November Round Up
November is here! Can you believe it? This month always seems to fly by, so before time gets away from me, I wanted to share some fun ideas (and freebies) you might be able to use this month.
Be sure to pin your favorite ideas!
This month, I thought it would be fun to practice this skill using this fun, little booklet. On each page, they identify three adjectives that could be used to describe the noun. Then, they choose one (or more) of their adjectives and use it in a sentence. You can grab this little freebie here. :)
Note: students will cut out their own wattle from a piece of scrap paper.
November also means that you're likely teaching about the Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and/or the First Thanksgiving. This is one of my favorite fall themes! I always begin by teaching my students all about the Mayflower and the Pilgrims' journey aboard this ship. We read about it, we watch videos, we explore the things that the Pilgrims could/could not bring, and we have a blast!
We also learn a bit about the Pilgrims. I do a lot of different activities, but I love this little booklet for practicing the skill of answering who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Once we have a solid knowledge base in place, we write about what it would be like to be a Pilgrim and compare Pilgrim life to our own lives today (not shown).
My Thanksgiving unit is typically two weeks long, so I won't run through every component of it, but I definitely throw in some of my favorite engagement strategies: Scoot and I Spy. We play fact and opinion Scoot. Differentiating between fact and opinion is an important critical thinking skill and I bring it into my units of study whenever I can.
We also play true/false I Spy (Around the Room) toward the end of our unit. The students love getting up and moving around the room. It also gives me a good idea of how well they understand the material we've covered.
These activities can be found in my Thanksgiving unit.
Every month, my students work on a new What's the Problem? booklet.
What's the Problem? is a great way to have your students interact with word problems in a different way. Instead of solving a problem, they write the problem! Each page features the answer to a word problem. The students are then tasked with writing a story problem that matches the given answer.
When I first introduce this skill, we do several pages together. This is not an easy skill, so scaffolding up front is important. Once they seem to get it, I let them write their word problems with a partner. Eventually, they write them on their own.
You can grab this nifty, free booklet here. And, you can find my other free What's the Problem booklets here.
Happy November!
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