My sister-in-law sent me this pin yesterday and I thought it was hilarious, and exactly how I'm feeling right now. So much to do, and no time to do it!
In science, we just wrapped up a unit on the solar system. As a culminating project, I had my students each research a different planet (not including Earth) and create an alien to go with their planet. I used this awesome resource that I found on TPT. In addition to the alien, the students created a passport for the alien, which housed all of the research that they conducted on their planet. Fun right?
The students could make their alien out of anything and it was so cool to see how creative and different each one looked. I was really impressed with them all. In addition, my students held a Solar System exhibit at school and presented their projects to the 3rd and 4th grade students. They did such an awesome job!
Here are some pictures of some of the aliens and some posters that the kids created.
Over winter break, I spent a lot of time on Pinterest and reading different teaching blogs. Since it's my first full year, I am definitely trying to improve and form my teaching and management style. One thing that I found that I loved was this great idea from Young Teacher Love for turning in homework. She calls it the Homework Hotspot. Instead of checking homework each morning, or having students turn in their homework to an inbox (what I was previously doing), they each have their own slot to turn in their homework each morning. It is so easy to just look over and see who doesn't have their homework, rather than have to go around to each student or check each paper individually. I've only been using it for a week, but I am already loving it.
Check out the blog post from Young Teacher Love here.
Here are the exact pocket charts that are ordered from Amazon.
On a non-teaching note. My sister just gave birth to my newest niece, Aubree Kate. She is absolutely perfect. My boyfriend and I got to meet her this past weekend. Here he is holding her for the first time. He acted as if he was scared out of his mind, but I think he looks like a natural. (:
My sister-in-law sent me this ecard today and I thought it was hilarious! I could definitely use some Starbucks in my life this week. I feel like I've been going and going and going. I know we just had Winter Break, but I am seriously in need of another. Luckily, it's a three day weekend and I have one more day off tomorrow for MLK Jr. Day.
Speaking of which... I wanted to do something a little different to teach my 5th graders about MLK Jr. this year. Instead of talking about his life and listening to his speech (as they've done so many times already), I focused on his legacy. We started off by talking about the Civil Rights movement and different forms of peaceful protests on Day 1. We also shared with them the importance of song during the marches and I played this amazing video of the Morehouse College Glee Club performing "We Shall Overcome."
On Day 2 I had them do a quickwrite about the question: "How did MLK Jr. change America?" We talked about how life is different today than in the 60s and how their lives are directly affected by the Civil Rights movement. We then discussed what a legacy is and then I had them discuss and share what they thought was MLK Jr.'s legacy.
By discussing MLK Jr. and the fact that one man was able to create so much change, I wanted the kids to begin thinking about their own impacts and how they can influence others. Since they are going to middle school next year, I had them think about what their elementary school legacy would be when they graduated. I had them list their accomplishments, service, and characteristics on a graphic organizer. You can get it here:
My intent is to make this into a writing assignment and then have the kids create a picture board of their legacy to show to parents at Back to School night or graduation. I was thinking of using Glogster, but I haven't decided just yet. Hopefully the project will help the kids see just how accomplished and important they really are!
Here are some random outfit pics from my phone. I'm not sure of the dates.
I got it at the CTA Good Teaching Conference last weekend. I love that it matches my favorite cheetah scarf!
Here's something new that I created over Winter Break: new Hall passes!! I previously had just a normal pass that the kids carried with them to the restroom or office. However, they were really cheap and the kids broke them in half. They were also just really yucky looking. I found these cute lanyards at our local school supply store. I printed and laminated the labels, attached them to the lanyard, and that's it. I told the kids that they have to wear them around their necks (no excuses) so they don't have to set them down in the restroom (let's hope).
We've been studying the solar system in science. I found some planet coloring pages here and had the kids color with crayon and then put the planets in order on a piece of blue construction paper. I would have preferred black paper, but I didn't have any at the time. Also... I didn't cut the blue paper long enough for the kids to fit the planets, so they are a little squished.
We did two projects for Christmas. One was to make "elfies" and use them to make Christmas Cards for the parents. For the picture, I used the stickers that I get of their school portraits. For the elf body, I used this template. I had to resize the image until it was small enough to fit with the head. Here is how mine turned out:
We also made reindeer ornaments. I bought an assortment of colored ornaments from Michael's at 70% off! Score! Note: lighter colors work better for this. You have to do this one over two days. Day one: use your thumb and brown paint to make the reindeer heads. I let them do as many as they wanted. Let this dry. Day two: we used black Sharpie to draw the antlers and the eyes and nose and a red sharpie for Rudolph's nose. I would have preferred using puff paint for this step, but I just didn't have the time to get it together. Regardless, they turned out really cute. We wrapped them in tissue paper and tied that with red ribbon when they were complete.
Here is one of the completed ornaments:
Have a safe and Merry Christmas everyone. I am looking forward to two weeks of relaxation! :)
I am officially on Thanksgiving break for an entire week. I have never been so ready for a break. With report cards and parent conferences done, I finally have time to breathe!
We've been working on fractions (dun dun dun) in math. I found this great turkey activity for factoring on TPT. I really liked it a lot, but I wanted my kiddos to get more practice with fractions. So, I modified it slightly. I had them write a simple fraction on the body of the turkey, and then they had to write an equivalent fraction on each of the 5 leaves. I really love how they look up on the cabinets (I'm out of wall space) and the colors are so fun!
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