Hello Everyone,
Well, my school has made it to the last week! We didn’t have school this Monday due to Memorial Day, and I love to teach students why we get the days off from school we do when they are actual holidays (not Fridays we have off for teacher professional development).
The lesson starts with another PBS LearningMedia video, this time about Memorial Day. (Incidentally, PBS Learning Media has some fantastic resources and videos about different holidays throughout the calendar year. Check out their iBook here!)
After we watch my read-aloud of a short story that I expanded from the original I found about Memorial Day (my video is available here), I introduce the “Read & Color” activity. The story uses lots of colors to describe different objects. Students have a collage to color with colored pencils the specific colors listed in the video.
This whole lesson is one last session of following directions. I have a pencil bucket for each table of students with two colored pencils of red, blue, green, black, orange, purple, yellow and three lead pencils, which double as the color “silver.” I remind them to take turns. If they finish early with the entire list, they can complete the Brain Bender on the other side of the collage.
Note: I didn’t create the student handouts I used in this lesson. The coloring sheet that accompanys the short story is available here on TeachersPayTeachers. The coloring sheet has a reading passage with it, and that I where I got the basis of the expanded short story. What I call the “Brain Bender” is available here on TeachersPayTeachers.