Snow Day Scoop

Two back to back snow days is the perfect opportunity to catch up with blogging.

We traveled back in time when Mr. Davidson from the Cranbury Historical Society Museum visited our class to teach us about Native Americans and colonists who once resided in our community. Mr. Davidson, dressed as a colonist, brought maps and pictures, which brought to life the stories he shared with us. We especially liked his tricorne hat and learning about the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Mr. Davidson's stories integrated what we've been learning about in reading, social studies, and science.

 

 

We've been learning about pronouns in a variety of ways, including playing the "Pronoun Pockets" game. Each student received a card with a sentence written on it that contained a noun. The student then placed the card in the pronoun pocket that could replace the noun. For example, "The mom made spaghetti for dinner." was placed in the "she" pronoun pocket. The way I created the pockets was by gluing envelopes on to posterboard.

 

To encourage good classroom behavior I recently introduced a "Class Reward Jar." I purchased the small plastic jar at A.C. Moore, then decorated it with letter stickers and curling ribbon. When the class is exhibiting good behavior it earns a marble...and, sometimes more than one. 

I gave the kids choices for a reward: one night of no homework, a special snack, or a movie. The class voted for a movie. And, the "desk fairy" continues to leave treats for students who keep their desks organized and neat.

Finally, I'm not sure why, but Blogger refuses to display my uploaded photos large after the 1st one. However, if you click on a photo it should open in large size in a gallery.

 

 

 

 

Soil Study

We got down and dirty during our Soil Study today! After learning about the types and layers of soil and its importance small groups used magnifying lenses to examine soil samples and identify the organic material in them. I collected soil from my backyard because potting soil won't have a variety of material in it. Students drew and labeled what they discovered, then wrote reasons why soil is important. Material students dug up included moss, plant roots, mulch, pebbles, fetilizer, dead leaves, and even an acorn shell.

Some videos that help give students the dirt on soil are:

http://www.growingthenextgeneration.com/just-for-kids-videos-dirt-on-soil.html

 

http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/soil/preview.weml

Although BrainPop offers free videos, you'll need to set up an account for the soil one.

 

"The Rotten Journey:A Soil Story" is a stop motion animation that shows how decaying organic material can be turned into compost.

 

 

 

 

 

New Year's News

 

Hope 2014 is off to a great start for everyone! The closest I come to making New Year's resolutions is...

 

I believe I can make a positive change any time of the year and don't want to set myself up for unrealistic expectations. So, when the kiddos returned from winter vacation instead of asking them what their New Year resolutions are, I shared some wishes I have for this year and then asked them to write what their wishes are. The students then colored self-portraits and drew hats on their heads that they decorated and glued pom pom tops on. The results are hanging on our classroom clothesline...

 

 

                       The printable is for sale at my TPT store...

                              http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Renee-Glashow

 

 

Other writing activities we've done since winter vacation are writing narratives for our "Snowglobe Stories" bulletin board and "SNOW" acoustic poems. For the 1st activity, students started their snowy narratives using the prompt "One morning I woke up and...", then used paper plates, markers, foam and sticker snowflakes, and translucent glitter glue to create snowglobes.

 

 

The "SNOW" acoustic poems were glued on to paper plates cut into the shape of snowflakes and we made them sparkle using glitter glue.

 

The new year also contained an introduction to division. We met "Division Man", who taught us what a dividend, divisor, and quotient are, as well as the steps of division. We practiced dividing into equal groups using M&M's and work mats. Then, teams participated in a "Division Drag Race" using toy cars, dice, and a racetrack poster.

 

If you teach you know how you can ask a question such as "What is the capital of the United States?" and receive the answer, "I had pizza for dinner last night." So, I chuckled from this cartoon...

 

 

 

 

 

Multiplication Mania and More...

Our class has been busy learning the multiplication times tables these past few weeks. We started our multiplication unit by creating lap books to learn multiplication terms and strategies we can use to solve equations...

 

Inside the lapbook are strategies we can utilize to multiply and a chart to help us learn the times tables 0-12.
 

 

We've played lots of multiplication games to practice multiplying two factors such as multiplication bingo...

 

 

multiplication concentration...

 

and "Build a Snowman". Pairs of students wrote equations on snowball patterns that would have the number in the snowman's hat as the answer and demonstrated the commutative property of multiplication.

 

The class has also been enjoying our new math center tub, which contains file folder and ziplock bag math games.

Students get to play a math game when they are done with class work.  "Build a Turkey" and "Roll a Snowball" are the most popular games right now; both reinforce multiplication skills. Other games reinforce solving word problems, place value, rounding, addition, subtraction, and division such as "Butterfly Division"...

We've been hard at work in Language Arts as well. In reading, the class completed our first novel study, Molly's Pilgrim, which was integrated with our Thanksgiving social studies unit. With the help of their family, each child created his or her own pilgrim doll representing the country their family is from or a country of their choice. Students also completed a questionnaire about the country, such as what its resources and landmarks. Here's a doll representing the Ukraine...

a doll representing Hungary...

and one representing Russia...

 

Our dolls are displayed on the bulletin board outside our classroom...

We also celebrated the end of our Patricia Polacco author study by having a publishing party with 4th grade as our guests. During the unit, 3rd graders practiced writing personal narratives like Polacco did in her books we read, culminating in writing a final childhood narrative that was read to a 4th grade partner. The partner then wrote a review about what he/she enjoyed about the story. Both classes enjoyed cookies during the party.

 

We also created a tally graph of our favorite Polacco book shared during our author study.

 

In Language Arts, we began our study of verbs with an anchor chart to learn about different types of verbs.

 

We also learned about "Vivid Verbs", which replace boring verbs to make our writing more interesting. Each student received a colored pencil pattern containing a "boring" verb. The student thought of 3 "vivid" verbs to replace the boring verb, then wrote a sentence for each.

 

We'll be continuing our study of verbs before moving on to adjectives in the next few weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey Talk

One of the activities we did for Thanksgiving was integrating handwriting with writing when we wrote about what we were thankful for in script. The students then created paper plate turkeys to accompany their writing. Here's a glamorous turkey with a patterned tail and eyelashes longer than mine...

 

and here's another turkey with a patterned tail.

 

 

Hope everyone had a gobbling good Thanksgiving!