I'm enthralled watching my small-group kids who are equally enthralled reading about sloths. They are reading and researching silently and don't even know I am watching them!
Sloths, you say? Why SLOTHS? Our fluency passages currently are all about unusual animals, so when sloths popped up this week, we became very curious. They have been using EPIC as an online reading site, and after reading on EPIC about the lives of sloths, we have found that they are quite interesting: they are very slow (like 6-8 feet in an hour!), they hang from trees, if a predator comes they cannot outrun anything, they have a sleep/happy face, they have a very low metabolism, they live in trees and eat leaves, and - get ready - the best fact of all: they only go to the bathroom once a week!!!! We're quite intrigued--so intrigued, not a creature (kiddo) is stirring.....we are all silently reading and rather sloth-like now that we have to move on to something else.....but since it's lunch, we can do this! These dear students of mine do this to me all the time - slow to start, but then you can't get them to move on....homework time at the end of the day, limerick writing, etc. Sloth-like beginning, then stubbornly hanging on when it's time to move on - gotta love it!!
8 Comments
3/8/2017 02:08:40 pm
I had a thing about sloths too... sloth limericks might be fun
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Lisa
3/9/2017 10:32:04 pm
Oh, yes—that'd be amazing!
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3/8/2017 03:00:17 pm
This really spoke to me. I love how at the end, you bring it back to the sloths....comparing their learning style in a way that helps the reader understand that not every kid learns at the same pace, just as not every animal keeps moving at the same place. Great Slice!
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Lisa
3/9/2017 10:33:37 pm
Thank you, Katie. If you are a teachers, you know that sometimes "those" moments just happen and you breathe them in with all of your being.
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Vanessa Worrell
3/8/2017 07:48:54 pm
I've seen actual sloths in Costa Rica... so cool. The bathroom fact is the killer fact. Great comparison to your students and sloths. Imagining that sloth smile from Zootopia.. so funny.
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Lisa
3/9/2017 10:35:22 pm
That's so cool, Vanessa! Today we learned that they have moths that live in their fur and then....well, it involves their "weekly" habits and the moths laying eggs, and the kids were totally awestruck!
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Lisa
3/9/2017 10:36:42 pm
Love that connection! And I forgot about the sloth in Wolfie, I'll have to share that one with my kids.
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