Day Three - Weekly News "published"!

I knew this day would come! The last day of teaching 5th grade :( I think today really brought everything together, though :)

Day 3. Students will continue to work on their illustrations, finishing on day 3. Students will display their headlines on a ‘calendar’ on the board, pinning their drawing underneath the corresponding day for their groups. Group discussion will follow.

When I got to the classroom the kids knew what to do! They got back into their day groups and the students who weren't finished had about 10 minutes to complete their drawings. I wanted to give the groups enough time to put their drawings on the "week". 

I think the kids were just wired today cause there were little arguments popping up everywhere. For example, I asked one student from each day group to raise their hand so I could count the groups. I made the mistake of calling those students "representatives" and then it became a competition! Little arguments started happening in groups, mostly because of some kids who were much more high-strung than their peers. Luckily there were some aides in the classroom to bring the students back to base level.. I didn't notice them until today, though. Their students, students with special needs, were behaving exceptionally well when I was in the room on Monday and Wednesday. I received lots of compliments :)

Students were much more territorial about DAYS, too! They all wanted to be Wednesday or Thursday.. I just didn't get it haha. I ended up assigning days because voting was too much for them to handle as groups and I wanted to move on. Sometimes you need to know when to put your foot down.. sometimes more than once!

Good teamwork with the kids switching out helpers!

Everyone had a chance to share their news story.  

I got SO MUCH FLACK for being a Blackhawks fan haha

Some students talked at length about their stories, others just read the headlines.

Students, teachers, and aides enjoyed this assignment!

Here's the whole gang! SO many 5th graders, guys.

All in all I believe this lesson was extremely effective and fun! I like playing on the humor of students because they always say ridiculous things. There was so much personality packed into the classroom and each student had a different story to share. I think this was a really good lesson to get students thinking about literal meaning, interpretation, and to get their imaginations going! The teachers were really impressed with the students' work. So much so that the classroom teacher is going to display the Weekly News in the hallway outside the door! The whole 5th grade is going to see what my little kiddies were working on all week. I'm so proud :)

And here's me with the crew! :) I got to stand with my star pupil,
Mr. Perspective master of the 5th grade class!

One lesson down.. one big one to go! I have to complete my final lesson for this semester. I want to create a 8-12 lesson based on one of the drawings I did in high school! I promise I will upload a picture.... as soon as I get it back from Illinois! The artists I am using as examples are Rob Gonsalves and Sandy Skoglund. I am pretty excited about it :) After that I have the teleconference lesson with Africa at a local high school.. I think if I get good marks on this new lesson I am writing, and feel confident about it, I will try and teach it to the students at the school next semester. 

Okay, I have spent too much time on here already! Back to the books. 

Ms. K