March 8, 2013

What a Connection!                        

Everyone knows Room 13 loves their weekly visits to the Cantiague Library on Fridays.  When it came time to learn about "Women in History", Team Marsen had the idea to collaborate with the amazing Ms. Tedesco on a culminating lesson about Ruby Bridges.

The background knowledge started to build when the class read the autobiography Ruby Bridges Goes to School- My True Story and learned of the challenges a young girl faced during the days of segregation.  We learned that Ruby Bridges was the first African-American girl to attend an all white school.  Due to her bravery, African-American children started attending all white schools.  The emphasis of this read aloud was celebrating a change that one female made in our history.

The next step was to read an article about Ruby Bridges that came from Scholastic News entitled "Ruby the Brave", which was an article giving us more information about Ruby Bridges and the struggles and triumphs that stemmed from her bravery.  We used this information to demonstrate our understanding of a text and answer comprehension questions on this topic.

The final puzzle piece was completed when Mrs. Tedesco joined our class for a fun-filled station teaching lesson. The students were broken up into three random groups.  Each group attended each station for approximately ten minutes.   Here is a "snapshot" of what happened in these three stations.

Station #1
Location: Front Carpet
Happenings at this station:
Mrs. Martin guided the children in an exploration of how the article "Ruby the Brave" and the autobiography Ruby Bridges Goes to School- My True Story, were alike and different.  The children were challenged to complete a Venn Diagram with the information ellicted from a book and an article.  Mrs. Martin was TRULY impressed with what the children came up with!                                                 
Findings: 
Students found many things in common from the article and autobiography! Spoiler Alert- they were both Scholastic publications! Ask your child what else they found that were the same in both texts and what was different about each text.

Station #2
Location: Back Carpet
Happenings at this station:
Mrs. Rosen led a discussion on the different non-fiction text features that can be found in an article.  Students were then asked to take a labeled word of a specific text feature and place it where it belongs on the article; "Ruby the Brave".  As each feature (ex. caption, bold text, subheadings etc.) was labeled, the children were asked to think about why it was included in the article and how it helped us to further understand Ruby Bridges and her story.  Bravo to all the children for being true detectives and finding out where the word belonged and why that feature was important in this non-fiction text.
Findings: 
Non-fiction text features help a reader navigate a text and truly understand the author's purpose for including these features.

Station #3
Location: Hallway
Happenings at this station:
Ms. Tedesco greeted the children in the hallway with warm smiles and cool books! She allowed the children to explore other Women in History books. This wonderful experience gave the children time to explore the importance of  specific women and celebrate their accomplishments during "Women in History" month.  They were exposed to texts about women like Michelle Obama, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Pocahontas, Anne Frank etc.  The children were asked to reflect on what they learned about their woman in history and what they are still wondering about that person. 

Wow! Can you believe this ACTION PACKED lesson happened in about 45 minutes!!!!!! Talk about making the most of your time!  

Room 13 loves stations!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scientist of the Week- David...."SHINES!"

Last week, Scientist David truly showed us how to be squeaky clean! We learned that vinegar and salt can turn something very dark and dirty (like an old penny) into something clean, shiny, and new!  
Thank you David for demonstrating this amazing experiment!