Teaching About Plot

I am newly back in 4th grade from a very long hiatus and I am SO excited to teach state history again!  It is just something I find so interesting.  Between the actual content and the projects, I can't get enough!  So to start our year right, we did a VERY traditional and quintessential 4th grade activity, California Regions Salt Dough Maps. We started by researching the four main regions of California.  To make things a bit easier, I gave the students a few paragraphs that had all of the basic info that I wanted them to research.  The kids read the passages, filled in the organizer, and learned a bit about each region. (you can get the research here) Then the students got to work sculpting their CA map.  I gave them all of the ingredients to make the salt dough inside of a gallon-sized ziplock bag.  They had the following in each bag: 1/2 cup of salt1 cup of flour1/2 cup of watera sprinkle of cream of tartar When they got their sealed bag, the students started kneading the contents until a dough formed.  If it was too watery, I added more flour.  If it was too crumbly, I added more water.  It wasn't a perfect science for each bag, but it was pretty close for the majority of them.   After they were sure they had a dough, the kids opened back up their bags and began sculpting the state of CA on their cardboard.  They followed the outline of the state, which I had them draw ahead of time on the cardboard, and added more dough to represent mountains and less dough for the valley.  This was fun (and messy) but the kids ended up with fairly accurate representation of California.  After it all dried, they painted the four regions in different colors.  Next, they used the research they did earlier to create little informational flaps to add to the artwork.  Each region had its own flap, with a picture they drew themselves to represent that area.  Inside the flaps, they added information about each region. And that was it!  All in all, it was a fun and memorable way to learn about the regions.   My kids are STILL talking about it months later! If you want all of the printables and instructions, as well as actual lesson plans, that I used with my students, you can grab them here.

Have you ever taught a lesson and just realized that it felt good?  Like good, honest, real teaching?  That is what this set of lessons on perimeter, area, and measurement felt like for me. We started off by reviewing how to measure using a ruler.  They all seemed to want to start measuring at the 1 instead of the 0!  So we used a few task cards to practice measuring, as well as some worksheets.  These little worksheets provided a great jumping off point for the kids.  They also just love task cards.  Not sure why they like them so much, but they do :) Once I was sure that the students knew how to measure, we got to the creative part of this project.  I asked students to draw a village that they might find in a snow globe.  This could be any village they would like to draw, but there should be at least three rectangular structures.  (Most students drew a Christmas village, since it was near winter break when we did this.)   After the village was drawn, they choose three to four of the buildings and measured them using the ruler.  Next, they needed to find the area and perimeter of those houses.  All of that was recorded on little slips that mimicked the bottom of the snow globe.   When the snow globe was ready to be assembled, the students cut the little bottom portions out and attached them to the snow globe like a flip book.   Then, I hung them all up on a winter themed bulletin board (with our Snowmen at Night responses)  It looked really cool on the board! If you would like the lesson plans and templates I used, you can get them here.

For the past two years, I have read the book The Fantastic Frame to my students.  It is a fun little novel series where two kids get sucked into a famous painting (the first painting is Tiger in a Storm)  After we finished reading, I took that idea and had the kids create their own shadow box with THEM getting sucked into the famous painting.  They then wrote a narrative to accompany their painting.   Once the students wrote their narrative, they created the background of the painting they said they were sucked into.  The first year we did this, the students could choose one of three different famous paintings.  The second year, I just had them do the painting from the book.   It was easier that way ;)  They then inserted the background into the shadow boxes. The boxes themselves are just standard 9 x 12 x 2 shipping boxes I bought off of Amazon.  I then cut a hole into the front of the box to make the "window". Once the backgrounds were in, the students made foreground pieces and glued them into the shadow box to create a 3D effect.  I also took their picture and they inserted that into the box as well.  As a final step, the students painted the box gold, to match the frame in the book.   When the students were focused on the Tiger in the Tropical Storm painting, I actually had them write not only a narrative, but an informational and opinion piece as well.  We used these organizers here.   Then then published by typing on this paper. This was a really cool project that looks SO good hanging up. We all love looking at it!

