Mother's Day

Mother's Day is right around the corner! So for the next 2 weeks we will be doing all kinds of Mother's Day activities to get ready for the big day! This is my 3rd year teaching and I decided that this will be the year that I will try and host a Mother's Day tea party for the mom's.  What in the world was I thinking when I thought this was going to be a good idea?

 I guess with all of the end of the year craziness my life for the next 2 weeks will be EXTREMELY busy. Not only do I have to plan this, but this week on Tuesday we are having a literacy day and my class won for 2nd grade to get to go to a special presentation given by  an illustrator in the morning, a special guest coming into read to the class in the afternoon and do a little activity, and spend the majority of the day letting the kids read and take AR quizzes. Then on Thursday we have our 4th and last county writing test. Next week on Thursday we have field day and then Friday will be our Mother's Day Tea Party.  So to say the least the next 2 weeks I will be trying to fit in some instructional time in along with everything else.

Ok, back to Mother's Day, my teacher neighbor found this very cute poem that we think is perfect for our almost 3rd graders so I will be putting their hand prints on the bottom of the poem and having them laminated as a keepsake for their moms.  Below is a sample I did with my daughter and I think it turned out pretty cute.  I think I'm going to do them in all in pink, I don't think the green shows up all that well.  I will be back this week showing you all of the goodies that we will be making and giving to the moms next week!

Here's the poem, and I don't know who wrote it, sorry!

There are always so many of my fingerprints to see,

On the furniture and walls from sticky, grubby me,

But if you stop and think a while,

You’ll see I’m growing fast,

Those little handprints will disappear,

You can’t bring back the past.

So here’s a small reminder,

To keep not throw away,

Of how those tiny hands once looked,

To make you smile one day.

 

 Oh, and I don't know about you but we have 6 more weeks of school left before summer vacation!! But whose counting :)

Counting Money and a freebie

Last week we started our money chapter in math. This concept the kids have such a hard time with! They are very excited to start the chapter, however once we start counting the coins theirs and my frustration level raises! This year I've taken it very SLOWLY in hopes for them to grasp it better, and by Friday's math lesson I would say probably 13 of my 16 munchkins can count money pretty good.  Now lets hope they don't forget it over the weekend :).

I started the week off by doing a foldable which included the coins name, the value, a pictue, a poem, and the way we write each coin. That foldable has saved me this week! When they would look at me and say I forgot how much a dime is worth, I would just direct them to their foldable and they were able to find out their answer! Then when we started counting the money I saw the idea on Pinterest to use a 100's chart, why I never thought of that I  don't know but it has worked wonderful.  Some of my students are already pulling away from using the 100's chart which makes my heart happy!

So next week for math centers my kiddos will be using these money sticks to practice counting a group of coins.  I found them on Pinterest so last night I  created 20 of them to stick in my centers! I think the kids will enjoying using them and give them lots of practice with it too!

Here was my inspiration: 

Which you can read about on Hope's blog 2nd Grade Shenanigans
 If you haven't been to Hope's blog you must check it out, she has some wonderful ideas to share!

 And here are my money sticks! I think they turned out cute.

 

And an up-close picture of one. 

 

I numbered them 1-20 and made an easy recording sheet for them so I can check them quickly.  I will give fair warning: this recording sheet is nothing fancy but it will get the job done :). 

money sticks recording sheet 

If you have any great ideas or tricks on how you teach money I would love to hear them!! 

Enjoy your weekend!

What we've been up to in Room 232

I'm SO happy that tomorrow is Friday!!!! It has been quite the long and crazy week for me!! Without going into too much info. I left right after the kids on Monday because I was having some serious pain!! It was so bad that my principal came into my room to ask me something and I was teaching math and she noticed how much pain I was in and sent me to the nurse to get checked out! So I left school and went to a walk in clinic and they think I had a cyst on my ovary that erupted!! I was out of work on Tuesday to go to the doctors, so thank goodness I work with a wonderful team and they just split my class up so I didn't have to mess with sub plans. Wednesday I had to leave early to make it to another doctor appointment. So today when I greeted my kiddos they all asked me if I was staying all day today and when I told them yes they were super excited! They love routine and this was anything but routine for them!

