Class Antics – Inside Elementary Education

Dear readers,

Exciting news!  ClassAntics.com has been nominated for the 2012 Fascination Awards honoring the Internet’s most fascinating blogs in the category of Elementary Teacher Blogs.  It’s an honor just to be nominated, but actually it would be even better to win. 

You can help: please click a Google +1 image to vote for ClassAntics.  Voting runs May 14 through May 21.

The Fascinator Awards editorial team chooses the nominees.  ClassAntics caught their attention with FREE Leap Year Worksheets Part 3.  Special thanks to Kumie and Ramona, whose positive comments impressed the editorial team.

Thank you to the tens thousand readers who visit ClassAntics each month.  Please vote for our blog and have a happy end of the school year!

Sincerely,
Corey Green
P.S. For a ClassAntics Sampler, visit these popular posts.

Classroom Management
All for One and One for All: Whole-Class Incentives
A typical elementary schoolday schedule
A Sample First Day of School Letter Home
Chill Music for the Classroom
Best Practices for Professional Learning Communities (Part 2)
Make your classroom a tattle-free zone

 Literacy
AR Report: What Kids are Reading
Teaching Kids to Write Complete Sentences
Figurative Language with Taylor Swift: You Belong with Me

Resources and Worksheets
Dad’s Worksheets: my favorite math resource for parents and teachers
FREE Equinox Worksheet and More Equinox Teaching Resources
Beat Summer Slide: Where to Buy Workbooks

Civil Rights
Red Tails: The Tuskegee Airmen (Part 1)
Coretta Scott King Book Awards 2012
Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, Part 1
Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, Part 2
Ballad of Birmingham
Ruby Bridges

Academics
New Orleans Halloween
Think Inside the Box
How to Ace Standardized Tests

Teach an art appreciation lesson and make Mother’s Day cards!

“I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.” –Georgia O’Keeffe

Students love to learn about Georgia O’Keeffe’s oversized flower paintings. The bold lines, bright colors and happy subjects speak to children. In my experience, students truly appreciate learning a different way to see the world.

Teachers like to have students imitate famous artists’ styles, and for many students, that is very frustrating. Most of us will never be able to approximate the works of the great artists, and kids know it. Georgia O’Keeffe’s flower paintings feel more accessible to kids.

At first, my students have trouble filling a paper with just one flower. I usually do a few examples, with different types of flower outlines. Once kids see how it’s done, they are raring to go!

For reluctant or self-conscious artists, I draw the giant flower myself and let them color until they build up their confidence. Students who figure out how to draw big flowers like to help their friends.

The giant flowers make great Mother’s Day cards. I hope you and your class enjoy this simple but educational art project!

Cross curricular connection for science: plant growth is a third grade science topic in my district. I like to tie in art by having the kids make Georgia O’Keeffe pictures and gluing little clip-art bees on them. It’s a bee’s-eye view of a flower!

Visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s website for a gallery of her flower pictures. Fun anecdote: I visited the museum with my little brother when he was in third grade. Halfway through our museum visit, my brother said, “Wait. These are the original paintings? The ones Georgia touched?” He was awestruck.

See if your students understand that the paintings at art museums are the originals. You might be able to give them more appreciation of their next art museum visit.

Take some time this weekend to teach your kids about Jackie Robinson, the brave man who broke the color barrier in baseball.

Every team in baseball has retired Jackie’s number, 42, and on Sunday every team will celebrate Jackie’s legacy. You might enjoy the special Jackie Robinson Day section on MLB.com. It has a biography of Jackie, interesting pictures, and videos about Jackie and his legacy.

Read some interesting books about Jackie. My favorite is Teammates by Peter Golenblock. It focuses on Jackie’s relationship with white teammate Pee Wee Reese. The moment when Pee-Wee put his arm around Jackie Robinson is one of the most memorable in baseball, up there with Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech.

You will also enjoy Jackie’s Nine: Jackie Robinson’s Values to Live By. This book will help your students apply the lessons from Jackie’s courage and wisdom to their own lives. It is written and compiled by Jackie’s daughter, Sharon Robinson.

I paid tribute to Jackie Robinson by making him the hero to Connor, the baseball-loving protagonist in my newest children’s novel, Double Switched.  Every time Connor faces a difficult decision, he thinks about how Jackie would have handled it.  Connor knows he does not always live up to the example of his role model, but ultimately he finds his personal strength and makes things right.  I hope you enjoy reading about Connor’s (hilarious) misadventures as he learns to follow Jackie’s example. (Available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle editions. Read Chapter 1 here.)

