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St. Patrick's Day

On March 17th, people of Irish heritage celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with parades, wearing green, and avoiding being "pinched." Students love to hear tales of cunning leprechauns and fairies and their partaking in mischief.

So put on your green, stick a shamrock in your hair, and head on down to the end of the rainbow with this very lucky St. Patrick's Day post ! Complete with themed math centers, fun writing prompts, reading passages, craft ideas, and graphing ideas, I have shared my favourite St. Patrick’s Day activities for primary students.

Leprechaun Letters

Build excitement by leaving leprechaun "evidence" in the room before the students arrive. Mess up books, toys, papers, books, backpacks, etc. Leave glitter behind and footprints.  Leprechaun footprints can be made by stamping the side of your fist in green paint! 

Three days prior, read a letter each day left by the leprechaun and search for the leprechaun’s shoes, pot of gold, green treats, etc. that had been left behind.  See the letters in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource! As St. Patrick's Day draws near, make the messes bigger!

St. Patrick's Day Literacy

A favourite read aloud is  Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato. The tale features a lazy man who is sure he'll starve to death after his wife becomes ill. A wily leprechaun intervenes, and one wish later, the man is the proud owner of a potato as big as a house! The story lends itself to making predictions and foreshadowing. 

Fiona’s Luck is another favorite St. Patrick’s Day read aloud.  An original folktale full of wit, magic, and leprechauns, that is sure to delight for St. Patrick’s Day as well as all year round. The luck of the Irish has waned after the greedy Leprechaun King has taken all the good fortune in Ireland and locked it away. It is up to one cunning girl, Fiona to come up with a plan to get the luck and good tidings back from the leprechauns to help the people of Ireland. Through clever charades, Fiona uses her wit to outsmart the powerful Leprechaun King and restore luck to the Emerald Isle. This folktale is perfect for introducing or reviewing theme as students learn that cleverness and intelligence is  advantageous.

Will your students be the first to catch a leprechaun? Catching leprechauns is no easy task!  An included reading passage shows students need need more than dandelion tea and four-leaf clovers! Pair the reading passage with the picture book How To Build A Leprechaun Trap - which shows builders need the perfect trap with precise calculations and proper engineering.

The reading passage and printables that accompany these book are included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

St. Patrick's Day Mathematics

St. Patrick's Day is a great time for students to practice their data management skills. The Irish are infamous for the many delicious ways they prepare potatoes, from pancakes to Irish candy style! Potato Graph Poll students to determine how they like their spuds: baked, mashed, tater tots, French fries, hash browns, or potato chips. Have students create a pictograph of their favourites.  The activity is included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

Lucky Charms cereal is perfect for St. Patrick' Day. In March, General Mills often features green boxes of Lucky Charms in stores which include a special, limited-edition marshmallow blend of pots of gold, green shamrocks and new gold coins.  Provide each student a handful of the cereal (regular or green box) and have them graph their results. The graph is included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

St. Patrick's Day Writing

Limericks are a type of nonsense poetry that are intended to be silly and fun. Limericks originated in England in the early 18th century. Legend has it that the name of the poetry originates from Ireland, which is why limericks are so popular during St. Patrick's Day.

Limericks depend on rhythm and rhyme. Lines one, two and five rhyme with each other. Lines three and four rhyme with each other (AABBA).

Share several limericks from Edward Lear's The Complete Book of Nonsense. Have students compose limericks. The limerick templates and exemplars are included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

As you can see, I always sneak many activities to celebrate St. Patrick's Day! I hope your students enjoy the activities.

Fiction vs Nonfiction

Readers approach fiction and nonfiction differently. Fiction refers to plot, settings, and characters created from the imagination, while nonfiction refers to factual stories focused on actual events and people. 

