Gr3-Read-Aloud-YourFantasticBrain-slz

Introducing Social- Emotional Learning Skills: Your Fantastic Elastic Brain The book Your Fantastic Introduction to the Read Aloud Elastic Brain and this Read Aloud lesson are included in The Read Aloud book Your Fantastic Elastic Brain introduces students to the the Number and Financial social-emotional learning skills that will help them to become capable and Literacy kit. If you do not confident learners, and to view math as an interesting, relevant, and creative have this particular kit you subject. During the reading of the book, students apply their literacy strategies may wish to check your local such as making connections, inferring, and analysing, to understand how the library for a copy of Your brain works and the important functions that it carries out in our everyday Fantastic Elastic Brain. lives. After the reading, you can revisit the text to co-create an anchor chart of Alternatively, this title can be the six social-emotional learning skills that students will develop throughout ordered from Scholastic the year in math class and in school generally. The book can also initiate a Canada. [Deak, JoAnn., discussion about students’ personal attitudes and levels of self-confidence in (2010) Your Fantastic Elastic math. This helps nurture students’ belief that they can succeed in math with Brain. San Francisco, CA: effort and patience. Little Pickle Press.] Oral Communication Language Curriculum • 1 .3 identify a variety of listening comprehension strategies and use them Expectations appropriately before, during, and after listening in order to understand and Math clarify the meaning of oral texts Curriculum Expectations • 1 .4 demonstrate an understanding of the information and ideas in a variety of oral texts by identifying the important information or ideas and some supporting details • 1.6 extend understanding of oral texts by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge and experience; to other familiar texts, including print and visual texts; and to the world around them Reading • 1 .5 make inferences about texts using stated and implied ideas from the texts as evidence • 1.8 express personal opinions about ideas presented in texts Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Skills and the Mathematical Processes • A1. apply, to the best of their ability, a variety of social-emotional learning skills to support their use of the mathematical processes and their learning in connection with expectations in the other five strands of the mathematics curriculum 15

PMraotcheesmseast:ical Assessment Opportunities Problem solving, crreeoafmlsemocntuiinnnggic, aactnoindngnpercotviinngg,, Observations: Note each student’s ability to: – Make connections between the feelings of the girl in the story and their own feelings about math and other subjects – Synthesize the message of the story Materials: Read Aloud: Your Fantastic Elastic Brain Written by JoAnn Deak Illustrated by Sarah Summary: This book describes the different parts of the brain and how they Ackerley work to help people to develop, grow, and learn. It also highlights what people Text Type: Non-Fiction: can do to help their brains grow. The text emphasizes the idea that the brain is Explanation–Report elastic and can change with input and practice, thereby encouraging students Time: 2 0–30 to acquire a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset about being able to learn. minutes NOTE: Select the prompts that best suit the needs and interests of your students. All of the During Reading prompts are meant to be used after you have read the spread(s) in question to students. Before Reading Predicting/inferring Activating and Building On Prior Knowledge • Show the cover of the book, and read the names of the author and illustrator. Ask students what they think the book is about. Ask what the title means and why the phrase “Stretch It, Shape It” is included. • Ask students what they think the brain is, what it does, and why it is so important to us. Make a list of their ideas. Ask what they wonder about the brain. Include their ideas in the list. • Setting a Purpose: Say, “Now that we have made our predictions, let’s see what else we can learn about the brain.” During Reading Inferring/predicting “What does your brain…” and “Your brain helps you…” spreads • A fter reading the first two spreads, have the students look back at the co-created list. Ask what things they can add to it. Throughout the lesson, periodically check the list to confirm what students predicted and to add new understandings about the brain. • A sk what “feel—both touch and emotions” means. • Ask what the word “unique” means. Have students think/pair/share with a partner and discuss what makes them unique. 16 Number and Financial Literacy

Predicting/activating “So what is your brain?” spread prior knowledge • A sk what students think muscles and organs are. Explain that our bodies, including our muscles and organs, are made up of trillions of cells. Analysing/making “The brain has many parts…” and the following spread connections • A fter reading about each part of the brain, discuss what each part does and clarify the ideas by focusing on the examples that are given in each case. Have students make connections to their own lives. For example, ask what parts of the brain are working the most when they go swimming. Making connections/ “When you were born…” spread inferring • A sk why the author refers to the first ten years of life as “the magic decade,” and what this means about the opportunities students have to learn at a young age. • H ave students think about a task that they may have found hard to do when they were younger, but now find easy to do. Discuss what they needed to do to improve. Making connections/ “Like elastic bands…” spread inferring • H ave students relate the example of how the body learns to play a sport to other activities that they have done. • Discuss why practice is so important in order to get better. Ask what other things students need to practise in their lives in order to improve. • Ask why the author compares the brain to an elastic band. Making connections “Even when you make a mistake…” spread • A sk students how they feel when they make a mistake. Discuss the important role mistakes play in learning. For example, mistakes help you to identify what you don’t know or what you misunderstand so you know what to focus on in order to improve. Making connections “You can stretch the part…” spread • D iscuss times when students have been afraid to take a risk and how they overcame their fear. Ask whether doing the activity was really as scary as they thought it would be. Making connections/ “Learning something new…” spread inferring • D iscuss how making connections helps the brain become more elastic and how this helps students learn as they get older. Ask whether they think the brain gets more elastic if they don’t try to learn new things. Ask why it is so important, as far as the growth of the brain is concerned, to not give up when learning something. • Ask what new concept or skill students have recently learned that has helped their brain to grow. 17

