I've been wanting to do this classroom transformation since September when educators around the world were challenged by the Rock Your School movement. It was extremely difficult to hold off on this for a few extra weeks, but personally I was unable to make it happen until today. (Long story of moving schools, selling and buying a house and having to be out of my house for showings and inspections and all the things that come with that....and also commuting between 45 minutes to an hour each way. But all that is about to end when we officially move within 15 minutes of work in a few weeks.) Anyway, It happened today and my students LOVED it! They stayed on task so well.
I decided I wanted to do something different for my classroom transformation, but I just could not decide what. I thought about my science curriculum unit and it was animal adaptations. That's when an idea hit me. I wanted to create a Wild Kratts theme! I just love that show and so do my kids. It is perfect since it is all about animals. I decided to focus on five different animals that students could encounter any day in the area where we live.
Day one was all about worms.
Day two will be all about fireflies.
Day three will focus on bats.
Day four we will learn about opossums.
Day five will be about skunks.
Today we learned about the creature powers (adaptations) of worms. First, we learned how worms secrete a special fluid that is released through the skin. We learned how the fluid made it easier for worms to slide through tunnels and through dirt and gravel without getting hurt. After learning about this special adaptation, we made our own slime in groups, following a recipe.
Afterwards, students were excited and ready to do some more. We moved on to a close reading activity. It was all about worms. Students were given six problems. Each problem listed two truths and one lie. Students had to read through their paper that told them all about worms. They had to highlight the truths to prove that those were not the lie. Once they found the two truths, they circled the lie and had to check it. There were flip check cards around the room for self-checking. After getting an answer right, students came to me to get one of the supplies for making dirt dessert, only they had no idea what the items were for, because I did not tell them. Most students were able to figure it out. I gave them these items in this order.
1. a cup
2. a spoon
3. an Oreo cookie in a ziplock (this is when most students figured it out)
4. a gummy worm
5. another gummy worm
6. a pudding cup
Once everyone in class was able to earn all their supplies, we worked through the steps to making dirt dessert. Students are going to use that knowledge to create a flip writing assignment that shows the steps to creating dirt dessert.
Of course we ran out of time to complete everything, but I'm totally O.K. with that. There's always tomorrow. I always overplan.
At the end of the day, my principal said she was wondering why my class was so noisy at the beginning of the day. But then my daughter, who is in her class, had told that I had done a Wild Kratts transformation. Love the excitement when kids realize it's going to be a great day.
