Five for Friday

                                             

Woo-hoo!  I am finally on Spring Break!  I should be cooking since I am hosting Easter tomorrow and Sunday.  Instead, I am sitting here writing this.  Happy Five for Friday!

1

Parent-Teacher Conferences - We had our second set of conferences yesterday.  I am happy with how it went, although I would have liked more parents.  Only 11 out of 20 showed up.  If you have conferences coming up, click here for a Parent-Teacher Conferences freebie.

                                              

                                                                                        

2

Easter - Since we had a short week due to conferences and Spring Break, I didn't get a chance to do any fun Easter activities.  I have a bunch copied/ready to go when we get back.  Click here for your free Peep Activity.

                                                

3

Leprechaun Traps - This year we made Leprechaun Traps.  The leprechaun was going to visit, but he saw how crazy the class was on St. Patrick's Day and decided not to make an appearance.  Oh well, the traps were a fun STEM activity.

4

St. Patrick's Day Art - We made leprechauns and cut them in half.  They traded them with a classmate to create a whole leprechaun.  We also made leprechauns with a directed drawing activity.  It was a great way to see them follow directions.

5

Easter - Now I really need to go and cook.  If I don't, my guests will probably get a bit cranky! Happy Easter!

Five for Friday - Dr. Seuss and St. Patrick's Day

Happy Five for Friday (even though it is Saturday)! We had a great week with all things Dr. Seuss.  I love using his books for my older students.  I am also getting my room and home ready for St. Patrick's Day.  I love decorating.  I didn't get much of a chance to do so last month, because I spent so much time being sick.  I am making up for lost time.

1

Foot Book - We traced our feet - technically our shoes - since I was not in the mood to smell any stinky feet.  Then we measured them without different units - paper clips, cubes, and boring rulers.

                                                                

                                                                                       

2

Bartholowmew and the Oobleck - Our favorite science experiment was making our own oobleck.  It's hard to really describe what oobleck is since the texture is so strange.  I put the recipe I used below.  I know that there are lots of recipes out there, but this one is really basic.  I also made mixing and cleanup easier by doing everything in a plastic bag.

                                                               

Making Oobleck
     1.  Put equal parts cornstarch and water into a Ziploc bag.  (I used a tablespoon of each and gave each student their own bag.)
     2.  Students squeeze the bag to mix the two ingredients together.  When mixed, it should created a mixture that looks watery, but it is slightly more solid.
     3.  Additional water or cornstarch can be added as needed.

3

One, Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish - This one is an easy one to do.  Just take a large box of colored goldfish crackers and give every child a handful.  Let them tally, graph, and interpret their data.  My students were so focused (especially when I told them they can eat their goldfish only if they worked hard on their work)!

                                                                 

4

St. Patrick's Day (Home) - I found a cute pin on Pinterest making a St. Patrick's Day hat.  The one I saw was made using green candy.  I knew that I couldn't leave candy out with my cats around, or I would find the candy later on when I did major cleaning under/behind furniture.  I found the rocks at Michaels.  They didn't have all green ones, but I thought the colors gave it a nice contrast.

How to make a Leprechaun hat:
     1.  Place a footless trifle bowl onto a clear plate.  I used an old microwave plate that my mom had. I got the trifle bowl off of Amazon.

     2.  Fill the bowl and plate with candy or with colored stones.

     3.  I then added black ribbon to make the band.

     4.  To make the buckle, I used a strip of connected gold beads that I found in Michael's jewlery making area.  This was easy to bend into a buckle shape.

     5.  The flowers are just a cutesy decoration on top.

5

Pots of Gold - I just finished ordering the mini cauldrons below for St. Patrick's Day (I even ordered enough for next year, because they are half price).  Next week, we will plant clover seeds in them. By the time St. Patrick's Day comes, they will have grown (clover grows quickly).   I have 'gold' to put in them on the 17th (I got them on clearance after Christmas).  I can't wait to make them.
                              
                                                                  

Five for Friday

This week was a bit better.  We only had one PARCC test to take.  I am glad it is Friday!  Happy Five for Friday.  

1

Book Madness!

I was feeling more creative this week (thanks to Pinterest and TPT).  March Madness is in full swing. While I may not be into sports, I am into books.  When I found the pin about this, I knew that I wanted to create this in the hallway.  Sports enthusiasts and book lovers where both in awe of our hallway display (although I am critical of it - I used electrical tape for the brackets and they kept falling.  I would actually use precut black paper and duct tape for the brackets.).

To make this, I picked some of the favorite series my students had been reading in our classroom.  I then made individual signs with the books for the hallway.  I also printed student brackets on Print Your Brackets.  This site let me customize everything.  I also found a posting on TPT that had the mini posters showing the games.

My students were very excited to complete their brackets.  Our first game was an upset - Flat Stanley vs. Who Would Win?  I thought that Who Would Win? would win in a landslide.  It came down to a vote of 12-11 with Flat Stanley on top.  Who would have thought that my students would surprise me so much!

2

Fun Friday - Our focus was Helen Keller today in honor of Woman's History Month.  One activity we tried was using our sense of smell.  I prepared 4 bags with different items that they had to smell while blindfolded and guess what they were.  Students then wrote down their guesses and took a picture.  I chose a lemon, cinnamon, popcorn, and an orange.  We had popcorn to celebrate our guesses.

3

With paperwork galore, crazy students, testing, etc., I have needed something that relaxes me.  With that in mind, I binged watched Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.  The show was strange (an understatement).  After a couple of episodes, I really got into it.  I had many great laughs from it.  I highly recommend it if your brain needs a complete break!

4

I felt the creativity bug at home (once again from Pinterest - While I am feeling creative, I still can't come up with any ideas of my own.) On St. Patrick's Day I made this cute wall decoration.

