Five for Friday - Food Activities, Arrays, and More

It has been a crazy couple of weeks.  I ended up going on jury duty and being called on a trial.  That trial had me out of the classroom for almost a week.  Sadly, I missed Halloween with the costumes and fun activities.  Luckily, I missed Halloween with the sugar buzzed kids!  Happy Five for Friday!  

1

Multiplication Arrays - We are working on multiplication right now.  I found a giant bag of candy corn for $2 after Halloween.  Each student got about 25 pieces.  We used them to make arrays.  The students got to eat them afterwards.  I was surprised that many of them had never tried candy corn before.  Either they loved them or hated them.  I especially loved the expression on the students' faces when they had their first bite.

Another activity for arrays was using bingo stamps.  I got a whole bunch of them from another teacher and have been looking for a way to use them.  Multiplication arrays were a perfect use.  My students now use arrays anytime they have big multiplication problems.  They even know a lot of multiplication facts which we technically won't get into until the next chapter.

                                                  


                                                 

2

Bucket Fillers - This year we are focusing on being "Bucket Fillers" in our classroom.  We are filling each others buckets by writing positive messages.  A fun activity to reinforce this was decorating our own buckets.

The students loved making these.  They are just plastic cups that I punched holes into.  We put pipe cleaners through to make the handles.  Then the students got to make a mess decorating them with glitter and sprinkles.  They have been a great visual reminder to be bucket fillers.

3

Standing up to Bullies - My students impressed me BIG time yesterday!  We were working in reading groups.  I was at one table working with my group.  The next table over were at computers.  One of my mean boys said something mean to a little girl and she started to cry.  I didn't even need to say anything, because the other students jumped right in.  They told the little boy that he needed to apologize because what he said was not nice.  Then they decided to ignore the comments, because he wouldn't apologize.  Don't worry, I did deal with the little boy after this. 

I brought the remainder of the group into the hallway to talk about how they reacted.  I told them that they did the right thing and that's why I didn't interfere.  One boy said he knew what it was like to be bullied.  Another girl said she knew the one that was being picked on was sensitive.  That's why she said something.  I was so impressed with their reasoning behind their actions.  While they weren't getting reading done, they were instead learning a great lesson!  

4

Food in the Classroom - I would be devastated if I could not use food in the classroom.  I have a lot of fun food activities for next week I am excited to try including making butter, cranberry experiments, and my favorite - Pumpkin Pie in a Bag.

                                           

5

Cat Pic - Enjoy this pic of my cat in the sink just because it amused the heck out of me!