Cause and Effect

Ms. Leom was SO ExCiTeD to come to school on Monday December 19th! It was going to be a GLORIOUS day of learning!! Ms. Leom was teaching Cause and Effect, and she had epic plans.

First, she introduced the skill. Students recorded it in their flex journals.



Then, we watched a short video (less than 3 minutes) about the squirrel, Scrat, from Ice Age

Students watched the entire video for entertainment. Then together, we rewetted the video, and Ms. Leom stopped it several times to point out the many examples of cause and effect. This was mostly, Ms. Leom doing the work. She modeled how she determined cause and effect. She used a variety of cause and effect key words: because, when, due to, since, as a result ...



Our next learning adventure was with Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner. Here Ms. Leom began to "release the learning". She started modeling the cause and effect, then she would give the cause or the effect, and the students would complete the partnering event. At the end, students were working independently, completing their own cause and effect examples. Students were successful on this step, so Ms. Leom was confident they were ready for the next step.



Finally, we took our cause and effect notes in our flex journals, as a reference, and we returned to watching the next installment of our G week movies: How the Grinch Stole Christmas for Ms. Leom's class and Despicable Me for Mr. Greninger's class.

Here Ms. Leom was able to see the areas where students needed more support. For some students, watching the video was a step backwards. They got so caught up in the movie, they rushed or missed key details in the learning. For other students, they really stepped up and demonstrated the next level of cause and effect.

This is just the beginning of our cause and effect learning. It was very thought out, with many opportunities for students to learn and develop their skills.