This will be my 3rd post in less than 24 hours...
and that is ok with me... how about you
are you ok with it???
if not
come back tomorrow
and if you are ok
keep reading...
yesterday I teased you with my favoritest lesson so far...
my friends... my class loved how I turned Poetry Friday into a science experiment
and a poetry activity into one BADDA BING...
BANG lesson
they were so excited about it and when they are excited I get excited
so what was it you ask....
well it all started with a poem...
click on the pic to get your free copy plus some :)
it looks like there is a word missing BUT it is not...
I accidentally ran off the colored version in b&w
and the yellow didn't show up...
BUT in the freebie there is a b&w version for easy printing
I was a goof... don't be a goof...
I did have my kiddos fill in the blank...
obviously I didn't take an after pic...
ANY WHO... start with this poem... and get it from The Bubbly Blonde's TpT store
for FREE... and it comes with lots of other stuff too!!!
and then we read the poem and talked about it...
we had conversations as writers...
what elements of poetry are in this poem...
stanza, line break, rhythm, etc...
and then we made this...
folded it into 8ths and then cut 2/8 off for the box
(make sure it is at a fold... the fold on this example is on the left side)
we glued the bottom and side boarder so it turned into a pocket...
then we drew an oval in the middle and labeled it POETRY
and even though crayon patterns are in the freebie offered by The Bubbly Blonde
we used the remaining paper to make our own...
and folded them to make 12/16
a fraction mini-lesson too
any ways then we cut out all of the 12/16 rectangles
and cut the tops to look like crayons and drew our own lines and ovals...
last we labeled all the things we might find in poetry...
and we left some blank...
everyBODY has the same colors with matching labels... for easy organization reasons...
we did it as a whole class and it went well... and surprisingly faster than I thought
and talked about what some of the crayons meant...
like line break and stanza...
we wrote the definitions on the back side and inserted them into our box...
terms that we have NOT YET seen or covered we put into our box for later definitions...
and we left some blank crayons for "maybe we should add this"
after we got them labeled and some of them with definitions on the back...
we packed our crayons back into our box
and had each kiddo pick their favorite crayon out of the box...
I prefaced this with... if your favorite color isn't in there... pick from what is left...
that helped... I didn't have any WHAs about it and everybody got their favorite colors...
and then I gave strict orders to not color with it or play with it or break it
and then we talked about the DEEPER meaning of this poem...
we looked at it as readers...
what was the message???
and we talked about it... the kids brought up skin color and MLK and love
it was a great conversation and we talked about how each of us is like a crayon
a crayon in a box... the box being our classroom and if each of us were the same... it would be boring
then I collected their crayons by colors and glued them to a canvas...
we took a vote and we made sure we wanted to go all the way across the canvas
so almost all of the leftover crayons were used...
I know you have seen this craft on pinterest...
WE MOVED now into our science journals...
I made them draw predictions to what would happen if I used a heat gun on our canvas of crayons
and we shared...
solid to liquid... great for matter lessons
I would show you their drawings... BUT one I forgot
and TWO they were so excited to get to lunch...
because after lunch they got to start their Cardboard Challenge (see post before this for that info) that many of them were not
THAT great...
some were but most not...
and then after lunch
while they were building and creating with cardboard...
I got the heat gun out and started on our Crayon Canvas...
in a cardboard box
we have our ART...
we talked about how different it would be if it was all one color...
and how beautiful it is with all of the colors...
I am in LOVE with it...
the kids are too
and my principal was too...
it was one of those rare moments when my principal walked into my room and
YAY we were in a great conversation and the kids all of them were on task and
all of them were contributing and all of them could answer her questions
it was BLISS i tell you
SHE LOVED THIS lesson and now our art is
hanging with the poem in the front office...
and will be entered into the district's art show... SMILE
LOVE
I thought it was a great way to connect Science, Poetry, and Character into a simple YET beautiful
art work...
some tips for the canvas...
put a little bit of hot glue down at a time... enough for maybe 3 crayons
face the crayons the same way and try to line them up better than I did...
a heat gun allows you to be more specific in which way the heat is directed a blow dryer might cause more splatter...
start at about 5 inches away and on the bottom half of the crayon... BUT not directly at the tips...
I heated about 5 in a row until they dripped about 2-4 inches... and then went to the next 5-6
until they dripped about the same...
and then when all of them were at 2-4 inches I heated the drips....
make sure you hold the heat gun in a downward position...
when you heat the drips focus on the globs... you will know what I mean... after I heated all the drips and they dripped even more....
I went back up to the crayons... and then I repeated the process until I got the drips to where I wanted them...
it was a slow process but I think it turned out GREAT
I hope this is something you can use and I hope your kiddos LOVE it as much as mine did...