Creative arts and Language arts in one!!!

Creative arts!!!

Language Arts

Lesson about continuous cycles and informative writing...

Anticipatory Set:

We talked about cycles yesterday. Butterflies start as an egg. When they hatch they are a caterpillar. Then they make a cocoon until they come out as a butterfly.

We are also in a cycle. (Teacher acts out baby, child, adult, and elder.)

Objective/Rationale: Students will be able to tell what a cycle is and write about it. Students should notice cycle that keep going and be able to write using information.

ELA2W1 The student begins to demonstrate competency in the writing process. The student

b. Uses traditional organizational patterns for conveying information (e.g., chronological order, similarity and difference, answering questions).

c. Uses transition words and phrases.

Retention Aid: (motion in a circle) Cycles are special because they keep going and going and going.

Teacher Input: Think about other cycles that happen. Raise your hand if what I say is a cycle: water cycle, reading a book, watching TV, daily activities, a butterfly’s life, and processes like recycling, getting dressed. (Have a list naming steps or a set of visuals for some of the cycles, especially for teaching ESOL.) We are going to cut out pictures and glue them to make our own cycle. Then we are going to write a draft using our cycles.

This doesn’t have to be a real cycle. We are going to pick pictures and make up a cycle.

First, let’s review our supplies and process.

We are going to look through the magazines for pictures and decide on our cycle. Then we are going to cut out the pictures and glue them to our construction paper.

We are going to use our scissors and glue properly or we will be doing a pre-write without cutting and pasting.

Once our cycle is complete, the area will be tidied up and our notebooks taken out to draft our cycle. What is the name of the cycle? What happens first? What are the events or steps in order? Do you participate in and like this cycle? Remember to use the transition words.

Student Activity: Cut and Paste to create a cycle. (15-20 minutes)

Student Activity: Use the cycle as a pre-write and write a draft describing it. (10-15 minutes)

Closure/Ticket out the door: What is special about a cycle?

Teaching lab- November 30

          Today I taught the second graders. We have been over the writing process many times, so I made a plan to do something creative. I read about one of my fellow teaching students making brochures for informational writing. Then I thought about a night when my roommates and I just cut and collaged pictures. So I followed up my teacher’s nature cycle lesson with another one. The students cut pictures out of magazines and pasted them into a continuous cycle. This took the place of their pre-writing stage and they wrote a draft describing their cycle. They loved the change of pace using scissors and glue and pictures. It made their opportunity to write a little more exciting. I had no issues in either of the two classes about using scissors correctly or cleaning up. They behaved very well and stayed on task. I was nearly as excited as they were to do something different, and I loved the cycles they turned out.