Special Education
Posted by
admin in
Special Education on
January 13, 2010 |
no responses
GRADES: K-7
This is not an original idea, but it’s well worth repeating for those of you who may not have come across it. It can be modified for many grade and/or ability levels. I am currently using this activity with my Resource Room students.
MATERIALS:
- book: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
- chart paper & marker(s)
- weather forecasts from newspaper or Internet
- weather related books/kid’s magazines at a variety of reading levels
- food forecast planner
- writing paper with a food border for final copies
- crayons/colored pencil
METHOD:
- As a journal topic, have students brainstorm as many weather words as they can in 10-15 minutes. You may want to make the following available: weather reports from the newspaper and/or the Internet; weather books (I had several from the Step Into Reading series).
- Have students share their weather words in a whole group. Write the words on chart paper. You may want to categorize by labeling three pieces of chart paper as follows: Wind Words, Rain and Snow Words, Other Weather Words.
- Read the book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett to the students.
- Explain to the students that they will now be planning and writing their own weather forecasts for the town of Chewandswallow. I also shared examples that former students had written (planners and the written forecasts). We talked about what was good in each piece and what could be improved upon.
- Hand out the Food Forecast Planner. It should have two columns, one for a school day and one for a weekend day. In each column should be lines for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. The students should list food for each meal/snack along with weather words. I review the writing process at this point and explain that complete sentences are not necessary at this point. Encourage the use of the weather word charts for reference. Variation: If you have many students with limited writing skills, you may want to take the time to brainstorm some food words as well. I did this in a small group while the other students got started.
- After the planner is finished, students should do a draft of their forecast, then revise, edit and complete a final copy on the food-border paper.
- Naturally, most students will want an opportunity to share their forecasts.
- Fillers: Because students work at different paces, it is necessary to have some “filler work” for those students who finish quickly or who are waiting to have a writing conference with the teacher. Some suggestions follow:
- Make a compound word matching puzzle. Cut meatball shapes out of brown construction paper, cut each meatball in half, and write one half of each compound word on the meatball halves. The book Cloudy… Meatballs has lots of compound words (meatballs, northeast, overcooked…) The kids could put the meatball halves together to form compound words, then write the compound words on paper (built in accountability).
- Have the students list in their journals all the problems that could occur if food really did fall from the sky.
- Have the students scan the text of Cloudy…Meatballs for all the words following a specific pattern or rule. For example, they could search for compound words, words with -ing, words with consonant blends, etc. etc. The words they find should be listed on paper.
- Read or listen to (on cassette) weather related books or poems. They could fill out a short form telling what they thought of the book for accountability.