Showing posts with label wizard of oz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wizard of oz. Show all posts
One of the things I love about our Weather Unit is the awesome blend of literacy and science.  Literacy and social studies just seem a little easier and more natural sometimes.  But with the help of The Wizard of Oz, the blend of fiction reading and the science of weather is perfection!

We are reading a revised version of The Wizard of Oz and each of the first few chapters introduce one of the main characters.  I love to use this book to teach character traits, but this year, we added a little bit more technology into this project!

After each chapter focusing on a specific character, we worked at our table groups to "pass the pen" and brainstorm traits of that character {Cowardly Lion in this picture}.  

Then, I collected all 6 tables' character trait webs and we shared each one aloud.  As I read a trait from each group's web, we talked about whether or not we had read evidence from the text to support that trait... And with our "bubble test" coming up soon, I was so pleased with how well they were able to defend their character traits....or politely argue against someone else's trait!

As each trait was agreed on, I typed it into a wordle.  My kiddos were already familiar with wordles because we use them to brainstorm adjectives to describe our ranch hands/student of the week each week.  But they love them so much, that any excuse to tie in a wordle is good with my firsties! #easytoplease

I use abcya for my wordles.  One reason that I love this one (there are a ton of wordle sites out there) is because it's super kid-friendly.  Like my first graders can make their own wordles with very little guidance (but a lot of modeling) when we get to use our laptop set!  This time, I had our wordle this screen on our Smart Board so they were definitely more engaged in defending and politely arguing against character traits because they were dying to have their group's word added to our wordle! :)

Then, we click to turn our words into a wordle!  With a few adjustments on font and layout and color, we landed on some pretty perfect wordles!  Here are a few of our favorites....


After Spring Break, we will be using our knowledge about character traits and text evidence to decide which character said what!  And this activity was the perfect building block for next week's activity!  You can find the character trait webs and more in Wizard of Oz companion packet!

Party Day!  Such a fun last 2 weeks reading and studying the Wizard of Oz...

...and today was a great celebration of everything we had learned...Valentine's style!

The first thing I should make clear is that this was not solely my idea.  My sweet and more-creative-than-I-am teammate texted a few weekends ago with the inspiration for this party.  I was driving in the car with my husband, read aloud this fantastic idea and we (okay, mostly my more-creative-than-I-am husband) had added to her ideas in no-time!  After much collaboration...the result was uh-dor-uh-ble.  End of discussion!  And, I really thought this might be a time consuming party...but honestly, this party was pretty simple and not really any more difficult than a regular class party!  Here's a look at everything that made this party a success!

Wizard of Oz Dress-Up

The thing that took the most time were the Tin-Man hats.
...and really, it was a pretty simple process.  I bought silver metallic scrapbook paper from my second home, Hobby Lobby.  I cut them in half (portrait).  Then folded the end in a cone shape and taped the seam in the back.  So, it wasn't perfectly round in the back, but it still looked cute on the boys' heads and super simple!  Once the cones were made, I just taped pieces of yarn on the inside and put felt heart stickers on the front!  I think they turned out perfect!

The girls got blue gingham ribbons tied in their hair!


Table Decorations

My teammate and I split the cost of the blue gingham tablecloths from Oriental Trading.  We got a 100 foot roll and I think between 2 classes we only used half of the roll.  Yay for one less thing to do for next year!  I added yellow napkins spread out as placemats and red plates.  Perfect color palette and el-cheap-o {my favorite!}

My back table was just a little too empty {I decorated while the kids watched the movie before the party}, and I had extra napkins, so....I had to make a yellow brick road!

Wizard of Oz Menu & Treats

We had so much fun coming up with snacks for this party!

This year we ordered pizza...although next year, I'm thinking there's no need for pizza...just add pretzel sticks as "scarecrow stuffing!"

And, finally...my valentines for the kiddos...



Wizard of Oz Party Games

Every party has to have games...and these were just perfect!

Pin the heart on the Tin Man...I traced a cartoon tin man from my Smart Board on metallic poster board.  They had so much fun watching and giggling through each turn!  We played while they were eating which was a great time saver!

Winners who touched the actual heart, got some nuggets of "tin."

Next game was my husband's personal favorite and his claim to party-planning fame: Hot PoTOTO.