Are you looking for a fun and QUICK little response to literature that your students are sure to enjoy?  Look no further!  This post is actually a long time coming.  I have done this for years, ever since the Zoom days of distance learning, and I just never wrote about it here on the blog...until now!  So here we go. I read the students the book The World Needs Who You Were Made to Be by Joanna Gaines.  It is a relatively new book (published right as the world shut down) and it is just the perfect way to get the kids thinking about their own talents and things they contribute to our classroom society.  I had them create a circle map listing all of the traits that they saw in themselves:  their insides (personality), outsides (physical), talents, and interests.  Then, using that list, they wrote an acrostic poem about themselves.  I specifically asked them to use longer sentences with many describing traits versus just one word. I wanted more "meaty" acrostics! Next, the kids drew a hot-air balloon to display their acrostics.  This went right along with the illustrations in the book, so it tied in perfectly.  I gave them a template of a hot-air balloon and then design a beautiful and colorful display.   I had them write their poem on a piece of vellum/tracing paper.  They then cut that out to the shape of their hot air balloon and glued it on top of the colorful design.  That way, you could see the color through the tracing paper but still read the writing! (they did have to go over the pencil with fine point sharpie) And that was it! Now, I have done this lesson a few times since the day so Zoom, but this year I added a little twist.  I had them design a balloon separate from the acrostic.  I gave them a template for it this time.  Then, using a second template and some tracing paper, I had them write the acrostic on the tracing paper.  They were able to cut that out into the shape of the balloon and layer it on top of their artwork.  This allowed for the balloon to have a more "design" feel instead of just lines to house the acrostic, as we did in the previous iteration of this lesson.   Either way, this was an easy peezy lesson that looks great hanging up on display! If you want a step by step of how to make these balloons, you can view my video here.

We have been learning about the Middle Ages in our CKLA unit and throughout the unit there are stained glass pictures, as well as Rose Windows.  We also coincidentally happen to be learning about angles, lines, and symmetry in math.  SO I decided we would use these two concepts and put them together into a fun (and quite frankly stunning) project!  Here is what we did. Stained Glass We began our geometry unit learning about points, rays, lines, and angles, so I decided to take that idea one step farther and have the students create "Stained Glass Windows" using the concepts of lines and angles. First, I passed out this sheet and a ruler to the students.  I asked them to create a design using the straightedge with no more than 10 lines on it.  (to be honest, in the final project on the windows, 6 lines was the max that came out looking nicely because of the width of the painters tape....more on that later.)  They then colored it in and labeled all of the points on the drawing.  A point was everywhere two lines met.  They used a sharpie to label the points.  Then, on the sheet, they identified all of the geometric shapes that were being requested of them.  In reality, this was very difficult for the to do, so I helped guide them through it using my example. Once that was done, the students go to working on the windows.  I blocked out 1/2 of a window pane for each student using a piece of 1/2 inch wide painters tape.  Then, the students began to tape up the design they drew on their math page.  I showed them how to measure and rip the tape, and they were off.   After each section was taped, the kids used washable tempra paint (the kind the school buys) to paint the sections.  This was MASSIVELY exciting for the students.  I did have to show a few how to paint using long strokes so they didn't get clumps of paint on the window, but overall, they came out looking amazing. Once they were dry, I peeled off the painters tape and we were left with a stunningly gorgeous art display that looks SO good when the light shines through.  And when it is all done, and we are ready to take it down, all we have to do is use a little soap and water and it will come right off! Rose Windows We also happen to be learning about symmetry in this unit, so I had the kids make Rose Windows.  This particular type of stained glass is found all over gothic cathedrals of the middle ages time.  They are gorgeous and show tons of symmetry.  There also happens to be quite a few examples in our CKLA reader, so we looked at those and pointed out the radial symmetry in each. Once we had our math lessons in symmetry, I gave the students a piece of round diffusing paper (these ones are from Roylco and worked perfectly.)  They folded it in half twice and drew a simple, yet elegant design on the quarter using pencil.  We talked about how this was eventually going to transfer into all 4 quadrants so the design would become a radial symmetry design, just like the Rose Windows we looked at were. I then had them trace the design using a silver or gold metallic sharpie.  When tracing, we followed the steps in this video here (if you watch it, there is a very, very good tutorial of how to make these windows.)  As the kids were tracing, the gold looked bright and wonderful, while the silver looked muted.  HOWEVER, once the final product was done, the silver ones actually stood out the most.  Once all 4 quadrants were traced, the kids used an ultra fine tip sharpie to outline all of the metallic sharpie.  This made the final products look more like stained glass and really helped to give them depth. Then, using regular water-based markers, the kids folded the rose window back up and colored ONE quadrant.  The used paint brushed and dabbed on a lot of water into each space.  I found that the more they controlled this with dabbing, instead of painting it on, the more vibrant their end colors were.  They didn't bleed as much into each other with the dabbing of the paintbrush.  Also, be sure they use A LOT of water.  It should pretty much be soaking by the end. Once that was done, the kids opened their circles up and found the color had bled through.  They truly looked gorgeous.  Then, once they were dry, I hung the rose windows up on the real window and let the sun shine through! Here are all of the materials that we used for these two projects on my Amazon Storefront.  

