January 2011

Ok so for January... We talked about FRIENDSHIP aka the favorite topic of my students when surveyed!

For the Upper grades I used Dr. Poppy Moon's idea for the DING DING game that she shared with us at the ALCA conference. I used a device called the Eggspert. I took the Friendship card game called "Lets Make Friends" and did my own rendition of Family Fued. I had the students say, in their best game-show voice, "LLLeetttss Maaakkkee Frriieenndds." haha.. Anyway, 2 students would come up to the front and ding in if they knew the answer to the question. They had a blast!! I also did the song "Lean on Me" (Jamaican style because this was the most upbeat version on I-Tunes), I taught them the motions and we danced and sang along. I believe the Eggspert can be ordered from Amazon.com!!

Now for the lower grades... I also taught them the song "Lean on Me" and they thoroughly enjoyed dancing and singing! We also read the story "Little Smudge" by Lionel Le Neouanic... Ok when I say I love this story, like I really LOVE this story. It is about a little smudge that gets laughed at and cannot make any friends until his dad fills him in on a secret... You will have to buy it to know the ending :) Anyway, it is a great story about diversity and friendship, which was a great refresher for my students about accepting differences. After we read the story, I gave each student a dye cut of a shape and they had to find the person in the room with their matching shape, at this time they were paired up and were told to find out 1 thing about that friend that they didnt already know! Ok more to come...