Social Studies Lesson # 4

I will review deforestation with students by showing a short clip about the effects of deforestation. We will discuss their responses from the movie. Next we will discuss ways to help reduce deforestation. We will make a list on the board as a class. If students get stuck I have a suggested website that gives lots of suggestions on how to be green. We will then discuss an important way of helping to stop deforestation by spreading the word and speaking out. I will emphasize the importance of the power of knowledge and sharing it with others. Students will then act as advocates and create a poster to help spread the word about stopping deforestation. Students must demonstrate their knowledge of deforestation and its effects especially on indigenous people in the poster.I will show students examples and give them some suggestions on what to display on their poster. Also, on the back of the poster they will include a description of the poster explaining the reasoning behind it. This poster will be given a grade based on creativity, neatness, and knowledge of deforestation along with its devastating effects.
I will be creating a secure class wiki about the rainforest. I will post the students posters and descriptions on there. We will also be doing another project in the future and that will be posted as well. The main objective of posting it on the wiki is to inform others and raise awareness about deforestation.
If you have any concerns feel free to contact me. Once I make the wiki I will post a link so you can view our rainforest wiki.

Fifth English Lesson

During the fifth and final English lesson about the rainforest, the class will be taking the unit test. This test includes everything that was covered from lessons 1-4 (types of rainforests, layers of rainforest, characteristics, mutualistic relationships and deforestation). Students will have as much time as they need to finish the test. We will also be completing our KWL chart. Now that the unit is over, we can fill in the final column with what we learned. The last fun activity we will be doing is using the Student Response Clickers one last time. There are poems written about rainforest animals and we will read these as a class and each student can vote with the answer they feel is correct.
I hope your child enjoyed learning about the rainforest!!!

Fourth English Lesson

During our fourth English lesson, we will be discussing the impacts of deforestation and what a mutualistic relationship is. We will explore examples of mutualistic relationships and complete a worksheet. For homework, the students are to post one way deforestation impacts the rainforest on our class wikispace. To prepare for our test tomorrow, the students will work with a partner or in a small group and play memory with the vocabulary cards they have been creating throughout our previous lessons. This will help students study for the test and allow them a time to ask me any questions or clear up any confusions they may have. Also, the wikispace is a great place to study from considering it contains the main information from some lessons. Feel free to email me if your child has any questions while studying tonight!!!

Third English Lesson

During our third English lesson, the students will be presenting the research they found about an animal or insect. They will take turns showing the picture they found and telling the class the interesting information they found about their selection. After that, I will be reading a story out loud called The Great Kapok Tree. As I read the story, the students will be writing down the reasons they hear as to why the rainforest is important. Then, they will discuss with each other the reasons they heard and compare lists. For homework, each student will need to log into the class wikispace and write down one reason the rainforest is important. This will help solidify the importance of the rainforest and can serve as a study tool for the unit test. I think the class will really enjoy seeing and hearing about each other's animal/insect and I will too!!!

Math Lesson 3

In math class we created a model of the layers of the rain forest and cut out scaled trees. We did this by converting actual measurements to "model" measurements since our ceiling is not nearly as high as the highest layer of the rainforest (ask students what the layers are). We converted tree measurements for the Kapok, Teak, Ebony, African yellowwood, African oil palm, Raffia palm, and Cape fig, and then cut out trees. Some students even put labeled the animals that are located in these particular trees (they learned about the animals from other classes and internet research). Check out our Blackboard page for the lesson plan, and feel free to stop in to take a look at our Rain Forest wall!

Miss DiEleuterio

Social Studies Lesson #3

To start off this lesson students will present their group projects to the class. I will be grading them accordingly. Presentations are only expected to be 2 minutes in length and the purpose is to share their findings with the entire class. After presentations are over I will be showing students a short clip (GreenPeace and Google Earth) that reviews the location of the rainforests and introduces a new topic deforestation. After clip is over we will discuss the video as a class. We will then read the second part of the Indigenous people article which discusses the impact of deforestation. I will then show the movie The Lorax. Students are expected to answer a variety of questions after the movie is over that ties together both what they saw in the movie and what we have been discussing in class. Their response will be graded and may be taken home to finish. I also added an additional question about ways for them to help stop deforestation so I will be posting some suggested sites on Blackboard so they can use these to assist them in answering this extended question.We will discuss their findings and answers next class.
If you have any questions or concerns or find some other websites let me know. Thanks!

English Lesson #2

Our second English lesson involves the different layers and levels of the rainforest. As we move through the lesson, the students will be completing worksheets and creating vocabulary cards, which can be used as study guides for the upcoming exam. The students will watch a short video of animals of the rainforest and discuss what they saw and heard. We will also be using GoogleMaps to explore the different areas of the world where rainforests are located. Today the students will receive a handout on researching one animal, which is for homework and due tomorrow, and they will also receive another handout explaining their rainforest writing assignment. I have created a screen cast that should prompt the students with both assignments as to finding information and selecting a location. The writing assignment is due on Monday. The screen cast link is given below:

Rainforest Screen Cast

Please feel free to contact me if there are questions pertaining to either assignment. Thank you!

