Arctic Animals Keeping Warm

Here is a great experiment on insulation for Arctic animals.  We simply use ice water, rubber gloves and crisco.  Students feel the water with no insulation, just a rubber glove.  Then they dip their hands in the ice water with a blubber glove (crisco insulated Ziploc bag).  We go through the scientific process and make an observation chart for their findings.

Monster Match

Students make a crayon - water color resist monster.  I tell them to use different colors and make lots of details.  Then I have them write a descriptive paragraph about their monster and name their monster. I put the paragraphs on the the bulletin board all mixed up.  I put their monsters with a letter of the alphabet attached to it away from the paragraph. At our Halloween party I give them a sheet with the letters on it, and they are to write down the name of the monster next to the letter that matches.

Primary Pumpkins

First we used oil pastels to make outlines of pumpkins and leaves.  Then we used paint in the primary colors and mixed them to make orange and green to paint our pumpkins and leaves.  When then cut out these and glued them to black construction paper, adding pastel chalk vines, moon and stars.  We used the lesson from Deep Space Sparkle.  

Kinds of Sentences

After learning about the four kinds of sentences we practiced them.  I put students into groups of four.  They each got a different color sticky note.  Each color represented a type of sentence.  Together they had to write an example for each of the four different kinds of sentences and put them into the correct spot.

Cubby Covers

       Every year my students make a cover for their cubby.  This helps to keep some of their items secure and private.  It also provides an attractive art display for our room.
       We used white paper, folded it so there would be sixteen squares.  We then wrote our names, using one letter per square and repeating the name until we ran out of squares.  To finish it we painted each square with water color.

Cliff Hanger

As a class we read Cliff Hanger by Jean Craighead George.  We had Mr. Ian McRae come in and teach us about rock climbing gear.  It helped us learn vocabulary from the story.  Thanks Mr. McRae!

A New School Year

August is here and the wheels are turning towards the first day of school.  The dreams have started and the plans are under way.  The excitement as the days close in is high.  I look forward to getting to know my new class and the days ahead of learning and adventure!  I sent out this welcome letter to introduce myself to my students.

 View Class Introduction letter here:

Multiplication Flashcards

We are working on memorizing our multiplication facts.  Here is how we are organizing the facts we know, from the ones we need to learn.

Raven's Day

Story telling for culturally responsive literacy.  Two years ago Brett Dillingham, a wonderful story teller from Juneau, came to my class.  He helped me learn an excellent process to help students write and tell their very own stories.  We started off by watching a video of B. Dillingham telling a story and analyzing what makes him a great story teller.

Here is Brett Dillingham's telling of Raven's Day.

Reading Journals - YAY!

Today I introduced Reading Journals to help silent reading be a little more directed.   When students come into class, there will be a picture projected on the promethean board with a reading strategy and questions to answer in their journal.  After they're done responding to the questions, they will have 15 minutes of silent reading time.  They will then have five minutes to respond in their journals connecting their personal reading choice to the strategy they wrote about earlier.

  Here is an example:

REALISM & FANTASY: When you look at this image, think about what could actually happen in a real life setting, and what would only happen in a fantasy setting. List your ideas in a T-chart in your reading journal.

After their 15 min. of silent reading, I would follow up with a question about their book, whether it is realism or fantasy, and have them give an example.  

I have a wonderful source for these reading skill photos and questions.  You can follow her board on pinterest:  Suzy Brook's Reading Skills and Strategies

Planet Brochures

I was looking for a culminating project for our unit on the solar system and I came across this site that had a  great travel brochure project.  The project is a planet report in the form of a travel brochure.  Click the link to see the details of the project.

Planet Brochure Project

I used their project as a template and tweaked the rubric for my students.  I put a couple of kid friendly solar system websites for the students to use on my webpage and they began researching today.

There's a really cute solar system youtube video on one of the sites.  The students enjoyed it.

Earth Day Mosaics

For Earth Day we  learned the art term, mosaic. After observing different mosaics in art I gave students a rough outline of the Earth and they filled it in with tiles.

I would add a speech bubble quoting a fact about conservation of our resources.

Sharpies and balloons

I teach Reading Mastery to a group of eight.  After reading a story about the travels of a fly, we had a rare opportunity to do a project.  We made globes of the world with sharpies and balloons.  We only had one balloon pop.  I had back up paper maps for this instance.  I had them draw the continents and the equator first.  Then we labeled the cities and countries that Herman the fly had visited by plane.  All in all I thought it was a great lesson and I will do this again with the whole class next year.

Water color solar system

Today we painted planets in water color, then cut them out and put them in order.  I always remember the order of planet with the pneumonic device - My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos.  We made sure to use torn brown paper bits to create the asteroid belt that separates the inner and outer planets.  We painted the planets one day while watching a video about the solar system, then cut and pasted them the next day.

Use any worksheet with the outline of the planets.  Tear bits of brown paper for the asteroids.

The Extra Terrestrials speak...

Students wrote down a fact from science and created a speech bubble for their E.T.  I had them write their facts in cursive for good practice.

Symmetrical Extra Terrestrials

In Science we are learning about our solar system. I like to incorporate art across the curriculum.  So... we created aliens with a line of symmetry.  You can find the directions at this wonderful site -

Symmetrical Paper aliens