Happy Jackie Robinson Day and Play Ball!

The Hunger Games provides many opportunities for classroom discussion and analysis. Taylor Swift’s haunting “Safe & Sound” gives students yet another opportunity to study her clever use of figurative language, symbolism and rhyme.

 ”Safe & Sound” is a perfect theme song for The Hunger Games. Message boards are full of posts by fans arguing over which story situation the song fits best. I believe the answer is that Taylor Swift penned the song to apply to many, many characters and situations in The Hunger Games. To avoid spoilers, I have listed the characters but not situations. Fans will know!

> Primrose & Katniss
> Katniss & Rue
> Gale & Katniss
> Katniss & Peeta
> Mrs. Everdeen & Katniss

The song is heavy on symbolism and imagery, but actually lighter on rhyme than most of Taylor Swift’s songs.  (No constant internal rhyme like in “Hey, Stephen“.)  Taylor uses a subtle rhyme scheme to create a song that is haunting, not sing-song and catchy.  You might say that she “tailors” her message to her intended audience and purpose.

I hope you enjoy the pdf download of my literary analysis of the song “Safe & Sound” by Taylor Swift from the soundtrack to The Hunger Games.  Click here for two Behind the Scenes videos from TaylorSwift.com. 

This is Part 7 of my series about Fun with Literacy: Taylor Swift.

1. You Belong with Me
2. Love Story
3. Hey Stephen
4. Mean
5. Speak Now
6. Our Song

Watch the clip of Judy Garland and Fred Astaire performing Irving Berlin’s classic song “Easter Parade” and teach your students a little history!

Easter Parade is a classic MGM musical. It is a Pygmalion story about a famous dancer who is abandoned by his dancing partner and bets that he can turn anyone into a better partner than she was. His random protégé is Judy Garland, so you know that the singing-and-dancing act will (eventually) turn out well. Of course, Fred and Judy’s characters fall in love, and the finale finds the happy couple walking in New York’s Easter Parade.

Teaching Tips: New York’s Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue was an important institution for decades. It began as in impromptu event in the 1870s as couples showed off their finery while admiring the Easter flowers at the sanctuaries of the city’s most beautiful churches. Over the years, the floral displays and elegant dress grew more and more ornate. By 1947, the Easter Parade drew over a million people.

Your students will be interested to learn that both Easter parades and new clothes for the holiday have a long tradition. Easter processions have been a part of Christianity since the first Holy Week., and Christians in Eastern Europe would gather together and walk in a solemn procession to church on Easter Sunday. The clergy have long worn special garb for Easter, and in Tudor times, superstitious parishioners believed that if you didn’t wear new clothes for Easter, moths would eat your old threads.

When I teach my class about the classic “Easter Parade” song, I never lose sight of a very important lesson: teaching students to analyze just how Judy Garland gives another stellar performance. Not a move, gesture, or vocal intonation is wasted. She is a star for the ages!

*Fun Fact: Sydney Sheldon, author of many novels of suspense, wrote the screenplay for Easter Parade.

**Fun Fact: Irving Berlin first used the tune for “Easter Parade” in a song called “Smile and Show your Dimple.” The song flopped, but he later salvaged the tune and made it into a classic. The stick-with-it lesson, perseverance, is an inspiration for all of us.

Here is a FREE April Fools Day worksheet written by a National Board Certified Teacher. Students will build comprehension skills and practice critical thinking as they learn about the origins of April Fools Day.

You can use this worksheet every year, but in 2012 you get a special break: you can have fun teaching about April Fools Day without having to actually suffer through pranks on a school day!

April Fools Day began with a calendar change in 19th century France. King Charles IX moved New Year from April 1st to January 1st. News spread slowly through the countryside, so some folks celebrated on the wrong day for years before they learned of the change. Others refused to change and became known as April Fools. It became a tradition to play pranks on them.

Click here for the FREE worksheet.

More April Fools worksheets are available from Classroom Jr. Click here to access them. There is a reading comprehension activity, a writing activity, and a word search. Build reading fluency with these fun and ready-to-print April Fools poems.

Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland
by Tomie dePaola
Available at Amazon.com

With Tomie dePaola’s signature illustration and simple writing style, this book tells the story of Saint Patrick, from his roots as a Roman slave to the height of his powers.  At the end of the book, Tomie shows myths and legends about Saint Patrick.  My favorite is driving the snakes from Ireland—but I also love the picture of him cruising across the water on a rock.

