We live in Nevada and Nevada Day is on Halloween! We now get the day off the Friday before, but we are still going to celebrate at school by having a Pony Express between our elementary school and another elementary school in town. The students at each school are writing each other friendly letters which will be delivered via "Pony Express". To get the students ready, I decided to have us learn a little bit more about the Pony Express.
To get the kiddos excited, and engaged we did a pre-activity where I had pictures in various spots around the room. The students wrote down what they noticed and what they wondered about each picture.
Then we came back together to talk about what was written about each picture.
On one of the pictures someone had written, I wonder if there will be a fire. That confused me a little, so he came up and showed me that there was a fire extinguisher in the picture.
See it?
It always amazes me the things they notice!
Then we wrote predictions about what we thought we were going to be learning about.
Some great guesses, and one of them hit the nail on the head.
Do you ever have your students guess your teaching topic ahead of time to build anticipation? What other anticipation activities do you use?
Greetings from the home of the Pony Express! Around this part of MO, the Pony Express is a big deal for our 4th graders. (I grew up in St. Joe, so we went to all the museums.) I didn't realize any other state even talked about it. Cute idea to get them started. Enjoy your "Pony Express."
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