This year, my district began using the iReady program across all grade levels.  It has been an interesting journey so far and I thought I would share a bit about the incentives we have in place in my class that are helping the students to progress through the lessons.  Here are a few things you need to know before we proceed: 1)  iReady is mandated for 45 minutes in BOTH Reading and Math per week by the district.2)  We are only using the diagnostic and the adaptive MyPath lessons.3)  I do not have admin access on my end, so the features I have available to me are limited. So now that you have a little clearer picture of the iReady expectation in my district, we can move on :)  When I started the program at the beginning of the year, my students simply weren't doing iReady.  They had no intrinsic incentive to do it, so I needed an extrinsic one.  So I searched the internet and tweaked some ideas I found to suit the needs of my class. Incentive 1:  Punch Cards I started by using these punchcards in MATH.  (I only did math because iReady as much more easily integrated into my existing math routine.)  When students passed a lesson in math, they would walk the card and computer up to me and I would mark the lesson down as completed.  I have these in groups of 10 because the iReady dashboard shows me how many lessons they have passed in numerical order.  If they have passed 15 lessons, I know that this is their second card (the first one was used for lessons 1-10) and they are getting the 5 marked.  Every 10 lessons passed they get a new card.  Makes accounting super easy for me.   You can get the cards I created here.  Again, they are ONLY for MATH. Incentive 2:  Lessons Passed Reward After a while, I found that the cards were really only being used by about half of the class regularly.  The other half weren't as motivated by them.  So, using an idea from two teachers at my school, I started keeping track of lessons passed.  As a class, we set a goal of 3 lessons in math and 3 lessons in reading.  If they reached the goal by the end of the week, they would earn a reward.  Again, my class decided that they wanted extra PE time if they reached their goal.  So each week, the kids work on passing 3 lessons in each domain.  That takes roughly the 45 minutes per subject per week that my district wants, so it works out nicely.  If they make it by the end of the week, they get the reward.  If they don't, they work on iReady while the others get the reward.   I use numbered magnets (affiliate link here) to keep track of it all.  I also check the date of the lessons passed either on the student's computer when they tell me they have passed or on my teacher dashboard.  I am the only one who can move the magnets, but I do a final check of the computer before the reward is given.  If you would like the little cards I have on the board to organize it, here it is! So far, this incentive is working very, very well.  Most of the kids are motivated to work instead of just stare into space or push buttons and fail.  Incentive 3:  100% Whole Class Reward I also wanted to reward the class as a whole.  If the kids get a 100% on any test, Math or Reading, they can walk up to the chart and color in one section.  When it is fully colored, the whole class gets the specified reward.  The chart can be found here. This is largely on the honor system.  I am not really checking every single 100% the kids say they get. So far, they are pretty good about being honest.  If I notice one kid constantly going up there quickly, I will check, but for the most part they have been good about being truthful. Incentive 4:  100 Goal Name List Some kids need personal and public recognition.  Because of that, I have 4 signs on my wall.  If they get 25 lessons passed in reading or math, they can write their name on the sign.  Same at 50, 75, and 100.  The goal is for them to get their name up their twice (once for reading and once for math.)  Some kids LOVE seeing their name up there and have been very motivated by this. Now I understand that this is a lot of rewarding and incentivizing this program.  Frankly, right now my class needs it.  Maybe in the future they won't, but right now they do.  So we will keep going with these incentives until they either don't need them or they don't work.  We are just taking it one week at a time.