Our second math lesson in the Rain Forest Unit built upon our review of measurement from the first lesson. Students searched the internet for measurements of different Rain Forest creatures (i.e. the Goliath Frog). Once they found three sources with information about the animal, they looked for the length. They wrote the different measurements found online in a google document (there is a screencast video on Blackboard showing how to access google documents). The class log-in information in google is dieleuterioj@etown.edu and the password is missdieleuterio. Next students used their awesome math skills to average the measurements. Students then used a ruler to draw the actual length that they found to get a clear idea about how big the animals are. They presented their findings to the class and graphed the results of all of the different creatures.

Ask students to show you their graphs and to tell you a little bit about the size of the animal.

Have a wonderful day and thanks for visiting our blog!!

Social Studies-Lesson #2

For this lesson students will be learning about the indigenous people of the rainforest. I will first go over the term indigenous and explain what it means especially in relation to the rainforest. Then I will have students view a slideshow on flickr of images of indigenous people of the rainforest. Students will then write a comparative response. They will compare the similarities and differences between the activities they do and the activities the people of the rainforest do based on the slideshow. Next we will read the first part of an article about indigenous people of the rainforest. Then I am going to break students up into 3 groups. Each group will be assigned one of the following topics:food,medicine,and clothing. I will have each group look up specific examples of how indigenous people get food from the rainforest or how indigenous people make clothes form the rainforest or how indigenous people get natural medicines from the rainforest. Each group must type up a paragraph response using Google Docs so they can collaborate on the project. If time allows I will also have each group make a collage of pictures with examples that go along with their paragraphs. Each group will be presenting the information to the rest of the class and the project will be graded accordingly. I will be posting the grading rubric on Blackboard if you have any questions please let me know.

Social Studies-Lesson# 1

For our first social studies lesson on the rainforest I am doing a geography lesson. The main focus is for students to understand the relationship between the equator and the rainforest. We will first be doing a review of continents and oceans. We will then go over the location of the equator and temperature changes in the world that are a direct relation to the position of the equator. Next we will discuss some characteristics of the rainforest. Then students will predict where the rainforests are located. Furthermore, we will review concepts of a physical map and I will show them a physical map of the world. Finally, we will review the lesson and students will have an opportunity to ask questions. Homework will then be assigned and will require students to expand on the mountain physical map by adding regions of the rainforest. This means a specific color will represent the rainforests and they will color in the map accordingly. Also, for extra credit they can write a paragraph on at least 5 physical characteristics of the rainforest.
These are hard concepts so if your child is struggling please notify me so I can review the material with them accordingly. Be sure to go over these concepts with your son and daughter so they can understand the significance of the equator, its location, physical characteristics of the rainforest, and a physical map of the world.

To kick off our Rainforest unit in math class, we are reviewing elapsed time, percents/fractions, and units of measurement. In class, we played a game using word problems. The word problems help to apply math skills in the context of the Rainforest unit. Students wrote in their journals and added information on the Smartboard, worked with partners to solve problems, participated in a discussion, and were assigned to write a word problem on our class blog. The lesson plan is located on our class Blackboard Page.

I am in the process of reviewing the word problems students wrote. Once I return them to students, they should add the question to the class blog. These questions are review from the topics we have been covering in class, and could be used to study for the upcoming test (in class, as well as the PSSAs!).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!

Lauryn's 1st Lesson

Our first english lesson for the unit is an introduction to the rainforest and a way for me as the teacher to see what the students already know about the topic. The first activity is filling out a KWL chart. As a class, we will do the 'K' column together; students writing on their worksheet and I am writing on the blackboard/Smartboard. Then, I will have students share out loud what they would like to learn about the rainforest, but I will have them add to the list with their own ideas. This worksheet will be a way that I formally assess them and make sure everyone was participating and following directions. The second activity is using the Student Response System to get everyone in the class involved in answering basic questions about the rainforest. I will have a powerpoint presentation created that contains the questions to be asked. This will also inform me about what the class already knows or does not know about the rainforest. The final activity for the day is reading a poem written by students in the Amazon. Each child will read a section of the poem and we will look at the pictures that accompany it. For a conclusion, students will be asked to discuss with a partner the differences they see between the Amazon environment and our own.

Hello! This week we will be studying the Rainforest in geography, math and social studies. We will discuss the differences between temperate and tropical, look at different plants and animals that live in the rainforest, learn about deforestation, and much more! Information about class activities and lessons will be on our blog as well as on our class Blackboard. There is a tab on the Blackboard page that links to this blog. If you have any questions or difficulty accessing this information please email Ms. DiEleuterio, Ms. Krissinger or Ms. Evans:

msdieleuterio@jkl.edu; mskrissinger@jkl.edu; msevans@jkl.edu