Five For Friday...on a Saturday

Happy Saturday friends!

Is it just me, or has all the snow days and delays really thrown off your teaching groove? I'm just getting back into the swing of things. So, beware, I'm updating two weeks into one big Five For Friday to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today!

Our Valentine's Day Cardboard Box Challenge (inspired by Amanda from One Extra Degree) are finally finished on Valentine's Day. Oh boy, did they look SPECTACULAR! Take a peek at our final products...

Despicable Me minion with a lever to move the arms up and down. Hockey table with two hockey players that move side to side or up and down using a lever. A pinball machine using a lever and inclined plane. An owl (his name is Hoot Hoot) made from a laundry container using a hinge to open and close.

 For this project, they had to use a simple machine (an inclined plane, screw, wedge, lever, or pulley) and create a cardboard box containing a cavity to hold Valentine's treats.  Our goal was to use the design process from STEAM to brainstorm, build, test, and revise to create a successful box from recycled materials. 

This student created a basketball hoop that moves up and down using a pulley for an added challenge. 

This student made a locker using a hinge.

This student had an inclined plan inside of her flower garden for envelopes to slide down.

Basketball hoop using an inclined plane.

A merry go round using a pulley system.

A pinball machine using an inclined plane.

To celebrate Black History Month, and practice our writing from a new point of view, we researched a famous African American in history, and then created a diary for that person. It gave students a chance to see what it would be like to walk in someone else's shoes, and take on a new perspective of how difficult it was to overcome segregation.

Please ignore my poorly painted fingernails! :o)

We played a game on Friday to practice locating lines of longitude and latitude. Remember the "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" game show? She was an international jewel thief! Well, I introduced the theme of the show to my students and created clues for certain countries on the map points of latitude and longitude. They had to correctly identify each point/country on the map with their team and check with me if it was correct before they could move on to the next clue. This was an engaging review for them, and allowed me to formatively assess students who were still having trouble with the hemispheres and coordinates. Also, it gave a great opportunity to show team work, since they had to work as a team to find Carmen Sandiego's location. My favorite part was one of my darlings said, "Miss S, if Carmen Sandiego is a jewel thief, why is she leaving clues behind for the police? She must be a stupid thief!" Truth. Sometimes, teachers don't create the best "real-world" problems for students. :o)

Our focus in ELA this week was working on identifying the types of context clues. I made the set of task cards and used them during our centers to play scoot. I think out of all the skills we teach fourth graders, being able to use and identify context clues is one of the most important skills for reading. It's a huge help for test-taking, and is something they will use for the rest of their life. Get a set of your own task cards in my little TpT shop - they're only a dollar! Enjoy a FREEBIE anchor chart, too! 

Yesterday was an interesting experience for me. Friday was "TA for a Day" at our district, where the high school group FEA (Future Educators of America) raises money for their scholarship funds by allowing teachers to purchase a teacher assistant for the day. I just think it is such a unique opportunity for both the students (in high school AND my fourth graders) and for the teacher. We get to collaborate in learning, which is a rare opportunity in many districts. Although I am only 22 years old, I realized that I was ready to show a leadership role, and wanted to help support the FEA, so I took on the responsibility of having a TA. Let me tell you, it was a fabulous experience all around. Miss Melanie was such a sweet girl, and the students seemed to really enjoy having her around for the day. While it was fun for us to have a guest in the room, I didn't want to make her do busy work all day (because let's face it, don't we ALL hate busy work?) and, I didn't want to say "Just walk around, observe, and hangout,"because how fun is that? (Been there, done that, and was never a comfortable experience just meandering around a classroom for five hours.) I did my best to make her feel welcomed, and a part of our day. As I look back on the day, while I started the day being nervous that, maybe I wasn't ready to be a leader, considering I'm fresh out of college myself; I ended the day feeling grateful and rewarded with the collaborative opportunity. Isn't the goal of education to inspire others? She helped my fourth graders understand how important certain concepts were (like how yes, Ms. S is right in telling you that you will ALWAYS use context clues forever and ever; or how you do learn to write more than five paragraphs in high school - shocker!) The experience inspired me to be more confident in my teaching, that no matter what age you are, you can be a role model; I know she was mutually inspired to remain in the field of psychology/education after our day together.

Phew! What a lot to catch up on! Well, I promise to give more updates and stay in touch this week - we have a lot of activities planned.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Five For Friday: I Survived Nine Weeks!

Happy Friday, friends!

I'm linking up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday! Here's five random things that our class has been working on this week:

Today is a special day for me, as it marks the end of the nine weeks for our school. I've officially made it through my first nine weeks of teaching - and I have loved every second!

As I reflect, I truly feel that I have exceeded my own personal expectations, and my students have done so as well. I can only hope that my students pass on the things that they are learning to others. All standards aside, I want great things for my students, and expect great things from them. I care more about the people they become than the scores on the tests they take. After all, isn't learning all about the journey, not the destination?  

This week we finished our Analyze-a-Character project! This was a great way to look into the physical traits and character traits of different characters. Students needed to take an indepth look on a specific character from a book that they are currently reading, and list the physical traits (outside) and character traits (inside) of their book character. Then, in order to practice citing their evidence, they had to pick one of the character traits and find text-based evidence that supported that specific trait. I'm so impressed with these - don't they look fabulous? 

I got the idea and rubric from Leslie at Life in Fifth Grade, so feel free to click the picture below for a free download! It's a fabulous resource and a great project for students to analyze character traits. 

