Ms. K
Will You Start the Year with Love or Hate?
This year instead of saying “I love you” and “I hate you” to jars of rice, I decided to try something new. Strawberries! I thought it would probably smell WAAAAY better than rice when it had rotten. The students enthusiastically say “I love you” and “I hate you” before they leave the room each day. We first wrote predictions about what we thought would happen after 30 days of talking the jars. Did I mention we have a blank jar? Yes, we have one we don’t speak to as our control group. Here they are! The jars after a couple of weeks. What do you think will happen? I will post more after we finish the 30 days of talking to the jars.
Start the School Year with this Book!
Patricia Polacco is probably one the most famous children’s authors there is…and for good reason! Her books are so rich in content. There are so many connections that can be made from one book. I just discovered this book a few years ago and it is one of my all time favorites! The book The Junkyard Wonders shows how believing the best in your students can impact them for a lifetime. When you read this to your students, they will be hanging on every word. What’s even better about this impactful story is that it is actually TRUE! I plan to read this book to my students soon to start the school year out. The book can be found in video format on YouTube, you can pick up a copy from Amazon, or maybe you will find it in the library!
Don’t Forget about this Amazing Resource!
Every now and then you have a parent who wants their child to do advanced work or who needs acceleration in some form or fashion. I will say that in times like these, I am so thankful for Super Teacher Workheets. The convenience and value is hard to beat. I recently had parents who wanted their child to skip a grade level in math. After scrambling for a little while to find materials, I realized I had a huge resource at my finger tips with Super Teacher Worksheets. I easily pulled resources that were advanced in math for this child. I love how there is an answer key for all the math pages, too! Give Super Teacher Worksheets a try today!
More than having access to multi-grade level material, there are great activities for back to school such as “About Me” posters and “Getting to Know You” games.
Look! This is free!
Have a great school year!
Gather Your Math Ninjas!
Enlist your Math Ninjas to help pull off this academic feat! Your students will be super excited to help with this mystery. I had students secretly go around the school and place math facts. Students (Math Ninjas) are excited to help place the facts around and other students enjoy the surprise of finding unexpected math to help their learning. This past year I had students create the fact signs and not myself. You can do a lot with this if you have the right manpower! ( I also did this without students during the previous year. Go here to read more about it.
Step Up your Summer Bubble Experience!
This was students’ favorite experience with bubbles this summer. We used the Camp Invention curriculum called Invention Celebration. One of the lessons had students make bubbles on a piece of paper. The bubbles lasted longer than normal bubbles and had a more dense consistency. This allowed them to pop in a perfect circle on their paper making an imprint.
The bubble solution had a unique consistency. We used an entire small bottle of Dawn dish soap in a bucket that holds about 1.5 gallons. Then we put two small bottles of glycerin in the bucket and filled the water the rest of the way up. We let the solution sit over night. Next, we. put three separate pint containers on the table with some of the solution. In each solution, we put a spoonful of acrylic paint and stirred. This colored the bubble solution. Then students enjoyed blowing bubbles with their bubble wands!
Low Cost High Pay Off Lesson
One year I decided to collect some old computers for children to take apart. The local computer repair shop had plenty of old computers for us to choose from in their recycle bins. I also was able to collect items from parents who had old electronics for us to use. First I have students research several internal components, draw a picture, and write about the purpose of the item. Students LOVE dismantling computers and talk about it for years later. I like to do this with 4th and 5th graders. Third graders aren’t as strong to take items apart. You will need screwdrivers and pliers. I had students label the internal components first after they took their computer apart so that I could check and see if they correctly identified them.
See some of their work here….
Happy Memorial Day!
We humbly give thanks to all of those who have sacrificed so that we could enjoy our free country. We will probably never know the degree that some paid with their lives or the lives of their family members as we enjoy the freedom.
Never Let Them See…
The fifth graders had their graduation this past week. I’ve had these students in my ‘pull-out’ class for three years, and I was kind of sad they were leaving. I wanted to do something special for them because they have been such a great group of students!
I had a running joke with them about their brain sweating and made a label one day for this deodorant. I put the words “brain deodorant” over the label. Any time I would give the students something difficult, I would ask them if they needed some brain deodorant to help. We would leave the lid on of course and at times the students would rub their head with the brain deodorant.
For their graduation, I gave all of the students their very own brain deodorant. I got some deodorants at the Dollar Tree and tore the label off. Then I applied the label I made. Some students had a slight smirk on their face when they saw this! This will definitely be memorable to them!