There never seems to be enough time to get everything that I want to get done completed during the day.  Because of this, I have been forced to think creatively and combine different things I am doing.   Now this post here has been sitting in my drafts for 2 years.  I began writing it pre-pandemic and then....well, you know what happened next.  Things got away from me.  So here it is, 2 years after I first blogged about it.  Don't worry though, it aged well ;) Third grade has a heavy focus on community in social studies.  So we began by talking about three types of communities -- urban, suburban, and rural.  We watched some BrainPop and then read the text in our social studies book to gather information on the three types of communities.  Putting it all together, we created this class chart.  Using the chart, the kids then wrote an opinion paragraph on which type of community they would like to live in themselves. Then, to connect it to math, I lead the students in a a directed drawing of a full community.  I had the rural area in the foreground, with a force perspective of the other two communities in the background.  The kids really enjoyed this part, as coloring in third grade is still a hit! Once the drawing was complete, I gave the students some rectangles.  Those rectangles were to simulate buildings in the various community spaces.  They then needed to draw "windows" on the buildings in the shape of arrays.  To differentiate this a bit, based upon their level of multiplication knowledge, I gave my students a different set of tables to create the arrays from. After each of the array buildings were completed, the students then glued them onto their directed drawing.  I had them record the math on a recording sheet.  Each of the arrays was to be written in both repeated addition and as a multiplication sentence.   They then cut the recording sheet apart and we had a great, simple, easy to manage bulletin board that combined several standards into one piece! If you would like the lesson plans and recording sheets I used, click here.

