Ancient Rome & Nonfiction

    I wish I would have taken more pictures during my ancient Rome unit.  I feel like at this time of year I am rushing to finish getting everything taught in social studies.  One thing I really enjoyed with ancient Rome was how much I constantly reviewed.  By the end of the unit, my students could tell the whole story of ancient Rome from the ages of the Kings to the fall of the empire.  I would review with vocabulary on whiteboards and also by telling the story of Rome and throwing a ball for a student to catch and fill in the missing word to the story.
    When teaching Julius Ceasar my class did a fun play.  I also showed the horrible history videos.  If you haven't seen those, you should definitely check them out.

    In Language Arts my students turned in their non-fiction book projects this week.  They had to read a non-fiction book and then make a cereal project out of it.  Their cereal had to include a prize on the inside, a summary on the back and a description of the book on the front to turn their book into a cereal.  I had some really creative projects and they really seemed to enjoy sharing their boxes with each other.

   Next up is the Middle Ages in social studies and reviewing for EOG's in language arts! Luckily a much needed Spring Break starts Friday!

A Peek at my Week - {1/26/14}

   I am super excited for this coming week.  Mainly because I have it all planned out and even most of my copies made for the week.  Since I'm planned out, I decided to link up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for A Peek at my Week.  Stop by her blog to see what other teachers have planned for this coming week!

    I'm also starting a new unit in social studies which is my favorite, Ancient Greece. For language arts I am finishing up non-fiction with both of my classes.  Here is a look at my lesson plan template.

I made this template to go with exactly what I teach.  I teach language arts and social studies but to two completely different leveled classes so often the lessons are very different.

Language Arts this week

     This week I will be wrapping up my nonfiction unit.  One thing that I'm super excited about is using Newsela. If you haven't visited this site yet, then you should definitely check it out. He has passages available with their Lexile Levels and quizzes to go with them.  I'm having my students pick out an article of their choice to read and respond to.

    I'm also using readworks.org to print passages for my students to go along with what lesson we are discussing.  They have passages to go with topics like point of view, main idea, author's voice, etc.  I have been doing mini-lessons and then putting students in group by reading level to work on practicing that skill.

Social Studies This Week

    I love teaching ancient Greece for many reasons but this year the biggest reason is because I have the unit organized.  I put together a binder of all the resources I have. It has sections for each major topic with the passages or activity behind them.  For example, behind geography there is a map of Greece to color code, a few articles on geography, and a cause and effect activity. Once I had the binder put together it was so much easier to plan for the unit. 

   I am doing a lot of stations with Greece and interactive activities.  This week they will be starting a folder with information they learn about Greece so that they can later use it to write a story about their own character from ancient Greece. 

There was nothing exciting about seeing the binder I'm using but I thought Jack made it more interesting! He has been wore out this week from getting to spend extra time playing with his mommy.