The classes went well. We had a few more preview classes. There was an overlap in which a K class was not quite finished previewing (and being loud) while I was still finishing up my second Specials class and they wanted to check out. Had to stall for a few minutes before I could give the 3rd graders directions while the noisy K kids were hustled out.
In my Specials classes, I've been reading them a GA Children's Book Award Nominee every week, then going on with an unrelated lesson. I have a librarian friend who makes a killer website every year about the nominees and even includes some self-made read-aloud videos. (He got me to read Moonshot this year.) Then I usually do something with a Scholastic News article or something with one of the paid databases on the county's research site.
But this week I just wanted to share the inspiration from the Caine's Arcade site. I'm sure you've heard of this kid. Last year he spent the summer creating his own cardboard box arcade in his Dad's auto part shop. A customer made a short film of it that went viral.
Now there's a second film and the kick of to a foundation based on fostering the creativity of kids. So I showed my groups both videos this week and we talked about ideas for getting involved. We'll see if anything come of it. They were especially knocked out by the appearance of Jack Black and the Chief Engineer of the Mars Curiosity Rover.
The cool thing was, the two books I'd set aside for this rotation's reading weeks ago fit the theme perfectly! Dave the Potter is about a slave who was a potter and made stuff. When A Dragon Moves In is about using your imagination. So connecting them to Caine's Arcade was easy and fun.
Then I helped the counselor print out some stuff for her bulletin board. I remembered to play that Johnny Appleseed movie right a t 2! I rang up a couple after school sales to teachers and put some more stuff on hold for them. I ran the dismissal slides for bus call. I introduced the new ESOL teacher to Language Masters and taught her to download and use Audacity so she can use it to record students reading aloud, then they can hear themselves and work on their fluency.
How was your day?
Have a great weekend everybody!