This week we have been working on contractions and I found this idea on Pinterest (where else?) and decided this was a good way for the kids to practice some contractions. So we made contraction kites. I think they turned out pretty cute, and the sign I put above it reads: Flying high learning about contractions. They were quick and easy, and the kids loved them! So now in the hallway their are 16 kites with 16 different contractions on them!

Then in Science we are learning about life cycles. So today was the life cycle of the frog. Our reading series, Treasures, has some big colorful oral vocabulary stories that we are suppose to use each week and one of the stories is the life cycle of the frog with some wonderful pictures. So I read that and the kids cut and labeled the frog's life cycle. I had full intentions on the kids writing a little bit about each phase, but we ran out of time so I was happy with just labels today. They didn't come out as nice as I wanted them too, but it still got the message across, and that's what counts right?

I don't know why this one is upside down, but you still get the idea!

So that's what we we've been up to! It was a very busy and productive day!

Science Workshop

A few weeks ago I had signed up for a professional development class for Science called, Picture Perfect Science, and I'm so glad that I went!! It was such a great class and I walked away with the book that contains 15 lessons, and then 3 trade books and materials to teach 2 of the lessons! You should of heard the class of about 18 woman, every time the presenter told us that we were getting that book too we all oohed and aahhed over it!! If you didn't know any better it was like an episode of Oprah's favorite things show that she held around Christmas time, except this was the teacher version!

Ok, back to what the class: the book is all about teaching Science using trade books and it gives the book suggestions (which has questions ready to be asked for both reading and science topics) to use along with experiments that the kids can do. What I liked about it was the fact that most lessons used 2 books, one fiction story, and then a supporting non-fiction book to help with the concept. Some of the lessons even have short essays that the kids can pull the information out of. The book also gives you reading strategies to use with the book so you will be hitting reading and science at the same time. Which is perfect for the Common Core!!

Here's the book that gives the lessons:

We got this book to do a lesson about UV Rays, the experiment with this lesson was a lot of fun! The kids will get to make bracelets with UV beads that when we take them outside they will go from white to pretty colors. Then they have to figure out what made them change colors. It also talks about sun safety and with living in Florida the kids really need to know about those UV rays with summer right around the corner! I can't wait to do this lesson with the kids.

Then these next two books are about trees and what comes from trees how they are important to our everyday lives. The 1st book I have never read and I loved the story! Just a warning it had a couple people with tears in their eyes.

If you've used this book I would love to know what you think, and any of the lessons that you have done!

New Math Chapter

Monday, Monday, Monday! It was quite a busy Monday for us and we got lots and lots done today! I love when we have a very productive day at school and I don' feel like a lot of time was wasted.

Today for math we started our new chapter and it is geometry and patterns! I'm so glad to be done with the last 2 chapters of measurement!! The 1st one was on measuring length, which isn't too bad it just gets a little boring for me. But the 2nd one was measuring volume and capacity!! The kids had such a hard time with it and the lessons were not that great! **note to self I need to find better activities for these 2 chapters over the summer for next year :)** Not to mention the test that they have to take is all with really BAD pictures so it made it even harder!

Ok, off that little rant, and onto what I did today. The kids had to look at pictures and see how many sides and vertices the following shapes had: square, rectangle, triangle, and a circle. And then they had to be able to write a math sentence if there were multiple objects. For the most part my kids seemed to pick up the concept pretty easy. We did this quick foldable so the students had an easy to use reference guide in-case they forgot!

Nothing fancy but it did the trick and helped the kiddos!

Outside


On the inside

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

April Currently

Farly at Oh'Boy 4th Grade is hosting her April Currently and I thought I would join. I always love reading these and getting a small glimpse at someone's life.

Multitasking

I don't know about you but I find myself having to multitask all the time, otherwise I will never be able to get it all in, and still get a decent night sleep!! So today I did manage to make it to the gym and as I rode the bike, I grabbed my guided reading books that I will be working on next week and read them so that I can start thinking of the questions and words they might not know.

Hey the way I look at it as I was working and giving my legs a pretty good workout too!!

So are you a pro at multitasking too?

Sorry the photo is kinda of blurry, but I was still on the bike and trying to take the picture!