Favorite Lessons part 1

Happy Thursday! Thanks for visiting A Spoonful of Teaching. Last week, I mentioned talking about a few of my favorite lessons. Guess what, I’m doing it! I would love to share some of my most memorable lessons every once and awhile! So, here it goes...

Lesson One: “Yet”

This is a lesson I love to do at the beginning of the year. It’s the perfect introductory lesson for something I value in my classroom-- growth mindset! Promoting growth mindset is SO important in a classroom. A growth mindset is having the belief you are in control of your ability, and can learn and improve.

The first thing we do to kick off our growth mindset lesson is listen to Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae. This has always been one of my favorite books-- even as a kid! This YouTube video is a beautiful animation movie of the story: https://youtu.be/vZjsLK5vwNU. If you’re not familiar with it, take the time to watch the video!

After watching the animation movie of Giraffes Can’t Dance, we brainstorm as a class some things they can’t do yet. I make a Sticky Note flipchart to record their ideas. Sidenote- I love using these giant Sticky Notes off of Amazon {https://www.amazon.com/Post-Sticky-Premium-Sticking-559/dp/B00006IA9F/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=giant+sticky+notes&qid=1581639513&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUE0RzZVUDhNTU9MT0gmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAwMTA3NzY4R05YR1RGNE4zR1EmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDIwNDU0MTJXMUVHREoyWU5KSkwmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl}. They’re a little pricey, but so worth it. Anyways, I love the things they come up with! I still have this poster hanging in my classroom. It’s a wonderful reminder of their dreams and the perfect example of their awesome growth mindset.

This is still hanging up in our classroom!

To wrap up the lesson, we talk about the importance of that little word-- “yet.” I have them choose one thing they want to focus on achieving in the future. They fill out an adorable, little paper I found on TeachersPayTeachers by TeachingWithSimplicity. It is seriously so cute! If you’re a teacher, download it! They turned out SO awesome! The students really put a lot of time and effort into these. They were perfect to put up in the hallway!

I mean, how adorable are these??!!

Lesson 2: "Wicked Weather Challenge"

Spoiler alert: this is not a science lesson-- it's actually a math lesson! This was a fun activity we did to wrap up our multi-digit subtraction unit. I hyped this up so much for my nuggets (they love it when I call them that) and I think it payed off. I think this was one of their favorites. 

The backstory of this lesson is that a crazy weather disaster hit our classroom while students were at lunch and recess. I had set up our classroom with different weather types hanging from the ceiling. On our ActivBoard, I projected a radar. I even played storm sounds to get the feel of the disaster in our classroom. It was SO cool!

Here's an example of the "thunderstorm" station.

I paired students up to complete a math challenge paper at each weather station. Their goal was to correctly solve each "math story" (it's my fun word for story problem; it gets them so excited. I suggest doing this!) so they could be awarded their Meteorologist certificate. I wish I could take credit for this lesson, but there's no way I could! I purchased this lesson off of TeachersPayTeachers (a godsend) created by The Lifetime Learner. 

All the hype after earning their Meteorologist certificates! 

These two lessons were seriously SO fun! I loved to see the look on my students' faces when they saw the room magically transformed into a weather disaster after coming back from lunch. It was priceless! I'm hoping this is something they'll never forget. 

Next Thursday, I want to cover Valentine's Day in an elementary classroom! Chaos and sugar combined equals a great party! If you love the blog, please share it with your friends! 😊