Two More Days of Vacation!

So, I thought for sure I'd be back at work today, but due to the damage brought by Hurricane Isaac my school district has decided to keep school closed till Thursday. That means I have two more days off! We will have been out of school for a total of 8 days by Thursday. That's a lot of days to make up!

I am saving our Unit on Plot for next week, and I am going to spend Thursday and Friday discussing, writing and describing our experiences through Hurricane Isaac. My goal for Thursday and Friday is for students to complete a well-written essay describing what they did to prepare, what they did during the storm, and what they did after the storm. I am also going to build on how the setting impacted our feelings and motivations and also have them choose a few character traits to describe their feelings throughout the last two weeks. These are previous skills we've done during the first two weeks of school.



I plan to begin the lesson Thursday by having students watch a video I created on Animoto and then discuss how the video has a beginning, middle, and an end.

   

 Students will then draw a "Flee Map" listing out what they did to prepare for the storm, what they did during the storm, and how they have recovered from the storm. We will also discuss how this made them feel and how their feelings and their families feelings changed with the setting and add this to our Flee Maps, as well. We will also add a simple question hook such as (Do you want to  know why I've been off of school for 8 days? or Do you want to know what happened in southern Louisiana?), and a conclusion such as (Now you can see why.......). I will show students my essay written out on chart paper first showing them how I took my information from the Flee Map and transferred it into an essay format.Then students will begin writing their rough drafts putting their thoughts together into a two-paragraph essay.

Friday, I plan for students to begin publishing their stories via Kidblog and would also love to share some of our experiences with you and your students through Google Hangout. Please leave me your email address in the comment sections below if you are interested!

On my day off today, I experienced Google Hangout for the first time thanks to my good friend Ms. Naugle. She introduced me to Google Hangout and some really neat effects and tools that can be utilized during a hangout. I really enjoyed the hangout today and the opportunity to meet some other educators in the states.

Here's a pic from the hangout this morning. That's me and my oldest son. You can see he is wearing a Dr. Seuss hat, one of the effects you can utilize with Google Hangout. You can also see Ms. Naugle below with the dog mask.

Don't forget to comment below if you are interested in learning a little about Hurricanes and hearing a couple of our personal experiences through Hurricane Isaac.

Hope you're having a wonderful Tuesday!