ISM Spotlight – Amazing Book Activities

T his year I am the luckiest teacher in the world. I get to teach at the best school ever – International School of Morocco, with some of the best, most creative, teachers ever. Each time I walk into someone else’s classroom, I get inspired and we just seem to spiral great teaching ideas off of each other. It’s a wonderful place to teach, and since we are all collaborating, it’s a wonderful place for our kids to learn – a teacher’s dream, right? I have tried and tried to convince the other teachers to create blogs of their own to spotlight and share some of their amazing ideas, but everyone is super busy. Instead, they have each agreed to let me spotlight some of their ideas right here on Raki’s Rad Resources. So, each Friday night, I will be posting an ISM Spotlight.

This week was Literacy Week at the International School of Morocco.  We spent the week learning about books, languages and how we use each.  Here are some of the things we did:

We started each day out with a whole school read aloud and story analysis poster.

On Monday, we read Green Eggs and Ham and analyzed the characters of Sam I Am and the narrator.  For lunch that day, we ate green eggs and ham!

  

On Tuesday, we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and analyzed the poetic elements, like alliteration, assonance and personification.  For snack that day, we had coconut tress made out of coconut cream cookies and apples.

 

On Wednesday, we read The Giving Tree and analyzed the characters, setting, problem and solution.  For snack that day, we had a Mad Hatter’s tea party (from Alice and Wonderland) with scones and English tea.  

  

On Thursday, we read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and completed a story map with characters, setting, problem, solution, beginning, middle and end.  For lunch that day, we ate rice and meatballs.

 

On Friday, we read Stone Soup and completed a simple story map with characters, setting, problem and solution.  Each child brought in a vegetable and we made stone soup for lunch!

  

On Monday, we all came dressed as our favorite book characters.  These three teachers were: Ms. Frizzle, The Coconut Tree and Little Red Riding Hood.

 

Throughout the week, we had parents in to read to children in their native tongue.  Our students heard stories in French, Spanish, Arabic, German, Korean, Swedish, Russian and English.

   

During snack each day, the students created graphs about their name.  They graphed the letters in their first name, the letters in their last name, the number of letters in their first and last name and the number of syllables in their names.

Throughout the week, the older students (Year 3 – Year 6) explored a board of idioms in American English, British English, French and Arabic.  Throughout the week, we stopped to explore and discuss all of these idioms with our students.

       

    

Throughout the week, as we transitioned in from recess or lunch we replaced our normal nursery rhyme with reciting the alphabet in English, French and Arabic.  Additionally, the students created the letters of the Latin alphabet with their bodies.

 

What do you do during reading or literacy week at our school?