2009 Fire Ecology Institute for Educators

How can I make my third grade classroom a more interesting place for kids?
After three years of “teaching to the test”, I am ready to delve into some PLT activities to enhance the mandated curriculum in my school. The week I spent in Durango at FEI proved to be a jumpstart to get the creative juices flowing. The informative talks were incredibly awesome but somewhat overwhelming to a second grade teacher. I certainly appreciated the many handouts and posters available from Shawna. These items will be used and shared with my co-teachers in Mesa Elementary in Cortez.

....Next on the plan is to incorporate projects related to the themes of our reading curriculum. The first theme is Friendship. One of the great ideas discussed this week was using the tree rings to draw and describe circles of your life. Students will be writing an autobiography this fall and use the tree ring visual to guide their writing. One of the stories in this unit is The Tree House by Lois Lowry. Extensions of this story will include reading about the different types of trees in our area and how animals utilize them.

Unit 2 is about City Wildlife. We can expand this unit to include the city trees. We could invite the city planner in for a special speaker to tell us about the plan for tree planting in Cortez. This could expand into Math by asking for the costs of planting trees and uptake. Graphing is an important skill that we can use real figures about our cost and compare to what other towns spend our size on planting trees.

Unit 3 includes stories using imagination. This unit includes several pieces of poetry about apples, fog and sun. I will plan to include poetry writing that includes nature. This unit also includes a story entitled Two Days in May. This story tells of a family of deer finds their way into a garden patch in a backyard. The whole neighborhood gathers around to watch the deer in wonder. This story would be a great introduction to discuss developments that encroach on areas that used to be their habitats to survive. The other story in this unit is entitled Secret Place that includes animal habitats. This will be an excellent place to include information and activities that describe how fire affects animal homes.

The following lesson plans are broad but just having the time to look over the stories and think about PLT lessons that can compliment the reading units is helpful and meaningful to me. Once school starts I don’t have a spare minute. My approach this year will be to incorporate differentiated instruction into daily lessons. I have a very diverse classroom whose needs will be best met in small group lessons. I will set up whole group, small group and independent study times. The addition of the PLT lessons will enhance my classroom.