Room Transformations
Harry Potter
Objectives:
Literary analysis, argumentative development, civics, and current events.
Stage:
Room decorated like a court room inside Hogwarts, students dressed as Harry Potter characters.
Activity:
Mock trial is held: The Case of Hogwarts vs. Hagrid, who's being sued by Hogwarts for negligence. Students all perform different roles. Prosecution (head attorney and co-council) create a strong storyline with strong textual evidence to prove the defendant guilty. Defense (head attorney and co-council) creates a strong storyline with strong textual evidence, to prove the defendant is innocent. Jury uses evidence presented in court to decide a verdict. Note: all evidence must be found and connected directly to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
*Tip: Many resources are online if you are interested in hosting your own mock trial.
Ninja Turtle
Objectives:
Teach students about STEAM, ELA, and Social Studies (feudal Japan).
Stage:
Room decorated as underground Ninja Turtle sewer, with trash cans for slime-shooting game, and materials to create solar-powered pizza ovens.
Activity:
Divide students into groups of four (for 4 colors of ninja turtles face masks). Teach students about chemical and physical changes by creating slime, STEAM by creating a solar ovens to cook pizza, and Close reading by annotating reading passages.
Ninja Turtle games:
Ninja Star Challenge - shooting slime balls into a trash can. Once slime ball is in trash can, students can go and grab a feudal-caste card to set up a social pyramid.
Blindfolded scavenger hunt - to find definitions of vocabulary words.
Slime Bow - students shoot slime at a target to earn points. Once they hit the target, they have to answer content questions based on where they hit on the target.
Captain America
Objectives:
Teach students about American History, United Nations, world geography, Civics, and current events.
Stage: Captain America costume, Captain America Civil War Comic Book, Captain America Civil War Film, and superhero props.
Activity:
Students discuss, debate, and work together to create resolutions to current world issues, from the point of view of their assigned country. The delegates used comic book text, historical/informational texts, argumentative analysis, along with mini-lessons taught by Captain America (aka Mr. King).
Pie Face
Objectives:
Teach about author's purpose of a writing passage.
Different author's purposes (PIEED):
P = Persuade
I = Inform
E = Entertain
E = Explain D = Describe
Stage:
Pie face games set up on each table, whipped cream, 5 pie tins labeled with 5 different purposes (above).
Activity:
Split students into groups of 4-5 kids. All students receive 15 different passages. They read and look for patterns and textual evidence to identify the purpose of the writing. Once they have identified the purpose, they consult with their group. They must each state what they think the purpose of the passage is, as well as the textual evidence to support their conclusion. Once they have done that, they "bake their first passage pie" by placing their passage into the correct pie tin. After they place their passage into the correct tin, they get to follow the traditions of the bakery and play a round of Pie Face!
Mission Impossible
Objectives:
Learn about Research and Textual Evidence (can be integrated cross-curricular).
Stage:
Hang yarn from he ceiling, plug in black lights all over the room (and the yarn looks exactly like lasers!), teachers wear secret agent costumes, students wear black "agent" hats.
Activity:
Students wait outside the room. They have to get their finger printed on "Agent Stone's" (aka Mrs. Hope's) phone app. If they are accepted they can go in and then they are given their assignment. ELA and Close Reading are taught throughout.
Jurassic World
Objectives:
Life Science, Ecosystems, Math - animal classifications, adaptations, life cycles, food webs and food chains, while working their way through the scientific method, dodging park disasters by solving math problems, and using close reading and comprehension strategies to infer, predict, and draw conclusions about the Jurassic Era.
Stage:
Room decorated like Jurassic Park, with tables set up as Jeeps, brownie batter used for dinosaur dung, teachers wearing Jurassic World scientist costumes.
Activity:
Students have to complete a close read activity to educate themselves about the Jurassic Period before entering "the park". Each student in the jeep selected a different article. Students are then given the challenge of completing four tasks in order to exit the park.
Bonus activity:
Throughout the lesson a warning alarm sounds, and a math problem ("park crisis") would pop up on the board. They must solve the crisis by answering the math problem with the correct answer. Every student in their jeep must solve the problem for them to resume completing the task that they are working on. Just to shake things up a bit!