For many years I have seen Glow Day posts from teachers on Instagram showing off what they did during their day under the cover of black lights.  To be honest, I never thought this type of thing was for me.  But this year, in lieu of Halloween activities, I thought we could do a fun Glow Day to keep things festive, yet not focused on the holiday.   Logistics When I was researching how to do this all, I had LOTS of logistics questions, so I am going to start this post by answering them.   Here are all of the materials I bought (or borrowed) to pull this day off. Black Lights - this was the biggest stressor for me.  How many would I need?  What kind would work?  I found these LED strip lights (that are popular on TikTok with the teens) and figured they would work just fine.  And they did.  I bought 4 sets of 2 strips for my room.  My classroom is fairly large, but has low drop ceilings so I was able to reach them to adhere the strips.  I also borrowed a black lightbulb and lamp set up from the 5th grade science kit.  In retrospect, having 4 or 5 of those plain old black light bulbs and the lamp hook up would have been sufficient without the strips.   Black Window Coverings -- I have 4 windows in my room that needed to be covered, so I bought black plastic tablecloths to do it.  My windows are not very large, so it worked well with doubling them over.  So those two things were the only must haves for the set up.  Here is a short list of everything else I think are useful to have for this endeavor.   Highlighters -- yellow and green worked bestNeon Paper -- the kind you get for garage sales is hands down the best but Astrobrights for the worksheets were fine.  Yellow and orange were the brightest glow.Neon Colored Pencils -- I borrowed these from a colleague, but I think using the highlighters and regular colored pencils would have been fine.Neon Tape -- I used this for my costume, but it was fun to add little touches here and there.  Is it vital? No.Neon Balloons -- This was fun but not 100% necessary.Glow Sticks -- we used these for added light while reading. Academics Now that we have the logistics out of the way, here is how I incorporated the academics.   After all, if you aren't putting in academics during your entire school day, what truly is the point of this entire thing? We are studying Animal Adaptations in both science and reading, so I thought we would continue that with a discussion on bioluminescence and how animals use that to adapt to their environment.  We watched the Mystery Science video on how things glow, which mentions it a bit, and then a short clip from Wild Kratts about bioluminescence.   I then went onto Epic and screenshot one of the books they had about animals that glow.  Splitting the kids up into 7 different groups, they were to first look at the nonfiction article and use the text features to make a prediction on how they thought that animal would use bioluminescence.  Since we have been talking about prediction for a while now, they were able to get right on that.  The kids used highlighters to write, as it glowed under the backlights and was fun to do.  Then, using a glow stick for added light, the students read the article, highlighting the important information, following with writing a summary about the article, including how the animal uses bioluminescence.  Finally, they clarified any words they did not understand using context clues in the text. Once those were done, the students then used neon colored pencils and began to create their own creature that used bioluminescence.  The idea was that only parts of the animal would glow and they would be able to tell me why it used the adaptation.  This just ended up being an art project though....so I clearly did not share my instructions well. After recess, we transitioned into silent reading.  The kids used their glow sticks as bookmarks with added light on them.  They were able to read under the backlights with the light provided by the glow sticks. Then it was time for math.  I created some simple multiplication task cards, printed them on different colors of neon paper (each table was a different color, so the kids working on the various tables were given their correct color paper....easy differentiation)  The task cards were taped around the room and the kids had to go find and solve them.  They used highlighters to do this.  After that task was complete, I gave them a sharpie and a neon balloon and they wrote their tables over and over on the balloon.  It was a fun, easy way to "drill and kill" the tables. And that was it!   While it was an initial investment, I do have all of the materials left over to reuse another time.  I also feel much more comfortable doing this, as the logistics have now all been worked out in my head.  I can definitely see doing this again in the future....maybe for a mystery unit or a fun pre-testing review.  Have you every done a Glow Day in your classroom?  What academic activities did you do?  How did you set it up?

At present in third grade, we are learning our basic multiplication facts.   Rote kill and drill type activities, though having their place at times, can be become a bit monotonous for the kids.  So I thought I would spice it up with a little get-up-and-move-around activity! Now, I first saw a completely different version of this from Kevin Butler.  He teaches 5th grade and was having his students round by finding balloon pigs around his classroom.  I was inspired to change this up, AND match the apple theme we had going with Johnny Appleseed Day, and created this Apple Orchard Math! The basic premise was that the kids were apple farmers.   The apples (in this case, balloons) had fallen off of the trees and needed to be replaced.    To move this story along, and prepare for the activity, around the classroom, I taped 7 different empty trees to the walls.  The trees each had a number on them, 2 though 5.   For each tree, I blew up 10 balloons.  Those balloons then had a multiplication or division sentence written on it.   Each number sentence had a missing factor, product, divisor, or dividend.  That missing number corresponded to the number that was written on the tree.   To differentiate and make things a bit easier for everyone, I blew up red, yellow, and green balloons.  Each tree only had ONE color of balloon that fell off.  The students were given a recording sheet that was copied on either red/pink, yellow, or green paper.  They then knew that the only apples they were looking for we of that color.  It helped to keep things a bit less complicated when the kids were looking for their fallen apples.   Once the stage was set, I broke the students into predetermined groups.  Those who were below benchmark were given the easier 2 tables.  Those who were more advanced in their knowledge of the tables were assigned  the 4 tree, which would have all of the 4 tables.  I explained the scenario to them and told them that they were looking for the missing number that corresponded to the number on their tree.  The only balloon apples they could tape to their trees were those that had the answer they were looking for.  The students understood the main premise and were off.   They immediately started picking up balloons from the ground, tried figuring out the missing piece, and either threw the apple balloon back on the ground or taped it up to their tree.  They wrote the number sentence on their paper and moved on.   As an added bonus, I wrote one letter on each apple.  The letters, when unscrambled, formed a word (applesauce)  This was just one more fun element to add AND had the added bonus of helping them to see that their balloon choices/number sentences were correct.  All in all, my kids had a blast doing this.  It was simple enough for them to understand and the balloons added a really fun element to it all.  They were laughing and keeping on task.  They were all really focused while still adhering to the challenge at hand.  I can't wait to see how I can adapt this to other units! If you would like to hear how I did this in video form, you can find my instagram stories saved in my highlights here.  If you missed the link above, you can access the printable worksheets I used here.   How can you adapt this to your own classroom learning?

