Popping Candy Paragraphs

Sizzle and Fizzle… Pop Rocks! 

Upping the engagement and increasing the fun is a must for the dreary months of January and February (and March, April, and most of May here in Oregon).  Candy that pops and shocks is sure to be a winner and bring smiles to my kiddo’s faces!

                                 

I think I’ve only had Pop Rocks a couple of times in my life, not sure I’m a fan, but there’s something about the tingle and tickle on your tongue that makes Pop Rocks a hit with kids of all ages!  Eating this candy is an experience I’m excited to share with my students and, since I AM a teacher, turning it into a descriptive writing lesson was a no brainer!

I found the Pop Rocks at my local Dollar Tree.  Much less expensive than ordering from Amazon, although I would have almost paid the extra $20 to not have to leave my house.  I was only able to find one flavor, but I'm okay with that. All in all, I spent $10 for 30 packages of candy.

I'm writing this post BEFORE I actually teach the lesson because I wanted to share it in case others are looking for an engaging activity for January. I'll come back and revise this post after I've taught the lesson to share updates, photos, and revisions I'd make. Stay tuned for that!

Thinking through this lesson, I wanted to peak student interest and give them a mystery to solve. For my hook, I'm going to play the sounds of Pop Rocks and have students try to guess what the sound is. This is sure to get students asking questions and get their brains thinking.

I also want to make sure students understood what descriptive writing is and why it is important to learn how to do it well. The lesson starts with an anchor chart to focus students on that objective.

(Insert anchor chart photo here.)

The first part of the lesson is focused on word choices, choosing million dollar words to replace those $10 words we use all the time. In order to facilitate this, I'm having students work in their groups to brainstorm synonyms for words they might use when writing about Pop Rocks.

I'm also planning on doing a "chalk talk" type activity. I'm going to place a large piece of butcher paper up on one of our classroom walls and students will be able to add their ideas, thus creating a large word bank for their writing.

(Insert photo here.)

Now comes the exciting part! Students will get a packet of Pop Rocks and their notes page. Students will spend time focusing on sensory details while tasting their candy.

During the second day, students will use their notes, the anchor charts, and the word bank to construct a descriptive paragraph about their experience. The notes page is perfect is a perfect tool to help students create a well written paragraph.

Crossing fingers that our school will remain in-person, but if we don't I am prepared!! I've also created a digital version of the student sheets and scoring rubric that can easily be assigned through Google Classroom. All I'll need to do is get the Pop Rocks to the kids and create a Jamboard for the word bank.

This year has been tough, so coming up with and teaching fun lessons for our students is so important.  This writing activity is easy to implement and a big bang for your buck.   

Thank you for pinning me!  

If you try out this lesson, I'd love to hear how it goes for you! 

Stay strong, Friends!  

 

 

Grab 'Em with Guinness World Records

As teachers, we've all seen it...  groups of elementary school kids crowded around a dog-eared, well worn copy of Guinness World Records.  Kids are mesmerized by the pictures of the tallest man and the longest fingernails.  They giggle over the flamboyant tattoos and the shocking piercings.  Many dream about being the fastest person, having the most home runs, or any other number of records just waiting to be broken.

Guinness World Records is a great way to entertain students, but did you know that is is full of fascinating facts and interesting information that'll peak your class's curiosity and set them up to learn?

If you've ever taken a close look at the inside of Guinness, you've seen it is ripe with possibilities.  So many great ideas, in fact, that the people at Guinness have created a Teachers Guide for the new 2017 edition.

You can use the Teachers Edition with a hard copy of Guinness World Records 2017 (see the end of the post for a giveaway of the book) or the guinnessworldrecords.com.

The lesson plan guide contains activity ideas for grades 2-5 and connect to the Common Core Standards.  Activities include ideas for measurement and mapping, language arts, and science.

In my classroom, I used the teachers guide to create a measurement math station.  Students worked with a partner to measure a variety of body parts and then compared their measurements to the record holders.  I've provided the sheet I used HERE as a free download for you.

The measurements for the middle section can be found in the Teacher's Edition. 

I have to be honest, I always thought that Guinness was just a book full of records, but it is SO MUCH MORE!  It is packed full of interesting facts and information for just about anything you can think of.  As I looked through the 2017 edition I found myself continually thinking about how this book could be used to enhance just about every science and social studies unit I teach in 4th grade!  I'm going to give you a quick pic-tour so you can start thinking about how you could use Guinness in your own classroom.

If your students learn about space as part of your curriculum, sharing some of the facts in this section would be a great way to peak interest at the beginning of your unit!

If you study geology, clouds, weather, oceans,  or plant adaptations, this section if packed with fun facts students will love!  

 Every kids loves learning about animals!  This section is full of interesting information students will get excited about.  If you teach animal adaptations, habitats, spiders, or dinosaurs this is a great section to find attention-grabbing facts!

Another great feature you'll find at the bottom of many of the pages is a time line.  

This section would be great for teachers starting a unit on body systems! 

 The Journey's section is a wonderful compliment to your study of explorers and explorations.  

 The "Do Try This at Home..." section is full of fun challenges students can try at home such as how many sugar cubes can you balance on your chin or how fast can you drink a bottle of ketchup.  

 And some crazy things you DON'T want to try at home or anywhere else! 

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Every kids loves toys and games!  There are some great writing prompt ideas you could get from this section! 

 For students who love to build!  The facts and information inside this section would be a great way to inspire a STEM unit!  There are also a lot of measurements in this section you could use to have students compare and contrast, find the difference, etc.

The Arts & Media section is another wonderful section to find ideas for writing.  

There are so many different possibilities with this section!  Writing prompts and facts to grab learners at the start of a science unit are just a couple.   

 The sports section is another favorite of students!  

As you can see, Guinness World Records is a valuable resource for any classroom!  It is not only a favorite of students, but there is a lot of great attention grabbing content inside of this book for teachers to use as a support and enhancement to your grade-level lesson and units!  

Don't forget to download your FREE Teachers Guide by clicking the link above and as a "Thank You" for visiting Literacy Loves Company and reading this blog post, the people at Guinness World Records have given me a copy of the NEW 2017 edition to give to one lucky reader! 

GIVEAWAY GUIDELINES:

• Since, if you win,  I will have to ship the book to you, the giveaway is only open to people with mailing addresses within the continental United States. 
• The giveaway is open from December 29, 2016 through January 9th, 2016.  
• I only have one book, so there will only be one lucky winner!
• To enter, please enter your information in the Rafflecopter widget at the bottom of this post.  
• The winner will be randomly chosen by the Rafflecopter widget.
• The winner will be announced Tuesday, January 10th on my Facebook page, Instagram account, here on the blog, and by email. 
• The winner will need to respond to my email by January 15th with a mailing address so that I can get your book in the mail that next week.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Thank you for visiting Literacy Loves Company!  I hope this post has inspired you to take a closer look at your Guinness World Records books for inspiration!