In honor of MLK Jr. Day on Monday, we discussed some serious topics today. We read the story, March On by Christine King Farris and discussed the true impact Martin Luther King Jr. had on American culture.

Then, we discussed a deeper topic: did MLK have a lasting impact on our world, or are racism and segregation still present today? It was both impressive and somewhat troubling, the responses that students gave. We talked about how even though people are aware of the fact that appearance doesn't matter, people still judge others, whether intentionally or not, based on their physical traits. To prove the point, we looked at a current commercial which has caused much controversy. 

After talking about the public's negative reaction to this harmless Cheerios commercial, we agreed that for some reason, our society has strayed from MLK's dream for our country. We talked about the steps that we can take as individuals and the steps that all people can take to make a more equal world. We created our "Pathway to Change" (an idea I saw from A Year of Many Firsts).

Students took off their shoes, stinky feet and all, an traced both of their feet. They wrote ideas that could act as steps in the right direction on the road toward a more equal world. Take a look at some of their insightful ideas!

 Our goal is for others to "follow in our footsteps" on this pathway to change. This is the poster I have hanging on my motivation wall behind my desk, and I think it was the perfect advice to give as inspiration to write their steps. 

One of my goals this week was to create a focus board for my students for reading instruction. I forgot to take pictures of it, but I love that it has been interactive with their writing goals and reading objectives. Pictures will follow soon!

Today was the first meeting of the Lunch Bunch Book Club! My students LOVED it! We started reading The One and Only Ivan and let me tell you - it is a fabulous book. I started the group by modeling - we will read some of the book together, and then talk about our wonderings at certain points. They have to read several pages on their own for next week, and to hold them accountable for their reading, I am going to have one student lead the group discussion next week.  He or she will be responsible for discussing what they were assigned to read, reading more of the book, and leading the discussion about our wonderings at certain parts of the book. 

For those of you who haven't read the book, the story is written from the perspective of the gorilla, Ivan. I'll share with you a little Ivan humor, which, I think so far, this is their favorite part of the story: 

"Here in my domain I do not have much to do. You can only throw so many me-balls at humans before you get bored. 

A me-ball is made by rolling up dung until it's the size of a small apple, then letting it dry. I always keep a few on hand. 

For some reason, my visitors never seem to carry any." 

 Hehe, isn't he a silly gorilla? I am looking forward to sharing the various emotional portions of the book with my students as we continue our book club this month!

Have a wonderful weekend! 

First Snow Day of the Year

Happy Friday friends!

Today was our first snow day of the year! I am so thankful, especially since I caught a bug and have 100+ fever. (Yuck!) I'm thoroughly enjoying the time to be cozy and comfy while being productive.

To celebrate the snow day, I'm being (somewhat) productive and linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for my very first Five for Friday!

I have been loving all the New Year's products out there, and it was hard to find the right resolution writing to do with my kiddos. I loved how focused they were on their resolutions, too. We talked about goal-setting and why it's important to set an attainable resolution (Although visiting Mars is a wonderful idea, is it really attainable this year?) They came up with some fabulous resolutions. Aren't these little party noise makers adorable? I got the idea from Linda Kamp - she has a wonderful New Year's pack on TpT!

I love how the resolutions roll up - it makes a perfect way for students to
write more personal resolutions without fear!

The Boxcar Children might be my favorite series ever! I'm still working on
completing my collection. Yes, you may call me a book worm!

Lots of books for science - we will be finishing our environmental unit in the next few weeks and starting our space unit. These nonfiction books were perfect for my book focus wall!

Half Price Books was having a SALE over the break, and I just couldn't pass up books! My kiddos are doing a 30 book challenge due in March, and I just love getting "new" books for them to read! I also found two boxes of books (each book under a dollar!!) from my local library book sale. Let me tell you, out of the one box that I brought to school yesterday, I only have about three books that are left. There is nothing more rewarding as a teacher than seeing students' faces light up about literacy. Both the students and I have the same reaction to new books: 

My favorite Christmas gift from my parents - indoor snowball fight material! Does this make me a kid at heart? I'm so excited to use these in my classroom. It's a container full of big pom-pom snowballs. What's more fun than having a snowball fight to review for a test? My mom found this glorious bucket at Hallmark.

In order to meet my own personal New Year's resolution, I started making a set of Figurative Language Posters as a FREEBIE for new followers of my blog! One of my goals this year is to be more tech savvy with the blog world, so I've been having fun making some projects that I will be using in my class over the next few weeks. Head on over to my new TpT store to check them out! 

Since we are still learning about our environmental unit, this is a supplemental activity that we did to go along with our biome boxes. In five groups, each group became an expert on their biome after doing research from various books, sites, and videos. In particular, each group watched the video from this fabulous site PBS Kids EEkoWorld, which discussed the climate, ecosystem, and environmental issues associated with each biome. After taking notes on the video, each group made a postcard to detail their biome. They designed the front cover, and then wrote about their "visit" to the biome on the back. Then, individually, students wrote a persuasive essay about the different ways that people can take action to save their biome. These are also available for FREE (for a limited time) in my TpT store - so head on to grab your copy!

Our major project in our last section was to make our biome-in-a-box. I remember making these in undergrad, and I had so much fun with it - and my kids loved this project this year, too!

Now, I'm off to enjoy the rest of this snow day with some R&R to knock out this little fever of mine! Have a wonderful weekend!