Several years ago I began using Johnny Appleseed Day, September 26,  as a day to incorporate STEM and Literacy thematically in my classroom.  When I taught 5th, I used lots of tech and STEM activities that went along with our curriculum that the kids LOVED (you can read about those activities here.)   But now that I am in 3rd, those ideas don't quite fit with the beginning of the year level of my students.  So with a little tweaking, I was able to make this more "user-friendly" for the 8 year olds.  I did this lesson both in person AND over Zoom with distance learning....so it can be done literally in any situation you might find yourself this year!  Here is what we did. We began the day reading Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg.  (my amazon affiliate link) While we were reading, we discussed the genre of legend and tall tale, noting that within the story there were several instances of exaggeration.  We created a chart listing those things we felt might be factual about Johnny's life and those things that were clearly exaggeration.  As with all of the books we are reading nowadays, we cited evidence from the actual text on our chart.   Next up, the students began to delve into apple traits.  In science, we are discussing characteristics and traits of both plants and animals, so this went along perfectly!  We read Apples by Gail Gibbons (my amazon affiliate link) and then watched the Mystery Science mini lesson about apples and their origins.  It was actually rather fascinating and discussed how there used to be one variety of apple until people started selectively breeding them for more desirable characteristics like taste, appearance, smell, etc..  So, I broke out three different types of apples (I was able to find yellow apples at the store, so I bought one red, one green, and one yellow for each group.)  Cutting them into slices, and using this recording sheet that I created for them, the students began to observe the different traits of the apples.  They made note of each trait that they were able to distinguish.  They wrote down what the apple smelled like, felt like, tasted like, etc...  I asked them to be as specific as possible.   If you would like the digital version, you can get it here. After all of the apples were described (which took quite a while), the students then set upon the task of creating their OWN apples using their specifically desired traits.  I asked them to pretend that they were apple farmers and were going to grow their own apples.  What would they want it to taste like?  How would it smell?  What about the size or appearance?  They listed those traits on the sheets as well. Next, the kids wrote a descriptive paragraph about the apple that they created from the traits that they chose.  The paragraphs were to be as detailed as possible and contain specific characteristics from their made-up apples.  You can get the form I used here.  And a digital paper so the kids can type it can be found here.   Finally, we wrapped it all up with these students creating their own 3D apple featuring the traits they described drawn directly on the apple!  The kids made both the inside and outside of the apples, stapled them together, and stuffed it so that it became a 3D art piece.  We hung them from the ceiling and displayed them alongside the writing and science note-taking page on the board! All in all, this did take us more than one day to complete.  BUT the kids had a good time, learned something, and left us with an awesome bulletin board.  So I would say this was 100% worth the time and effort!

