Five for Friday

It was definitely a Freaky Friday. Some people will have the chance to experience a solar eclipse, supermoon, and the spring equinox today. Here's what I experienced...

 

Yep, snow. On the 1st day of Spring! Guess Mother Nature thought it was April Fool's Day.

We've been rocking around the clock learning all about time. Our 3rd grade objectives are identifying the hour, half hour, and quarter hour, identifying and writing minutes, and determining elapsed time. First, we made clock foldables to identify the hour and half hour. The clock is 2 layers so students have a visual aid for minutes. I found the free templates at The Adventures of a Polka Dotted Teacher. I used cardstock for the bottom circle, printer paper for the top circle, construction paper for the hands, and brads to attach everything. Here's what my model looked like:

 

After drawing  mini clocks divided into sections to show o'clock, quarter past, half past, and quarter to we used the Smartboard to practice identifying time. The students LOVED playing the interactive games  Stop the Clock and Bang on Time.

                      

Another favorite activity was going on an "I Spy Time" scavenger hunt. I found the free clock patterns and recording sheet at What the Teacher Wants. I whited out the dots and added letters and lines so students could identify time not necessarily in 5 minute intervals, then laminated and hung them around the classroom and hallway. Students recorded their answers on the "I Spy Time" recording sheets...

 

 

 

We continued working on our plant unit this week learning about pollination. We used a bee puppet, coffee filter flowers, and paprika "pollen" to demonstrate what happens when pollinators such as bees fly from flower to flower. Here's our "bee" landing on the 1st flower, where the paprika pollen sticks to his "legs"...

 And, here's our bee landing on the 2nd flower where he deposits the paprika pollen...

Another plant activity we did this week was making "Grass Heads". Students designed faces on construction paper, which I hotglued to plastic cups. Then, they filled the cups with potting soil and sprinkled grass seed on top. Hopefully, the seeds sprout so our grass heads aren't bald!

 

 (Note the snow outside. Ack!)

During one of our learning activities today a student announced, "This is hard!" which lead to a chorus of  "Tests are hard!" and "Writing is hard!" and "Standardized tests are hard!" and "School is hard!"...you get the idea. The student who made the 1st declaration then proclaimed, "The only thing that is easy in life are video games. If you do bad or die, you just hit replay." I couldn't help it...that statement made me laugh! 

Wishing you a weekend filled with laughter and learning!