I forgot to take a pic of the adorable stuffed brown doggy my teammate bought, but we shared the "Toto" for our game...
Hot poTOTO, hot poTOTO,
Hot poTOTO, hot!
Hot poTOTO, hot poTOTO,
Hot poTOTO, stop!

As they got "out," they were able to go back to their desk and open their valentine's.  Winner got extra chocolate...although I looked so hard for a mini-Toto to give away!  Better luck next year!

Our last game was "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" musical chairs.  While the firsties were going through their valentines, I taped yellow construction paper bricks to our carpet.

We used the YouTube video of the yellow brick road song as our music!

Prizes for getting "out" of this game?  A yellow Twinkie "brick," of course!

So thankful for my friend's inspiration, my hubby's party planning skills {ha!}...this party's a keeper!
The past 2 weeks we have been reading The Wizard of Oz during our whole group read aloud time.  No, we didn't read the original version.  We read this chapter book...which is *fantastic*

It's a great first grade length and still has great vocabulary and detail!  The kids absolutely LOVED reading this together.  They begged to read more every day--I never would've dreamed it would catch on like it did in my room!

So many literacy skills to teach with this engaging book.  And the kids did SO well with some of these difficult skills.  We worked on them whole group and then reinforced them during Guided Reading groups.  Here's a look at our Wizard of Oz unit!

1. Adjectives that appeal to the senses...

We reviewed our adjectives chart and talked about how adjectives that appeal to our 5 senses help readers visualize {so important when reading aloud a chapter book!}

Then, we listened for words that appealed to our senses as we read aloud Oz.  I kept them engaged during the read aloud time by having them touch the sense what I was reading appealed to for certain, extra descriptive passages!  They loved it...and so SO good for the brain, too!

2. Character traits...

We used adjectives and character trait words to describe the Scarecrow whole group.

Then they worked in groups to describe Dorothy, Tin Man, and Lion and filled in their own character trait web.

Each group presented their webs to the class and we added their traits to our whole group anchor charts.


{EDIT: The following year, I used these to make character trait wordles.  Read more about those here.}

3.  That's what she said...

Sooooo....this may not be the EXACT name of this literacy skill, BUT!  I just couldn't teach character quotes without hearing Michael Scott constantly in my head. :)  And, no...I didn't say this outloud to my sweet firsties....

After we discussed character traits, we played Find Your Partner with half of the kids getting a quote and half getting a character.

Kids mix and mingle and use the sentence frame, "Do you have ____?" to find their matching partner.  Once they match, they bring the matches to the teacher to check.

We used the partners they found to discuss traits of their character for review.  Then, students worked to independently match quotes and character names!

4.  Favorite character

At the end of our story, we wrote our opinion about our favorite Oz character.  They used our character trait anchor charts to write reasons to support their opinions.  Then, they had to expand on their opinions. "She is sad because she wants to go home to Kansas."

This writing was one of my favorites...."She is smart because she knows what 1 plus 1 equals."  Hello??? Dorothy's gotta know those math facts, right??

And, of course, we had to have a little craftivity to make and post for parent-teacher conference week!

I'm not gonna lie...Dorothy's hair was a chore.  We initially thought do construction paper braids and just cut the strips in half and let the kids twist.  But we decided to go to yarn.  It was adorable.  And totally worth it...but it was a very time consuming chore.  Next year, I'll be trying the paper braids to see if I can make that work.

Here's how we made the yarn braids if you have lots of help and wanna try!
1. We had a volunteer mom cut 12 pieces of brown yarn about 15" long.  She tied them gently over themselves to bundle them.
2.  I tied off each bundle in the middle for her hair part.
 ....and part of my problem was 13 of my kiddos chose Dorothy.  That's alotta yarn people...a LOT!
 Then I went down about 4-5 inches and tied it off again at each side {for the top of her braid}.
 Then I braided each side and tied off the bottom.  I also added the blue gingham or red ribbon to each one before finishing.
So all the kids had to do was glue it on!

All of these activities are included in my Wizard of Oz packet

It's been so much fun and so engaging, that we've even decided to turn our Valentine's party on Thursday into a Wizard of Oz Valentine's party!  The kids are about to burst with excitement and I just can't wait!  Stay tuned for pics of our party this week!

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