 The contents of the Fiction vs. Nonfiction Interactive Notebook:

• Bibliography 
• Anchor charts 
• Elements Interactive Notebook
• Book Sort Interactive Notebook
• Text Sort Interactive Notebook
• Genre Sort Interactive Notebook
• Summary Interactive Notebook
• Writing Activity

Reading and Interactive Notebooks

I have been thinking a lot about how structure my literacy block, particularly Readers' Workshop. I wanted to share the Reading Rotation and interactive notebooks that we use to keep track of our skills and strategies.

Minds-On

We start together with a Minds-On block. This block is a time for students to notice the author’s craft and to engender comprehension strategies.  . This can be an explicit modelling of the skill, modelled reading, shared reading, or an interactive reading of a mentor text. This block readies our minds to learn or develop a literacy skill.

Reading 

Next, we read! In the Reading block, each student or pair of students have an individual novel with aligns to the mode of reading we are currently studying, such as biographies or persuasive texts. It is time for students to note their reading progress and to read for a sustained period of time. As they read, students are encouraged to take notice of the literacy skills we studied in the Minds-On session.

Independent Task

Now we move into Independent Task block, students practice the skill by completing a task in the Reading Rotation. This block is a time for students to share and coalesce their thinking with a partner or small group. Students engage in reflective dialogue regarding their reading and comprehension of read texts.

Interactive Notebooks

I have created many interactive notebook resources to help students Examine the text. Please visit my store to see my Theme and Author's Purpose 

 

Reflect

The Reflect block of the reading block is a time for students to voice their new learnings and to revisit the teaching point. Students voice the “Noticings” and “Wonderings” shared with their partner to the larger group. Students name the reading skill or strategy they noticed, and perhaps used, in their independent reading. Teachers take note of the sharing on a class chart. The anecdotal records serve as an assessment tool, as well as means for determining A revisitation of the teaching point brings closure to the session

Division Bundle - Unit and Games

Division Bundle is complete!
To help your students master basic division facts, this bundle combines:

1.  A complete division unit 
2. Strategic division games or stations 

The Unit

The 116 page unit contains 13 lessons and an accompanying 28 page flashcard file will help in the teaching and student learning of strategies, tips, and models to solve basic division facts. 

Included in this resource:

• Anchor Charts 
• Lesson Plans
• Flashcards
• Activities
• Diagnostic Assessment

13 sessions are included:

1.  Introduction to Division
2.  Equal Groupings
3. Repeated Subtraction
4. Number Lines 
5. Arrays
6. Thinking Multiplication
7. Identity and Zero Property
8. A Number Divided by Itself 
9. Halving Strategy (Dividing by 2)
10. Dividing by 5 and 10
11. Halving Twice (Dividing by 4) 
12. Dividing by 3 
13. Learning Showcase

The  Games and Stations

The 114 page Games and Stations helps students grasp the difficult concept of division through strategic games and activities. It includes anchor charts, ten games, and reflection sheets.

To demonstrate their understanding of the basic division facts, students will play a game to help learn the following strategies or properties:

1. Zero Property 
2. Identity Property 
3. Making Models (Arrays) and Visual Representations (Skip Counting) 
4. Number Divided By Itself 
5. Halving (Dividing by 2, 4, and 8) 
6. Dividing by 5 and 10 
7. Tripling (Dividing by 3, 6, and 9) 
8. Think Multiplication 
9. Fact Families 

This resource includes the following for each strategy: Anchor chart(s) Flashcards Activity, and Reflection sheet

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Biography Unit

Biography Unit has been updated!

Biography means "writing about life." In this complete reading unit, readers learn only about a variety of notable subjects - their achievements, impact, struggles, and the world in which they live. Students will make arguments about the significance of the person's accomplishments and to extract life lessons. 

The resource is organized around TWELVE lessons or big ideas of biographies. Each big idea has the following: 

•  Session Synopsis (detailed lesson plan) 
• Anchor Chart Task (independent or group work) 

I have also included a bibliography and an overview of how I organize my reading block.