Activities and tie-ins:

Color Celtic Designs: Your children will enjoy the Celtic design elements in the illustrations.  Click here to print Celtic designs and alphabets for your students to color and  here to print Celtic knot patterns.

Learn about Celtic Designs: Your class will get so much more out of coloring Celtic designs if you take a few minutes to teach them about the history.  This website is perfect for a quick study.  I particularly liked learning about Celtic animals.  Kids love animals, so you know it’s a natural fit for the classroom.

Illustrate & Write: Tomie dePaola’s deceptively simple style is enticing for children to imitate—your class would love to illustrate their favorite part, writing a short paragraph underneath the illustration.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, we’re all Irish!  Have some fun with your class.

Preparation: get a class shamrock plant.  (Bonus points if you can convince a parent to donate it!) 

Ask the kids to save their milk cartons from lunch.  Use them to take home a piece of the class shamrock plant.  Students can repot a piece of the shamrock plant and grow their own at home.  Learn how to grow a shamrock plant at ehow.com

If you are learning about immigration in Social Studies, tie the Irish immigrant experience in with your Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations.  You could talk with your class about how Irish immigrants were treated and compare it to immigration today.  The countries of origin have changed, but in many ways, how people view immigrants remains the same.  Read Eve Bunting’s Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island Story.

Grownups, take this opportunity to read a book by a wonderful Irish writer, Maeve Binchy.  Her books immerse you in Ireland, and you know her characters better than you know your own family.  Tara Road is her magnum opus, and her newer books all feature that Dublin neighborhood.  Every single book by Maeve Binchy is wonderful.  I read them over and over again.

The 2012 spring equinox falls on March 20^th.

Teachers, here is a FREE equinox worksheet written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy it!

The spring equinox presents a wonderful opportunity for a mini-lesson incorporating science, social studies, and (thanks to my worksheet) reading comprehension.  A basic lesson on the equinox helps students understand why we have seasons, and how the equinox marks the beginning of spring and fall.  If you have time, teach students about cultural traditions surrounding the equinox.  (St. Patrick’s Day and Easter immediately come to mind—read this article for more details.)

To help students remember the difference between equinox and solstice—and which seasons they mark—I explain that the solstice marks the beginning of “extreme” seasons: summer and winter.  The equinox marks the beginning of “transitional” seasons: spring and fall.  See if this helps your students!

Resources for Teaching the Equinox:

> Incorporate reading comprehension and introduce your equinox lessons with my FREE worksheet about the equinox.

> The YouTube video (shown above) is like an animated model that shows the earth’s orbit around the sun, so you can show students the equinox, solstice, and the seasons.  You might mention that the earth spins one complete rotation on its axis 365 times during a year’s complete orbit around the sun.  Explain to students that one day is the time it takes the earth to make one complete rotation around its axis.  Note that the earth appears to be rotating more slowly in this video.

> This animated graphic shows the revolution/rotation very clearly.  You can adjust the speed of the earth’s revolution around the sun while you explain to the class.

> Teach students about cultural traditions relating to the equinox with this article from About.com.

> The spring equinox is considered a global holiday by the United Nations.  Read this article to learn more.

> A quick Google Image search for “equinox diagram” yields helpful visual aids for your students.

> Your students can learn about the equinox—and practice with articles—using this worksheet from insideout.net.  Click on student’s worksheets for the pdf.

Author Award Winner:
Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans
by Kadir Nelson, author and illustrator.

The story is told from the viewpoint of an elderly woman who shares her life story while highlighting pivotal historical events including abolition, the Great Migration, World War II, and the Civil Rights movement.

Watch Kadir Nelson’s video description of the book:

Illustrator Award Winner:
Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom

Shane W. Evans’ effective interplay of dark and light characterizes this portrayal of a band of slaves’ nighttime escape.

Author Honor:
The Great Migration: Journey to the North
by Eloise Greenfield

Greenfield’s book describes the Great Migration of 1915-1930, when African-American families left their homes in the South and moved to the North.

Never Forgotten
by Patricia C. McKissack

Watch an interview with Patricia and Frederick McKissack, who began writing books when they decided they wanted to do something about the lack of children’s stories about African Americans.

Illustrator Honor:
Kadir Nelson was honored for his illustrations in Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans.

Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement:
Ashley Bryan, storyteller, artist, author, poet, and musician whose numerous awards include the Coretta Scott King Book Award for Let it Shine and Beautiful Blackbird.

Watch a video interview with Ashley Bryan.

