Soft Rain - A Story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears

You know how much I love teaching novel units!  Currently, we are reading Soft Rain - A Story of the Cherokee Indian Trial of Tears.  It's a  historical fiction book based on the Cherokee Indian Trail of Tears.  The story is written from the prospective of a nine year old little Cherokee girl.  She tells of the removal from her home and the terrible journey west. This is one of my very favorite children's novels.  What better way to teach the history of the Cherokee Indians than from this book?  

Each student is keeping a journal as if they were the main character, Soft Rain.  They are documenting the journey of this incredible young lady.  Grangran made us a journal to write in - Thanks, Grangran!

Caroline showing off our current novel!

Our journals

Ian writing in his journal

Peyton writing in his journal

Caleb sharing a journal entry

Author's Chair

 Students love to share their writing pieces from the "Author's Chair"!  We write all of the time, but I know you already know that. :)

  A couple of weeks ago, we worked on writing a story.  We started with creating a graphic organizer with details about our main character, setting, plot, and theme.  From there, students began writing their masterpieces.  If you haven't read your child's story, please do so! All of the stories were GREAT! 

Ben

David

Maddie

Mia

Franklin

Ian

Caleb

Celebrating Thanksgiving in our Classroom

The day before Thanksgiving Break was filled with all sorts of fun!  We had our first "Book Exchange" party this school year.  Each student brought in a book (new or slightly used) wrapped up in fall fashion.  We put all of the books in a pile and students drew numbers to decide the order in which we would pick books!  Everyone went home with a new book!  FUN!!  

Look at these great packages!

The Book Exchange begins!

Hurry up, Caroline!

Hmmm. . . do I want to keep this one?

We also made homemade butter for our mothers!  Should I tell you how we made it?!  No, I don't think so!

The ladies and their butter!

The finished product.

Need some help?

Shake, shake, shake!

Our Guest!

Mr. Chase!!

What a sweet surprise!  One of the fine young American soldiers we've adopted this year was able to stop by for a quick visit!  He was home enjoying some R&R with his family and made time to visit with us.  Now, I'm not really good a keeping a fabulous surprise a secret, but I managed to keep this one!  My kiddo's were so excited when he walked into the classroom.

Just let me say, Mr. Dakota Chase Woodall is a FINE young man!  He came right into our classroom and immediately connected with every one of my students.   He took the time to personally say and hello to each child!  I wish I had pictures of him giving high fives and handshakes to all of them.  He answered questions for about thirty minutes - being careful to not skip any child that had their hand raised.

He is now back in Afghanistan.  We will continue to keep him in our prayers and, of course, keep on writing those letters!

Special Gift

Thank you, Mr. Brian.

Command Srgt. Major Brian Woodall sent us a very special gift.  Caleb, class Mayor, is holding an American flag that was flown over an American base in Afghanistan on the 10th anniversary of  911.  We are blessed to have such a special gift!  It is a treasure that I will cherish for years to come.  Thank you, Mr. Brian!

I Am From

Students worked on an amazing piece of poetry this week.  The title of the poems are "I Am From".  I wrote one earlier in the week and shared it with them.  We broke the poem down into small chunks and brainstormed together.  When it was all said and done, every student had a unique and outstanding poem to share.  This is the display in the hallway.  Please be sure to stop by and take a look.  They did a GREAT job!

"I Am From"

I will share my poem with you. . .but you'll have to stop by to read the rest of them! ;)

I Am From

by Heather Hall

I am from Mom's well used Bible, chiming grandfather clocks,

and unique antique furniture with stories to tell. 

I am from phone booths that really work, a claw-foot bathtub never used,

and a home overflowing with love.

I am from grapevines with sweet treats, trampolines,

and my favorite place to be alone - the pond.

I am from where everybody knows you whether you know them or not,

and childhood friendships that last forever.

I am from  Ma and Pa, Granny, a precious church family,

and Acts 2:38.

I am from, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!"

and every nights line, "Is your homework done yet?"

I am from Mom's famous meatloaf and banana ice cream

and family meals around the table every night of the week.

I am from album after album with thousands of photos

turned in to new scrapbooks with precious memories to treasure!

Mayor of Third Grade

The race for Mayor of third grade was AMAZING!  In order to ensure that students understood local government, we had a real election in our classroom.  Students made "Election Folders" with several vocabulary words they needed to know.  We nominated candidates, ran campaigns, and  held an election! The race was close, with only one vote difference.  Caleb is the new Mayor of Third Grade!

  

Ben working on his "Election Word" folder.

Maddie working away!

David did an excellent job on his vocabulary folder.

Look at the finished product!

Ian, Franklin, and Caroline showing us their vocabulary folder.

Caroline brought goodie bags to all of the students that said, "You'll be fine with Caorline!"

Caleb's poster

Caleb handing out his goodies - candy wrapped in red, white, and blue ribbon.

Caroline made buttons for everyone!

Jonathan voting

Sylar voting

Abby voting

Ian voting

Caleb and Caroline shook hands when the winner was announced.  (They did this on their own, I didn't even have to ask them to do it!)

Mayor Caleb!

Probability in the Classroom

The boys loved working on this lesson.  I asked them to toss a coin 50 times and record their results.  They were learning about equally likely. 

Still tossing. . .

and recording. . .

and finally, we were done!

In the next lesson, we learned about the outcome of probability by using spinners and letter tiles.  

Math in our classroom is NEVER boring!  

Cargo Contest

As the culminating project for our "Sink or Float" unit in science class, the students had a cargo contest.  They were given a choice of materials to build a boat and a set amount of time to complete the task. Because of our study, students knew what to do in order to build a good boat.  The competition was between two teams - Caleb & Ben and Maddie & Caroline.  You can see from the photos that it was pretty intense in the classroom.  Both teams made excellent boats, but the winners were Maddie & Caroline.  Their boat held 23 grams!