with the students that would need help. I often find that students learn well when being coached by a same-aged peer. I guess they truly know their audience :). To answer your question, OF COURSE WE HAD A HULA HOOPING CONTEST once we finished our work! Haha! I absolutely lost my title of champ to a 9 year old student. 

After practicing this skill for two more days, I had students attempt to try one all by themselves (thus completing the last "YOU DO" stage). It was through this task that I was able to quickly assess them on their mastery of the skill. Based on the information given, I knew who had mastered it, who needed a little bit of review, and who needed small group or one-on-one help. Luckily, I only needed to pull two students out of twenty to point out a few minor mistakes. 

Be sure to visit my TPT STORE to check out the passages created solely for teaching the skill of comparing and contrasting!!!!! :) 

Happy Teaching, 

Mary ~ Teaching Takes the Cake