Ahoy There, Matey!

😊

In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, I transformed my classroom into a pirate's ship. The entire day was filled with rich content. Doing room transformations is a wonderful way to add a little magic to your classroom. I try to do one transformation a month. It does not have to cost a lot of money, but it adds value to your classroom environment.

The night before the transformation, I sent home an invitation. It gave the students an idea of what might be in store for them and it built excitement for coming to school the next day.

Items needed for my pirate transformation:

gold coins

eye patches

coin pouches

a pirate flag

cream drop cloths

blue drop cloths 

blue plastic table cloths

a plank

paint sticks

cups

clipboards

atlases

caution tape

Most of the items came from Hobby Lobby, Dollar Tree and Lowes. 

Content!

The purpose of a room transformation is not just to decorate your room. There must be strong academic content to go along with the theme. Who has time for fluff!?!

For my Language Arts classes, my students had four tasks using different passages about pirates: setting, dialogue, text annotation, and formative questions. For my history classes, students had 4 games to find hidden treasure using lines of latitude and longitude.

😊

Behavior

Beware! If you aren't working, you must walk the plank. I also had gold coins on the tables. When students correctly finished the assignments, they received a gold coin. At the end, the students with the highest amount received a treat.

What a fun day! The students had a blast while engaging in rigorous content.

I encourage you to try a room transformation. Your students will love it!

Tricia

Checkers

Are you always trying to find new and innovative activities to bring to your classroom to help with student engagement like I am? This summer as I was walking through the Dollar Tree, I spotted plastic checkers games. I hit the jackpot and didn't even realize it at the time. I bought 13 games and began brainstorming how I would use them.

It didn't take very long until Prepositions Review Checkers was born. I made task cards with sentences for the students to find the preposition and infinitive phrases. This game could be used with any subject area. I think it is an excellent way to review content.

How to play:
* 2 players per game board
* The game is played exactly as you would play checkers. You just add the content you are covering.
* One player draws a card and finds the preposition or infinitive phrase(s).
* They bring their answer (documented on their answer document) to me to be checked.
* If the answer is correct, they get to move a checker piece on their game board.
* Player 2 goes next and follows the same steps.
* If an answer is wrong, that player must correct their answer, but they lose their turn.

I encourage you to try this out. My students absolutely loved it!

Tricia

Hamburger Writing

Hamburger Writing

Thanks to the amazing Hope King at the Ron Clark Academy, I discovered this fantastic activity. I call it GYR writing. http://www.elementaryshenanigans.com/2013/09/the-hamburger-paragraph-little-5-for.html

Green= main idea/topic sentence
Yellow= supporting details
Red= back it up

G-Y-R-Y-R-Y-R-G (at least 8 sentences)

I use this format with expository paragraph writing. It's an excellent way for students to visualize and organize their writing.

To let the students really enjoy the fruits of their labors, we made "hamburgers" based on their writing homework. I assignment: Why did the settlers travel west in the 1800s? The students wrote their paragraph and highlighted their responses. Then I gave them a score. The score determined their hamburger toppings.

Toppings:
buns- vanilla wafers
meat- peppermint patty
lettuce- shredded coconut with green food coloring
ketchup- red icing
mustard- yellow icing

I hope you enjoy this activity as much as we did!

Tricia

Harry Potter Room Transformation: Creating Magic!

I love transforming my classroom. One of my favorite transformations this past year was Harry Potter. I am a huge fan of the books and so are many of my students. This was easy and you don't have to spend a lot of money. A little time and effort goes a long way!

WAND MAKING

Materials: chop sticks, plastic clear beads, hot glue, brown paint, and white paint

Step 1: Put several beads on each chopstick. You want each wand to be different, so I used different numbers of beads and spaced them differently. Then use hot glue and spread it from tip to middle of the chopstick. Let that cool.

Step 2: Create different shades of brown (or buy several different shades) and paint each wand.

Step 3: Let the paint dry and VOILA!

Decorations: 

To enter my classroom you had to pass through Platform 9 3/4.

Floating candles added the perfect touch! I bought LED candles from The Dollar Tree and used fishing line to hang them from the ceiling. I thought I had enough, but quickly realized that I would need more for next year.

The room is decorated, music is playing in the background, and the stage is set. Let the magic begin!

THE LESSON: GRAMMAR REVIEW 

With every room transformation and activity, there must be academic content tied to it. The more rigorous the better!

This past year, I gave students text from Harry Potter and they searched for prepositional and infinitive phrases and marked them with colored pencils. I was able to identify who did not grasp these two skills fairly easily. 

The glasses and wands were just for fun! 

REFLECTION

After this activity, I knew immediately that I wanted to do it again, but I also realized that I needed to revamp the lesson.

Instead of taking part of the text and students highlighted the review skills, I decided I wanted to break it up even further while still using the text. So, I have created 6 packets that each student will work through.

I chose 6 topics from the story and found passages about the topics. I created task cards where the students will demonstrate their understanding of the grammar skills but will also be required to do a creative writing piece at the end.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The night before a room transformation, I always try to get my students excited about what the day might hold. They may be given a clue, an invitation, instructed to wear or bring certain items. I want my students so energized and curious about what their day may hold. We also have a private team Facebook page. I post clues there as well, so that the parents get in on the excitement as well.

Happy Wizarding To You!

Tricia

Spy School

As a culminating activity for our Cold War Unit, I created Spy School in my classroom. The amazing Hope King of http://www.elementaryshenanigans.com/ and a teacher at the Ron Clark Academy created this activity, and I adapted it for my curriculum.

The day before Spy School, I gave each student a set of directions (see picture above). Giving these little teasers is a wonderful way to get students excited about what will be happening in school the next day. I also posted this on our team's facebook page. You should have seen the parents' comments. Creating excitement is a simple way to motivate your students and their parents.

To enter the classroom, students are told to put on their sunglasses, are sworn to secrecy,  and they must pass the finger scan. (You can download this app for free. I used the one called mood finger scan. The kids loved this part.) Mission Impossible was playing in the background. The stage has now been set, and the kids were mesmerized by what they were experiencing and the lesson hadn't even started. 

In the room, the desks were put together in groups of 4. I had hung blue yarn from the ceiling and tied it to desks and chairs to have the effect of lasers. The black lights helped create this effect. Next year, I will add white yarn too. In some areas of the room you could not see the "lasers." To move around the room, students had to duck and crawl to make it safely to their area.

At each set of desks there were different activities. Students were given flashlights to help see their papers. 

At one of the stations students were given the book, The Dark Games. This book provides details about espionage throughout history. We focused on the chapter about The Cold War. Students were fascinated by the information. After reading and discussing, students were given a copy of one page from the book. There they created blackout poetry. Here students draw a box around words that grab their attention. When you read only the words in the box, it creates a poem. Students then color a picture over the remaining words. 

At four stations, I placed activities I downloaded from http://www.spymuseum.org/education-programs/educators/lesson-plans-activities/minute-by-minute-the-role-of-i/. Here students had to decipher primary source documents. 

At the last station, students created codes. I used http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/secret/secret.html to download cipher rings. Two years ago, I also had a station where kids had tablets and went to https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/games/break-the-code to practice decoding online. This past year, I did not have access to this technology due to state testing.

Putting each of the activities into confidential folders added a little more excitement and that didn't cost me anything. The only expense I had was to purchase yarn ($3 at Walmart) and I already had black lights ($10 for small table size at Hastings and Amazon). 

Our principal even got in on the action. You have to love when the excitement of a lesson spreads!

This is one of my all time favorite activities. The kids learn so much information and have a blast while doing so. You can't beat that!

Tricia