Character Trait Activity Freebie

It's a Fraction Pizzeria! Simple Classroom Transformation

 

Everyone likes to have fun with a pizza party! Just the mention of pizza in the classroom increases the excitement of kids. So why not use something they love for your lesson content?

Imagine being able to take your students to a local pizza shop for a field trip to explore and review what you've learned about fractions. That would be AMAZING in a perfect world. But it's a possibility to bring the pizza shop experience to your classroom. That's what I LOVE about room transformations. I can bring any experience to my students and create a highly engaging atmosphere and lesson content for my students without leaving the school building. 

Fraction Pizzeria was super fun and super simple to do. I used this at the end of my fraction unit for a review, and students were pretty much working independently in their groups throughout the event. I organized it into 4 different stations, and students rotated throughout the activities with their group.

Stations:

1. Order Up! - Ordering fractions from least to greatest (or greatest to least).

2. Buffet - Adding and Subtracting fractions

3. Pizzeria Problems - Fraction word problem task cards

4. Build Your Own Pizza - Identify fraction of a set 

Extra Station - Pizza Combinations - Convert fractions to decimals and percentages (higher level skills)

To make this class transformation complete, just visit your local dollar store for some fun decorations. I found red and white checked plastic table clothes, battery operated tea lights, and fun mustaches for my students to wear. You could also do balloons, background music, mini chalkboards for stations... lots of ideas. You can also contact a local pizza shop and ask them to donate pizza boxes for your students to use when they create their own pizzas. The mini personal pan boxes worked perfectly! 

And, just for the icing on the cake (or the cheese on the pizza), I had lunchable pizzas for each student for a fun snack. Since they were small and individually packaged, this was a simple but fun snack to go along with the theme. Maybe the pizza shop that donated the boxes might throw in a pizza or two for you? It doesn't hurt to ask!

If this is something that you want to do with your students, check out my 4th Grade Fractions, Room Transformation and Activities product on Teachers Pay Teachers. You'll find all of the above activities, plus a few more items to help make this a fun, memorable, and positive learning experience for your students. Even if you don't want to do a full room transformation, these are fun as stand alone activities.

Happy Teaching!

Martha from The Owl Spot

Identifying Character Traits in Reading

 

Character Trait Vocabulary

If your students are like mine, identifying character traits is tough. They can tell me if a character is nice or mean or helpful, but that's usually as far as they go. 

So, I started focusing on this more and made an amazing discovery. No, it's not new, but it was eye opening, at least to me. It's a VOCABULARY issue!!! My students didn't understand what a lot of the more specific character traits meant. 

Vocabulary development is a HUGE contributing factor in a student's literacy development. If a child can decode well and read fluently, it's not a guarantee that he/she is understanding what is being read. I took a couple years of German in high school and a bit in college. I can say that I was able to read some simple German words and texts, but I had no idea what those words meant. I didn't have the vocabulary background yet.  And many of our students are like that, too.

We spent some significant time working through some character trait vocabulary. We used picture books (lesson ideas coming soon), examples from people we knew, historical figures, character trait growth mind set quotes... anything that would give my students an experience with a new character trait. 

When my students had a better grasp on character trait vocabulary, I started using the below activity with novels and read alouds. This pushed them to not only be able to identify more specific traits but caused them to be able to analyze them.

Students have to identify 10 character traits that apply to a main character. Then, they have to narrow down their 10 traits to 5 best ones. This causes some great classroom discussion, as students have to prove or explain why a trait should be kept or deleted. 

I usually do this as a class the first couple times to get students used to the activity and to encourage that important discussion. As students become familiar with this process, I let students split off into groups to complete. Then, when we come back together, groups present their top 5 traits. Many times groups will still have a variety of "top 5" traits, but their reasons are solid. 

My students don't use "nice" and "mean" for their character traits anymore. And it's pretty amazing to see this transfer over to their writing. But that's for another blog post!

If you want this character trait activity, make sure to sign up for my newsletter It's yours for free! Just click the sign up button on my blog popup (or click the link below to sign up). And there's no worries about signing up for my newsletter - I promise not to spam your inbox! I'll only send relevant teaching ideas, inspiration, and FREEBIES. Promise! 

Happy Teaching!

Martha

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