Balloons Over Broadway...

I stumbled upon the most amazing book the weekend before Thanksgiving.  If you haven't read  Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet, you need to NOW!  I was completely inspired and created lessons to span the two days that we had until Thanksgiving.  The book was a fantastic fit into our engineering curriculum and the kids were so excited to learn more about the Macy's Thanksgiving parade.

We started the unit off watching a Youtube video about the parade.  I was amazed at how many students had never seen it.  My kiddos were so excited as they watched the balloons come down Broadway.  To hear them yell out in excitement was the perfect soundtrack to my reading lesson.  We also watched a short video of the balloons being inflated the night before parade.  As we watched, students made observations about the process of creating a balloon.  Right away, one of my peeps brought in the engineering design process.  I was so proud!

After reading, we discussed Sequence of Events and connected the story to the Design Process. 

Balloons Over Broadway

Day 2 brought us to the best part.  Students created a new balloon for next year's parade.  After spending most of the morning designing, the students then wrote persuasive letters to the Macy's Parade Studio to convince the committee to choose their balloon.