Sea Turtle Week!

So I'm changing things up in my 4th grade reading program this year.  I am following an idea from  a 6th grade teacher in our building and I'm skipping around our reading book....that's right, I'm not doing the stories in order....not quite a rebel, but I'll take what I can get :)  I've decided to pull out all the nonfiction stories and do those first.  I'm grouping them by themes, monthly celebrations, and what we are doing in social studies.

Two weeks ago we read the story "Mangrove Wilderness" and my kiddos LOVED it!  Our Social Studies teacher is wrapping up the Southeast Region and since this story discusses the mangrove forests of Florida it's a perfect fit.

Last week  the kiddos complete a readers theater called "Emeralds Eggs".  I don't know about your kiddos, but mine just love readers theater.  I put this little nest together to share with them, and to get them excited about our week of learning!

We spent the week rehearsing our parts for the play,  researching 5 types of sea turtles (I adapted some information I found at Sea Turtle Inc. to create an information sheet for each type of sea turtle...the kiddos used these sheets and the text book for their research.  I also found the coolest little video on United Streaming of a sea turtle laying its eggs),

creating a graphic organizer with our information (this idea came the oh-so-creative Tara at 4th Grade Frolics),

and making our very own sea turtles out of paper plates (I wanted to borrow Tara's rock idea, but out Dollar Tree was all out of rocks, and I had paper plates....so plan B it was)!

I was off for half the day on Friday, so I only got to see the excitement in one class when I told them we would be making sea turtles!!  They wrapped up this fun week by partnering with someone who had researched a different type of sea turtle and together they completed a Venn Diagram identifying the similarities and differences between their two types of turtles.