From the American Library Association website: Given to African American authors and illustrators for outstanding inspirational and educational contributions, the Coretta Scott King Book Award titles promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream of a pluralistic society. The award is designed to commemorate the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to honor Mrs. Coretta Scott King for her courage and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.

Leap Year Idioms

Teachers, here is a FREE Leap Year worksheet written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy it! Here is the Answer Key.

This worksheet helps you teach students about idioms—a commonly assessed concept on state standardized tests. Have some Leap Year fun with idioms based on the word “leap” or “year.”

If you haven’t seen them already, check out Free Leap Year Worksheets Part 1 and Part 2.

Part 1: Leap Year Reading and Writing

Part 2: “Fun with Leap Year and Leap Day” reading comprehension and Leap Year Math

Part two: ideas and resources for the classroom

The National Assessment of Educational Progress—commonly called “The Nation’s Report Card”—tells a dismal story: Only 2% of high school seniors in 2010 could answer a simple question about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

This report certainly matches my experience as a teacher. Every year, I am shocked at how little students know about the civil rights movement. (You’d think I would learn, but I’m shocked every year.) The students—if I’m lucky—have hazy memories of learning about Rosa Parks and Dr. King.

Earlier, I posted a blog entry about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s study, Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education 2011, which examined state standards and curriculum requirements related to the study of the modern civil rights movement in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

It’s interesting that the important concept the SPLC’s report noted was lacking in state standards—opposition encountered by activists—is the concept that helps kids understand the civil rights movement.

When you teach students about the racism, violence, and hate African-Americans lived with every day, students understand “why we find it difficult to wait.” Here are some suggestions for how to teach the civil rights movement at an elementary school level:

> Read “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Dr. King. His descriptions of the pain of segregation always tear at students’ hearts. This is a good lesson to present early in your unit on civil rights.

>Read “Ballad of Birmingham,” about the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 in which four girls were killed. Of all the lessons I present about civil rights, this is the most emotional and memorable for students.

> Really analyze the “I have a dream” speech. You can use the teaching notes I created to help you. Running alongside the speech, my notes explain important historical references, vocabulary terms, allusions, and examples of good rhetorical techniques. If you teach students about the speech before you show it on video, the students will be utterly entranced. They won’t forget how they felt the first time they heard it. My students always thank me, because they know I gave them a gift when I showed them how to appreciate the speech. Click here for an excellent DVD with the “I have a dream” speech and related documentaries.

> Watch “Our Friend, Martin,” an excellent animated movie that has real footage from the era. It’s voiced by an all-star cast including Whoopi Goldberg and Angela Bassett. The movie is very expensive, but you might be able to borrow it from a fellow teacher, your district video center, the public library, or Netflix.

> Read “Teammates,” a picture book about Jackie Robinson’s rookie year in Major League Baseball. With elegant and simple language and illustrations, this book shows the indignities faced by African-Americans and the hate they encountered.

> Listen to music from the era—starting with “We Shall Overcome.” Listen to it performed by the Morehouse College Glee Club on YouTube. You can also listen to other music about the era. My students love “Pride (In the name of love)” by U2.

> Teach students about Brown versus Board of Education. Note: modern parlance has led to the need to explain to students that “Brown” refers to the lead plaintiff’s name, Linda Brown, not the skin color of the plaintiffs. (My Mexican-American students were confused by this at first.) You can read an overview of the case, brush up on myths versus truths, and request free activity booklets to help you teach students about the landmark case.

> Watch the Disney movie Ruby Bridges. This movie pushes the envelope enough to really show the stakes, but it keeps things appropriate for school. Your students will be shocked at the brazenness of the white opposition—particularly the crowds outside Ruby’s school each morning. The movie addresses so much more—Ruby’s father’s experience in the “integrated” military, anti-Semitism in Ruby’s neighborhood, and the opposition her white teacher faced for standing by Ruby. Read my blog entry about the movie.

> Read everything you can! I set out my own collection of books and pictures books about the civil rights movement, and I check out titles from our school library for students to read. Once you get them interested in the civil rights movement, they will continue to learn on their own. Black History Month will continue all year.  It is a proud moment for the teacher when students tell each other about what they have read.

> Check out the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance program. You can request teaching kits, subscribe to Teaching Tolerance magazine, and get ideas for classroom activities.

“An educated populace must be taught basics about American history,” said Julian Bond in his preface to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report. “One of these basics is the civil rights movement, a nonviolent revolution as important as the first American Revolution. It is a history that continues to shape the America we all live in today.”

