Big Ideas and Lots of Creativity in Room 403!

So sorry for the long time no blog post!  What can I say...it's getting near the end of the school year, and we are busy people in room 403!  We are working hard in reading groups with our Magic Tree House Books.  We are diving into these chapter books and completing in - depth book studies.  We are working with comprehension skills, such as compare and contrast, inferring, and drawing conclusions.  Not only are we involved in group discussions about each chapter, we are also learning about science and social studies topics too.  Let's take a look at what we've been doing.

                                                       
Two of my reading groups have been reading the first book in the Magic Tree House Series.  We have been learning about prehistoric times when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  Here are a few of our activities from this book...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another reading group is reading the second Magic Tree House book, The Knight at Dawn. The characters, Jack and Annie, travel back to the Medieval times.  My group and I have started learning about castles and knights.  It has been very interesting! 

Here is writing activity one of my students completed...

 

 

 

After researching the parts of castles and viewing different castles, the students worked on castle projects for this book study.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the completed projects...

 

 

 

 

You can see a lot of imagination and creativity in these projects!

 

We completed our plants unit last week.  We finished this unit by learning about a Russian artist named Wassily Kandinsky.  Kandinsky loved circles and he used color to show emotion in his art.  We made Kandinsky circle flowers (connecting science, art, and math). 

 

 

 

 

A few days after this project, something amazing happened!  My sweet, beautiful Anna brought in an amazing project about Wassily Kandinsky. 

 

 

 

 

 

Although teachers are to inspire their students, it is times like this when I am inspired by a student's love of learning.  This gives me the motivation and drive to take learning further for each of my students and teach them all that I can.  To Anna and all of my students I thank you all for making me strive to become a better teacher!  Hugs and Love to all of you!