Making connections/ “When you learn something new…” spread reflecting • H ave students reflect on how very young children have to put all of their effort into walking, and then when they get older, they don’t even need to think about it. Ask how being able to walk can help them learn to run and do other skills with their legs. • D iscuss how the parts of the brain work together in order to carry out one activity. Ask why the role of the amygdala is so important in order to learn new things. Making connections/ “The brain that makes…” and “The more different kinds...” spreads reflecting/analysing/ • H ave students reflect on the speed of growth in the brain during the first ten synthesizing years of life and what this means in terms of going to school, learning new sports, and other activities. • A sk how they feel about learning after reading the book and what they might do differently. • Ask what they think the message of the book is and why the author wrote it. Students can turn and talk to a partner before having a discussion with the class. After Reading Making connections/ • Co-create an anchor chart that identifies examples of the six social-emotional analysing/synthesizing learning skills. Below are points to highlight about each skill and sample prompts. Regularly make connections to students’ own emotions and experiences. Add some of these ideas to the anchor chart. Identify and Manage Emotions Highlight: It is important that students can identify their emotions by naming them and realizing their intensity. Students can also understand the feelings of others and why they may be reacting to a situation in a certain way. – R eread the page about the amygdala. Discuss ways in which students try to control their emotions. Have them reflect on how a baby cries each time it is hungry and how they control their emotions and express their feelings of hunger now that they are older. Stress Management and Coping Highlight: Students need to recognize what is causing them stress and then discover ways to cope with that stress. It is important to help students develop a repertoire of strategies throughout the year so they have constructive options when they are feeling overwhelmed. This helps them build personal resilience. – R evisit the page about the boy learning to dive and how he overcame his fear to dive in the pool. Have students discuss what they do to overcome their fear. 18 Number and Financial Literacy

Positive Motivation and Perseverance Highlight: It is important for students to try new ways of approaching a problem and then learn from mistakes if things don’t go as planned. This helps students view their own mistakes as learning opportunities. By persevering through a task, students feel better about the situation and then feel a sense of accomplishment when they finally succeed. – R evisit the pages about learning to play soccer and the girl learning to do a magic trick. Emphasize the importance of making mistakes in order to get better and how it is necessary to keep trying even though the task seems hard at first. Healthy Relationship Skills Highlight: Through experience, students discover that they can learn from working with others. It is important they know how to respectfully and cooperatively work and communicate with others, which includes listening attentively and understanding other people’s perspectives. – R evisit the page about the boy learning to dive and read what the little owl said. Discuss how learning something with another person can help. – D iscuss how they can learn more by working with others. Relate this to how they can respectfully help each other during math class. List some of the things they can do to support each other. Self-Awareness and Sense of Identity Highlight: Students need to see themselves as capable math learners and reflect upon what they did and can continue to do to improve. Students also need to take responsibility for their learning by self-assessing and setting goals. It is also important to discuss how they see themselves as math learners and ensure that they have a sense of belonging to the classroom community. – R evisit the page about the girl learning to play the piano. Discuss how understanding what they can do and what they still need to learn are important for setting goals for further learning. Ask what goals the girl in the story might be setting for herself and what she plans to do to meet those goals. – D iscuss how it is also important to recognize what they are good at since these abilities can help them overcome things that they are not as successful at doing. Critical and Creative Thinking Highlight: For math to be relevant to students, they need to make connections between the math they do in school and the math evident in their everyday lives. Students need to see math as a process rather than a result (find an answer), and they need to think critically about the problems they are solving. Thinking creatively often leads to new ideas that can help students view math as a wondrous and interesting subject to explore. 19

– Revisit the page that shows the boy sculpting a brain. Ask what he needs to think about in order to create a piece of art. – A sk how the mouse was able to make a sculpture that was so much bigger than it is. Discuss how being innovative, or thinking of creative ideas can help them solve problems. Throughout the Year • Post the anchor chart in the class and regularly refer to it. Throughout the lessons in the resource, there are suggestions for building and reinforcing the social-emotional learning skills within the context of a lesson and by applying the mathematical processes. This will help you monitor, assess, and evaluate students’ growth and development as they develop their social- emotional learning skills. Further Practice • H ave students make diagrams of their brain and its parts. They can add the names and what they do, relating it to their own activities. On the side, they can list activities they think they are good at, activities they want to improve at, and new activities that they would like to learn in the future. 20 Number and Financial Literacy