In the Home Office: In the planner this week

This "room" is a bit of a misnomer, since my office is not technically at home - but we all know that teachers spend a good deal of their time "off" prepping and preparing (and following up) from their own living rooms.

Tuesday's "In the Home Office" posts will outline the lesson plans for the upcoming week and will include any reproducibles that I have created.  Certainly not all of my lesson plan ideas are unique (stolen) and I cannot guarantee that all of them will go off without a hitch, but my lesson plans are your lesson plans (steal); repurpose as you see fit.  Lord knows I've benefited from the work of others - so in return...take my lesson plans, please.

::  Preschool - I coordinate my lessons with our art teacher who sees them later the same day.  The art teacher is having them create a simple ornament, so I felt a simple reading of If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, emphasizing the tree decorating passages, would fit the bill.

:: First Grade (Stolen) - First grade is working on recognizing the differences between continents, countries and states.  We will be viewing Laurie Keller's Scrambled States of America via Weston Woods and then participating in a Smartboard exercise that prompts them to recall details from the story.  As a side note, Laurie Keller visited my elementary school last year and the kids are still demanding her books daily! Highly recommended, that Laurie Keller!

::  Multiage (1/2 Combined) (Steal) - I will be sharing The Twelve Days of Christmas in Virginia illustrated by that marvelous illustrator, Henry Cole.  The books is a bit lengthy so I will hit on the parts that specifically relate to Virginia history.  The author, Sue Corbett, reveals on her website that there is a cardinal in every picture.

:: Second Grade - This is a total "stolen" from a new librarian in the county who tried it with her second graders first.  Due to the fact that my school does not own a copy of Oweny, the Mail Pouch Pooch, I will be reading the book during the second week of the lesson (I heart ILL), right before our second graders go on their field trip to the United States Postal Museum.  This week, we will instead be watching a brief video on Owney and creating our own "tags".  Thank you, Julie, for creating this wonderful lesson!

:: Third Grade (Steal) - Before we go on break for the winter holidays, I will be reading The Lady in the Box by Ann McGovern to my third graders.  A perfect book that shows children that they can be the change they want to see in the world (thank you, Gandhi).

::  Fourth Grade - We continue on with our thesaurus review.  Some classes will be creating new lyrics to Frosty the Snowman, while others will be just getting used to the layout and format of the thesaurus.  I begin our thesaurus unit with a reading of Thesaurus Rex.

::  Fifth Grade -  We will continue our Magical Reference Materials Tour as we head into Winter Break.  No doubt we will explore dictionaries using one of these fabulous dictionary games.

:: My students with autism:  I see my friends in this class for 15 minutes twice a week.  So far it seems they love math and/or creating while I am reading a book.  This week I will read Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice.  As I am reading the book, they will glue down pre-cut slips of paper, each with a month of the year as I read the related passage.

I hope you found something worth stealing.  What's going on in your home office this week?