Chances are classes across the country (including yours) are working hard to create Mother's Day gifts for students to give to the women in their lives. But, what happens to all of those projects? Some are saved: tucked into a drawer or at the back of a closet collecting dust while others end up...well, in the trash.
I spent years dreaming up (and buying all of the materials myself) adorable Mother's Day crafts that my students could make in class and give to the special women in their lives on Mother's Day. Together, we made keychains, teapots with little bags of tea, suncatchers, bracelets, crepe paper flower pens, and, one year, I even spray painted thrift store coffee mugs with chalkboard paint so the kids could write cute messages for their moms on them. They had all turned out cute but it was as stressful as it was expensive on a teacher's salary when you multiply the cost of one craft project times 28 students.
So, a couple of years ago I got to thinking. What are the kinds of projects I actually kept from my own children's days in elementary school?
The answer: stories, poems, and art projects that could be easily stored in the file folders that I have for each of my sons' years in school. But, sadly, the bigger items like paintings, things made with paper plates, toilet paper rolls, or poster boards rarely made the cut.
While reflecting back, I also realized that even though I had been doing Mother's Day crafts with my students for years, I really never gave any thought to the history of the holiday. So, I started researching and discovered that the origin of Mother's Day was actually quite interesting.
I thought, "What if I could turn Mother's Day into an opportunity to teach my students a little history and also create a writing project that was less stressful (and expensive) for me and more fun for my students that parents were less likely to "round file" when their child wasn't looking?"
So, I created this Mother's Day enrichment activity pack for my students with a Mother's Day poem that could be easily completed in an afternoon. Together, this entire pack can be parlayed into a week's worth of meaningful lessons covering:
informational text
note-taking
comprehension
key terms/vocabulary words
context clues
compare and contrast
main idea and supporting details
poetry writing
parts of speech
And, because my students were having so much fun learning about Mother's Day, they even wrote narrative, informational, and opinion essays sharing stories about their own Mother's Day celebrations with their families, the history they had learned about the holiday, and their even their opinions about this special day.
It was awesome. Less stress, less expense, and more engagement over a longer period of time (a week or so) that actually generated more excitement for writing. It was the best of all worlds!
If you'd like to grab a copy of my Mother's Day Pack for yourself, click the picture below.
I'd love to hear what you do in your class for Mother's Day. Were you like me? Spending money and stressing out only to have the end result leave you feeling drained and hoping that it wouldn't end up in the trash heap or the Goodwill box?
Share your story with me in the comments below.
Until next time, friends,
Yorumlar