Five For Friday

I am linked up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday

What a crazy week...make that a crazy few weeks!  What is life without a little crazy right?!

I found a great blog post about Abe Lincoln, but I can't remember who to give credit to.  So if  you know who's fabulous idea this is, please let me know!

After having a nice long three day weekend, we came back to school ready to learn a little about presidents.  We started off with learning about our 16th president!

We read a book about Abe Lincoln.

Made a chart with some of our new learning. One of the things we learned was that he was a very tall man, 6ft 4in tall!

We compared our height to that of President Lincoln!  My status as being tall, quickly diminished!

It was Tropical Island Day on Friday!  This is a long standing school tradition to get us over the winter blues!

The day was filled with...

Hula Dancing...

Hula Hooping...

surfing pictures...

tropical math and...

tropical fruit!

Thanks to Babbling Abby, my students love, LOVE, LOVED Pop Rock Writing!

I finished my last Golden Apple observation!  YAHOO!

Now that the stress of 4 classroom observations and an interview is over, I can get back to blogging on a more regular basis!

Now it is just a waiting game to see if our of the 20 finalists, if myself and colleague will become one of the 5 Golden Apple Recipients on March 14th.

My husband surprised me with a family photo session for Valentine's Day!

Love family photos!

The Water Cycle in action!

I love LOVE LOVE teaching science.  Last week we started our weather unit. Today's topic was the water cycle.  I started off reading from our science big book, useful, but no real memory burn there!  I had my students stand up and I taught them the water cycle song. (video to come tomorrow!)

After our wonderful rendition of the water cycle song, I called my students over to the table.  I poured some warm water into a cup and placed plastic wrap on top, securing it with a rubber band.  I asked my students what happens to accumulated water?  We came to the understanding that it evaporates.  Then, I asked my students, what happens when those water droplets (water vapor) meets cooler air?  Again, we came to the understanding, it condenses and forms clouds.  This is when I placed ice cubes on top of the plastic wrap.

Ice cubes on top of the plastic wrap.

I had my students go back to their seat and draw what they observed so far on their experiment sheet.

Click on the picture of the document to printout your FREE copy.

This document is great for explaining each step of the experiment to the teacher and to the parents when it comes home!

While we waited for 15 minutes, I had my students make a water cycle movable diagram. It showed the different stages of the water cycle with a raindrop that attached in the middle with a brad.  I would upload a free copy of this as well, but it is copy righted at I can't. (Insert Debbie Downer music here!)

After the 15 minutes was up, I called the students back to the table and I took off the ice cubes.  I asked a student to share with me what they noticed. She shared with us that there was water on the plastic wrap. I also asked, why did the water collect on the underside of the plastic wrap?  One of my sweet little ones, said that it was like the water collecting in the sky to make clouds!  WHAT?!  I was floored that she made the connection so quickly! 

I had my students go back to their places and draw in the second circle, what they predicted would happen next.  After prediction, we observed the container to see if our predictions were correct. I placed the container under the document camera so everyone could get a good look!

Apparently observing the container upside down is scientifically necessary.

Slowly, but surly we saw some drops fall from the plastic wrap and into the water.  My students were so excited to see this happen!  I had everyone return to their places to draw the outcome in the third circle.  We discussed that when water vapor that forms clouds is cooled, it condenses.  The droplets combine and adhere to other small particles in the atmosphere.  (Just like the droplets combined and adhered to the plastic wrap.)  When the droplets become heavy, they drop from the clouds in the form of precipitation.  Precipitation can be in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow, depending on the temperature.

Life Size Game Board!

We have all had one of those great ideas hit us at an unexpected time. The kind of idea that you get while your showering, in bed ready to fall sleep, running...you know what I am talking about.  The other day I had an EPIC idea, as one of my sweet little firsties put it.

I was tutoring one of my first graders after school one night and we were trying to memorize our high frequency words.  I could tell he was getting frustrated and bored.  I started writing words, with dry erase marker, on the square tiles on the floor.  The idea was to make him walk his words. As he was smiling and practicing his words...an idea hit me like a TON of bricks!

What if I made a HUGE game board on the floor so that all my students could practice their words. (Perfect Daily 5 Word Work activity!)

Here is the finished product!

To make this game board I went to Walmart and bought the cheapest electrical tape I could find.  You will not believe it, but I got it for $0.52 a roll!  What a steal.  I liked the idea of using electrical tape, because it is more durable than masking tape or painters tape, but not as intense as duct tape. 

The actual sticking of the tape did not take me very long.  I just followed the lines from the tiles on the floor.  No measuring, not thinking...my kind of prep!

After making the board itself, I started writing one high frequency word per square with Vis-a-Vis marker.  I also liked the idea of Vis-a-Vis because I could keep the words on the floor for a few days.  Dry erase markers would just rub off every time a student would walk on it. 

As I was writing words in the square, I thought to myself, "What is a game, without a few twists and turns?"  So, in some square I wrote "lose a turn" or "STOP, jump 5 times and say all the digraphs."  You could put any type of phonics review in the square.  

To play this game, I had students roll a giant, soft, not annoying quite dice.  Students would move that many squares. Once at their square, students had to read the word.  If they read it correctly they were good to go for their next turn.  However, if their partner said that they read the word incorrectly, they missed their next turn.  If they landed on a special square, they had to do what the square said before their next turn.  On the FINISH square, I had a very special ending task. 

I would say that my students LOVED this game. The best part about this activity, my students enjoyed it so much that they asked if they could play it at recess! WINNING!!!  The second best thing, I can wipe the words off and make another high frequency word game, vocabulary game, or math game. WINNING WINNING! (That's double winning for me!)

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Mrs. Wanke's Wonderful Whales: Welcome Back!

Mrs. Wanke's Wonderful Whales: Welcome Back!: We had a little bit of SNOW and some Pumpkin Jack to start our Monday off! Today we played in the "SNOW!"  Mrs. Wanke gave us so...

Doodle Bugs Ditto's Is Having A Sale

 

Check out Doodle Bugs Dittos on December 2 and December 3...15% off select items!

 

Thank You JCPENNY!

 

I got an email today informing me that JCPenny Cares "adopted" my classroom by giving us a $100 grant!  WOW!  I was shocked and excited! 

 

I was able to get...

 

for our writing center!

 

Thank you JCPenny Cares!

 

 

 

 

The Mayflower Voyage

Today we read an article called, Meet the Pilgrims. (Which was from All About Thanksgiving, by Stephanie Stewart.) We answered questions about article by going back and locating the information in the text. Then we compared the information in the article to the information presented in the website below. 

 

Click on the picture to visit the website.

We then made our own maps of the Mayflowers Voyage.  (Also from All About Thanksgiving..I highly recommend the purchase!)

 

 

Lastly, we discussed if we would like to go on the Mayflower.  Most of us said, despite the terrible conditions and leaving everything we have ever known, we would still go on the Mayflower.

 

Four of us have changed our minds since creating our graph.

 

 I then created an online survey for my students families to take so we could analyze the data.  We can't wait to see the results!

 

What would you do?  Fill out our survey below so we can analyze the data! 

 

Would you leave everything and take the voyage on the Mayflower?
	Yes
	No
pollcode.com free polls