To make this, I cute out a shamrock shape, glued it on the rainbow, and added different buttons all over.  I found that layering the buttons gave it the best look.  It makes me happy.

5

I love the 50 degree weather we have been having.  I have been utilizing a walking path almost everyday - it may look a little scary, but it is incredibly peaceful.  I can't wait for the leaves to come back. 

Here Comes the Leprechaun...Or Not

I love St. Patrick's Day.  I love the green, rainbows, pot of gold, etc.  It's my signal that Spring has truly sprung.  One of my favorite activities is having the leprechaun visit my classroom.

When the leprechaun visits, he trashes my classroom.  Chairs are knocked over, messes are everywhere, and there is a message to my students.  Unfortunately, the leprechaun could not visit this year.  We had PARCC Testing until the end of the day.  I also have a class that could not handle a visit.

I will cherish memories of old classes and their memories of the leprechaun visit.  I have an old student that will still bring up the leprechaun visit...6 years after it happened.  I also remember when a leprechaun visited my second grade class as a child.  He put a chair in the sink.  Obviously it could have only been a leprechaun to do that as a teacher would never dream of doing that.

Oh well, for old time's sake, just for me, a crazy chair left in the sink.

I can't wait until next St. Patrick's Day!

Five for Friday

                                            

Doodle Bugs Teaching offers a Weekly Linky Party for bloggers full of 5 things - random or not. Here goes my totally random list!

1

Fun Friday - Today's theme was Dr. Seuss.  We made Oobleck.  Students mix cornstarch and water to form the Oobleck.  It makes a mess but students enjoyed making it.

We also made "green eggs and ham."  Pretzels were the ham, vanilla frosting was the egg yolk, and a green m&m's were the egg yolk.  Yum!

Finally, students went to Seussville.  There are tons of games and activities for kids to try.  I must admit, the site is a bit overwhelming.  There is too much going on for my liking, but I knew the students would have fun on it.

 2

Test Prep - We start the PARCC test Monday.  To prepare, I read Oh, The Place You'll Go.  We compared the story with testing.  I was made that even my lowest students were able to understand the analogy.

 3

Close Reading - I am realizing that I have a slight food obsession in school.  We used Oreos for a lesson about lesson on Close Reading,  I get this activity from We Are Teachers.  I modified it slightly.

First, we divided a paper into two parts.  Next, students quickly ate 1 Oreo.  Then they wrote words to describe the cookie.  Students looked carefully at another Oreo.  The students then wrote about the Oreos again.

The difference in material shocked me.  Most of the descriptions in the "first read" were 1 or 2 word responses.  The "second read" had students creating descriptive phrases.  Hopefully students understood the lesson.

 4

My worst behaved student from the beginning of the year was our Student of the Month this month.  The difference in his behavior has been incredible.  Other teachers were shocked when they heard his name knowing how he was only a few short months ago.  I wish the majority of my students could make this drastic of a change (for the good)!

 5

Since we are testing Monday, my weekend is going to be devoted to preparing for the test.  I can't wait for the fun to start!  Have a great weekend!

Dr. Seuss

Today was a stressful day - tornado drill, last minute meeting during prep, and flooding from a burst pipe.  The flooding was the worst.  We had to evacuate a few weeks ago due to flooding in the building.  Today we had updates - get everything together in case we have to evacuate, be prepared to evacuate at this time, one grade level evacuate, third grade evacuation was canceled 5 minutes before we were to leave after we packed up for the day. Staff had to move their cars so no one would be trapped at the end of the day.  The water was turned off in the building.  Why do you only need to go to the bathroom when you can't?  It was a long day!

Okay rant over.  With Dr. Seuss' birthday, I have compiled a list of some websites/activities.

Dr. Seuss Ideas

Websites
Seussville - Games and activities for the classroom.
Wikipedia - Research on Dr. Seuss.
Biography.com - More research on Dr. Seuss (includes a 4 minute biography video)
Biography Information - Even more research about Dr. Seuss.
Read Across America - Information about Read Across America.

Videos
You Tube - Tons of Dr. Seuss videos including The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who, and many more full length cartoons.
Biography.com - 4 minute biography video about Dr. Seuss.

Activities
Oobleck - Make oobleck from the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck following these directions.
Tons of Activities - There are activities listed for most of Dr. Seuss' books.  This site is full of great ideas!
My TPT Product - I have to include my Dr. Seuss Activities.

I hope that you find something fun to do with your students!

March Books

One project I have been working on is organizing my monthly read aloud books.  In my garage, I have bins for each month that contain books pertaining to events in that month.  I put them out on a special rack in my classroom.  I put my read aloud books in these bins too and am always scrambling to figure out which ones to read and what activities I can do with them.  To solve that problem, I have created a document in which I pull certain books and write a possible topic to teach.  Some books do not have a topic.  They will be at the bottom of my to read books.  They are just for fun time permitting.  My summer project will be creating actual activities for these books.

March Read Aloud Books

Dr. Seuss

·         Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book (read over 2 days) – Dr. Seuss

·         Green Eggs and Ham – Dr. Seuss

·         If I Ran the Zoo (read over 2 days) – Dr. Seuss

·         Oh, the Places You’ll Go! – Dr. Seuss – Testing Motivation

·         The Cat in the Hat – Dr. Seuss - Rhyming Words, Vowel Sounds

Saint Patrick’s Day

·         Fluffy’s Lucky Day (read over 2 days) – Kate McMullan - Compare/Contrast (with other Fluffy books)

·         Magic Tree House Research Guide - Leprechauns and Irish Folklore (chapter book) – Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Osborne – Text Features

·         There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover! – Lucille Colandro – Sequence