Part one: Study shows more than half of states fail at teaching civil rights movement

The civil rights movement is one of the defining events in U.S. history, but most states fail when it comes to teaching the movement to students, a first-of-its kind study by the Southern Poverty Law Center has found.

The study, Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education 2011, examined state standards and curriculum requirements related to the study of the modern civil rights movement in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It includes a foreword by noted civil rights activist and historian Julian Bond. Click here to read the report.

In his foreword, Julian Bond writes that he feared he was “talking down” to students in civil rights history sessions at some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, so he created a simple quiz. He need not have worried. None of the students could tell him who George Wallace was. (Answer: the segregationist governor of Alabama who stood in the door of the University of Alabama to prevent it being integrated. He ran for president.) Students knew sanitized accounts of the lives of Dr. King and Rosa Parks.

The study compared the requirements in state standards to a body of knowledge that reflects what civil rights historians and educators consider core information about the civil rights movement.

Interesting findings:

> 35 states received grades of F

> Of those, 16 states, where local officials set specific policies and requirements for their school districts, have no requirements at all for teaching about the civil rights movement

> Only 3 states received an A—Alabama, New York, and Florida.

> Generally speaking, the farther from the South—and the smaller the African-American population—the less attention paid to the civil rights movement. Most states receiving a C or better are in the South—suggesting the civil rights movement is viewed as a regional concern rather than a national interest

> Civil rights lessons tend to focus on a few leaders—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, rather than obstacles civil rights activists faced, like racism and resistance.

“For too many students, their civil rights education boils down to two people and four words: Rosa Parks, Dr. King and ‘I have a dream,’” said Maureen Costello, the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance director.

My newest novel, Double Switched, has a strong civil rights theme and a funny scene that illustrates just how little most students know about the civil rights movement. I assure you that in my experience as a teacher, the scene is very realistic.

Background: Connor and his friends do a group project about the civil rights movement. Connor presents information he learned from interviewing his father, who grew up in the (recently) desegregated South and went on to play for the New York Yankees. Tyler presents a report about Dr. King. Connor accidentally interrupts Tyler’s report, and then both boys step on each other as they continue presenting.

The class is utterly confused. To the kids, Dr. King and Connor’s dad are switched. Sample questions from Connor’s classmates:

> What position did Dr. King play?

> What was his ERA?

> Why do you keep calling him Doctor if he didn’t finish college?

> Who got a C in public speaking?

> Whose mom worked for a white family?

> When was Dr. King a Yankee?

Prevent such a mix-up in your class. Teach the civil rights movement!

Fun Reading Comprehension and Leap Year Math

Teachers, here are FREE Leap Year worksheets written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy them!

Here is an enjoyable reading comprehension worksheet called “Fun with Leap Year and Leap Day.” The passage and questions are indeed fun. What other worksheet challenges you to figure out what Pope Paul III and Ja Rule have in common? (Answer: they were both born on Leap Day.)

You and your students will enjoy learning about Leap Year luck (or lack thereof), Leap Year marriage proposals in Ireland, and the quandary posed by a Leap Year birthday in The Pirates of Penzance. The questions are all opinion based—and in my opinion, you shouldn’t grade them! Give students credit for completion, then go home and kick back to enjoy the rest of Leap Day.

Next is my fun “Was it a Leap Year?” worksheet that lets students apply their knowledge of divisibility by 4. Hints for determining divisibility by 4 are at the bottom of the page. The worksheet teaches a special case: century years. Because a revolution around the sun does not quite take 365.25 days, only century years divisible by 400 are Leap Years. The worksheet gives a student-friendly explanation and challenges them to determine if a century year was or wasn’t a Leap Year.  I also have provided an Answer Key as a separate download.

Don’t forget to download the other two worksheets in Free Leap Year Worksheets Part One.

Happy Leap Year!

Reading Comprehension and Writing Nonfiction

Teachers, here are FREE Leap Year worksheets written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy them!

The first one is a reading comprehension worksheet about Leap Year.  It’s a good, basic introduction to the concept of Leap Year that is appropriate for third grade and up.

Next is a writing worksheet about how and why Julius Caesar created Leap Year and rearranged the calendar. To shake things up a little, this worksheet challenges students to write a newspaper article about the event. The article gives “notes” our fictitious reporter took at the press conference—in a handy who, what, where, when, why format.

Stay tuned for Free Leap Year Worksheets Part Two: Leap Year trivia reading comprehension and Leap Year math!