Diary of a Pig - reading response idea

Today's Teacher Tip Tuesday idea is: The Diary of a Pig

Have you read the Diary of a _____ books by Doreen Cronin?  So much fun.

There are diaries for a worm, a fly and a spider.  Each is more awesome than the last.  T

hey are written in the form of a diary, are witty and have fun illustrations and quick one-liners.  

I love them.  Kids always love them.

One of them mentions that a worms head looks just like it's butt.  What kid isn't going to love that?

A few years back, I happened to be reading Charlotte's Web to the class as my chapter book read aloud and broke these fun titles out during our writing block as a model of organization and voice from six traits.

Ever have one of those light bulb moments?  You know, the kind where you scrap your plans and go with something way better that "just came to you?"

That's when "The Diary of a Pig" was born.  We used Cronin's books as a model/inspiration and composed our own version based on the events in Charlotte's Web.

We discussed 1st person vs 3rd person.

We talked about style.  We chatted about the important parts that would be important to include. Not only is it fun and creative, but it is a fabulous way to check a child's level of comprehension on a text.

After reading a chapter (or chapters in some cases), I asked the class to compose a diary entry.

While the book doesn't specify dates, we used context clues to form a timeline and thus "date" our entries (Wilbur being a spring pig, Fern being in school, the crickets signaling summer, etc).

They were asked to include some words that they considered to be "key vocabulary."

The cover was designed to look like Cronin's.  We observed how each of her covers had a white background and each had a pencil as part of the illustration.  They needed to do the same.

After all of the books were completed, we made them available in the class library for a bit.  They took a lot of pride in this activity.

You could easily do this with other books as well.

Open House Photos - Charlotte's Web Theme

I always like to do a theme for Open House.  I've recently blogged a bit about some of my former themes (Wizard of Oz, Mystery/Detective).  This year, we are very absorbed with the novel, Charlotte's Web so it seemed like the perfect choice.

A few of you had mentioned that June seemed like an odd time to have an Open House.  It kind of is.  In the past, we have always hosted the event in April.  Lately, we (the grades 3-5 teachers) have found it to be very challenging to balance prep for the event and prep for the state testing so we decided to make it later.  Testing didn't end until mid/late May and so Open House was scheduled for June 3rd.  I really liked the timing of it in some ways.  We had worked so hard cramming in the last two units of math for the test, that it was nice to just be creative and work on project-based activities.  The downside was that we were coming off of a gloriously sunny Memorial Day weekend and our mindset is NOT on hanging up new work.

Still, everything turned out fantastic.  I really enjoyed watching my friends create their masterpieces.  Watched is the key word because at this point in 3rd grade they amaze me with their ability to work independently.  

Below is our (to quote Charlotte's Web) Magnum Opus...Our Great Work.

Venn Diagrams comparing Wilbur and Charlotte along with a spider and pig made from Model Magic
The Diary of a Pig Books - This SO needs it's own post.  They are amazing!!!  I'll write about them in a few weeks.
Character Trait paragraphs: We brainstormed a list of character traits for the characters in the book.  Each child wrote a paragraph about the character and used details from the text to support the trait choice.  The illustrations were done in KidPix.

Watercolor barns accompanied by Acrostic Poems about the setting of the story.  I heart water colors.  I always have the kids draw in pencil and then outline in black Sharpie before painting.  They look amazing when they are done!

Another view of the watercolored barns.  On the counter is a bio poem written by each student with a photo of him/her attached.

Below are some random views from around the room.  One thing I did this year as a first was 8.5x11 inch black and white photos.  I LOVED this.  I simply printed a shot of each child on the computer and mounted it onto black construction paper.  They were beautiful and so easy to do.  I think they captured their personalities too which was cool.

Don't Make Me "Boo-Blay" You!

Think back to the start of your teaching career and surely you can remember some "rookie moves."  What were yours?

My biggest flaw as a newbie was making threats as a form of classroom management without following through on them.  An example would be, "You're all going to stay in and miss recess if you don't stop talking."  But they all went out for recess because I would realize that it wasn't a fair consequence.

I knew this was something I needed to work on and I did.  

Which only meant that my flaw was that I would still make stupid threats and then think, "Damn, now I need to sit here with these kids during recess." But, at least I had mastered the important "if I say it, I mean it" thing.

Time has passed and classroom management is now my greatest strength as a teacher.  

However, once in a while we all regress.

And I did.

We're putting on a play in a few weeks.  It's basically Charlotte's Web, but with lots of cute twists.  Who doesn't love dancing farm animals?  One of the things that I've added in is a singing/dancing duet to Michael Buble's, "Just Haven't Met You Yet" (when Charlotte speaks to Wilbur in the darkness the night before they meet).  Cute, huh?

I burned a CD of our soundtrack and was playing it in the classroom while the kids illustrated their books.  That song came on.  The girls squealed in delight and the boys collectively groaned.  We've talked all year about when it's appropriate to share an opinion and when it is not.  We talk about respecting other people's likes even if they are different from your own. 

I gently reminded them of this.

But it continued.

Maybe it was the heat. (read over 90 degrees in the classroom)

Maybe it was the hunger. (read 3 minutes before lunch)

Maybe it was the time of year. (read "the natives are restless and summer vacation can't come soon enough).

But, I regressed right back into the first year teacher version of myself.  She was a dedicated gal who worked hard and meant well, but she had so much to learn.  

And I suddenly heard an irrational  threat spew from my mouth.

It was perhaps the craziest of all the irrational threats that I had ever bestowed upon a classroom.

"If anyone else makes a rude comment about the music that some people are obviously enjoying then...

(wait for it....)

EVERYONE WILL STAY IN FROM RECESS AND DO NOTHING BUT SIT AND LISTEN TO MICHAEL BUBLE OVER AND OVER AGAIN!"

Seriously.

I threatened to make a class of 8/9 year olds spend the only 15 minutes they get to themselves during the course of a school day sitting indoors listening to the jazzy vocal stylings on Mr. Michael Buble.

Luckily, I have perfected the "if I say it then I mean it" reputation so nobody dared to take the chance that my irrational claim would become their recess destiny.  Which is good because how the heck would I have explained that silly punishment to parents or administration?  I couldn't even justify it to myself seconds after I said it.

I wonder when my Teacher of the Year award will arrive?

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