Thursday, October 20, 2011

BATS!

I have had such a great week at school! We have been doing so much work - but the kids are loving it! We have been learning all about bats. We have also completed bats vs. birds!
I have taken several ideas from The First Grade Parade.

Here was our timeline:

Monday - We started our KWL Chart. We completed our K/W. We also read Stellaluna to work on summarizing and story mapping.

Tuesday - Children were divided into groups by DRA Level. Each group had a BAT nonfiction book - (because we are also studying nonfiction vs. fiction) all week long - we have been reading a book club books and gathering facts in our book club journals. Each time we gather a fact the kids can add it to the "L" part of our chart.

We also did our story map for StellaLuna. After we story mapped, children had to tell the three main events in the story and were placed on a bat!

Wednesday - We shared facts and read in partners. I read a nonfiction book about bats and we added a few more facts.

Thursday - We went to one of the fourth grade classrooms and they were paired with a fourth grader and had to read their book club book and share facts. With a fourth grader they researched one more fact.

We also read a story about birds and gathered facts.

Friday - Tomorrow we will be completing a Venn Diagram of birds and bats. Also, in their book clubs and with three very helpful mommies - we will be doing a bat project! They will either make a bat mobile, bat poster, or a bat diorama and use the facts they gathered in their journal.

Also in our writing center they had to write three facts about bats. In the art center we created a bat. The bat is holding the facts. These will be put in the hallway!




Stay tuned for pictures of all our work tomorrow!




Happy Reading! Amy C!