One of the areas that we are trying hard to focus on this year is simply being kind to one another.  After a year and a half of being out of physical school, the students are having some trouble speaking to each other in a manner that we would consider polite and kind.  So I decided we should start working on our kindness right here at school. I read them What Does It Mean to Be Kind?  This is a very simple book with easy, practical suggestions for being kind to others.  We then thought about how those ideas could be applied to school.  The kids filled the entire front whiteboard with ideas!  (so they KNOW how to be kind....we now will work on actually implementing it!)   I then asked the kids to draw a picture of what a KIND SCHOOL would look like. They could draw one big scene with lots of ideas of kindness in it, or several blocked off areas with examples of people being kind at school.  Most choose to draw a sort of zoomed out school with different vignettes of kindness happening all around.   Then, the students took their pictures and wrote a paragraph describing what that kind school would look like.  Since this is third grade, I helped them construct the topic and closing sentences, and they pretty much wrote the body on their own.   We then took those paragraphs and pictures, and displayed them on the wall.  This took a few days to complete, as drawing and writing both take new 3rd graders (who haven't been physically in school for a while) quite a long time, but all in all, it was time well spent.  Did they solve the kindness and interpersonal issues that we are having?  No.  But it set us on a good path towards working on those skills for this year!

We started this lesson by reading The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig, a story about a boy who feels as though no one, not even his teacher, sees him at school.  While we were reading, I paused a certain points to talk about what the boy was feeling and why.  We took particular notice of when color started to appear in the boy.  What did that mean?  How was he feeling?  This proved to be quite an engaging conversation with my 3rd graders. After the story, we created a T-chart detailing what it meant to be INCLUDED and EXCLUDED.  We began with the "excluded" side, siting evidence from the text and examples from our own life where we noticed people being excluded.  Then, we moved on to the "included" side.  This again allowed the students to head back into the text to find evidence for our chart. Next, we talked about how feeling included in situations is something that all human beings want.  We talked about how excluding people doesn't make anyone feel good and how our words in certain situations can make people feel invisible.  So we set out to make sure that we had a HUGE list of words, compliments, and phrases that we could use on a daily basis to help create a feeling of visibility and inclusion in our classroom. Using the initial list we brainstormed, and then adding on from there, I had the students write those phrases on Avery labels.  They could write as many or as few as they would like.  I began to stuck them onto a classroom door (that I had previously covered with paper) and added a mirror.  This created our own "Don't Feel Invisible" station (like one of those affirmation stations that are so popular, but this was kid made!)  Now, whenever the kids walk by it, they see phrases and words they can use to help themselves and others feel less invisible throughout the day.

This was a really simple, fast, and effective lesson at addressing the idea that we aren't all bad or all good. That each one of us has the potential to be better than ourselves, make great choices, and learn from our mistakes.  AND the kids got to do a little drawing....which is always a hit! We started by reading The Bad Seed by Jory Johns.  This is an engaging story that the kids love and always makes for a fun read aloud time.  After the story was read, the students and I brainstormed a list of qualities that the Bad Seed exhibited throughout the story, both positive and negative.  We called them his "strengths" and his "areas to work on".  In keeping with the idea of pulling evidence from the text, we did just that.  If the kids named a strength or area to work on, they backed it up with something that happened in the text. Next, I asked the kids to draw a picture of the Bad Seed.  I actually did this as a directed drawing.  I didn't have any directions in front of me, rather I simply started to copy the picture of him on the cover of the book.  I am not an artist, but the seed himself is rather simple to draw.  There are some really easy directions you can follow from The Book Wrangler here.  (they are free to download)  He takes you step by step through the drawing. Once the drawings were complete, I asked the kids to divide their drawing paper in half and list their own strengths on one side, with their areas to work on list on the other side.  They reflected upon what made them great students and classmates, and how they could be even better in both of those roles.  I specifically asked them to keep the focus on school (rather than, say their soccer playing or piano prowess.)   Then, I hung them up on the bulletin board to display!  It was  a quick and easy lesson that took about 45 minutes in total and had 100% buy in from all of the students!