Thursday, September 22, 2011

I’m a slacker so here’s a picture packed post!

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Hey fellow teacher friends! Hope your week is going well… one more day ‘til FRIDAY! Woot! I have slacked in the picture department, so I figure I should post a couple of things we have done around the room. We did an alphabet scavenger hunt around the classroom and the next day the kids got a new letter and looked through magazines to find pictures that began with the first sound of their letter. I just LOVE to pieces the “fone” picture! I think it was my fav!

DSC_1186 We did our self/friend unit last week and then made self-portraits that turned out to be A-DORABLE! They’re out in the hall with a poem we read that I didn’t get a pic of yet. The kids really enjoyed figuring out how to do their hair! And I <3 the 2nd person because she gave herself pink fingernails! So cute!

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Our first Science Unit was with heat so we made a chart about what we knew about heat and then watched a BrainPop, Jr. We discussed what we learned from that video and added (in red) what we learned from the video. Then we did a fun experiment in our journal. We were exploring heat with our mouths and M&Ms (can you say INSTANT hit?!?) We put an M&M in our mouth and recorded our experiment and its findings. This is Roxanne’s journal:

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DSC_1263We played a game from Cara’s Place Value (just a plug for it because it’s AWESOME!) I am a teacher who loves these types of activities as a whole group lesson and then transferring it to a Math Tub so we did ours individually and I set out 10 bags (20 in all-10 brown bags, 10 white bags-since I have 21 students) with different objects in it (unifix cubes, keys, links, little animals, counters, beans, poker chips, etc.) They went around the room and did each bag while recording their numbers. I usually do something like this (with skittles last year) but I think this recording sheet was so much more helpful for them to transfer that number to paper. I saw a major difference in their understanding of it after this activity.

To continue with place value, we made number rockets (you have to check out this Alien Counting song… I will have to get the singer’s name because it is HA-LARIOUS! That’s what sparked this rocket activity. Each kid rolled a die and placed their first number in the tens place and second roll in the ones place. They then decorated their rocket and on the back of their number, they drew their tens/ones to visually see it. They were pumped about it and this will go in a Math Tub once everyone is completely finished. Some of them turned out pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Here is my example on the promethean board and another student’s front:

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Here is a finished rocket:

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So our district has implemented SSR (or DEAR time as it’s known in my room.) We are working on 5 minutes of sustained silent reading to help build fluency for the new STARR test Texas is going to this year(our goal is working towards 15 min. by the end of the year). I pick one student to read to BEVO (Hook ‘em Horns!) everyday. He is our pillow pet. This picture was too cute to pass up and share with you because drumroll… I have my own JUNIE B JONES IN MY CLASS! Doesn’t she look JUST like her?!? I can’t post her face front on but she’s got the glasses and yes… she literally dresses that Junie B-ish every day! Too precious! Check her out as she reads Splat the Cat to Bevo! DSC_1274

DSC_1286 Last pic share… PROMISE! This one particular writing mini-lesson, we used Bevo to help us describe things. Here he is so you can get a better look at him. I did my best (which is all I can ask for—that’s what I tell my kids). I am by no means ANY type of artist… I’m lucky if I can make a stick figure look decent. So anyway, drew Bevo while the kids ate breakfast and then we sat down and described him. We talked about how important it is for our reader to get a good picture in their head of what you are trying to tell them and how describing words can really help the reader see what the author is trying to share in their mind. This is what we came up with:

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I had them close their eyes after we completed our chart so I could read their words to them. As I read the words to them the neatest thing was watching their faces picture Bevo in their mind. Their faces were so surprised that their words described him so well. Too precious! Most of them said they could picture him perfectly in their minds. I then set them lose to describe something to a reader.

I hope y’all have a HAPPY Friday! I know I will! We’re making apple frogs, applesauce, bobbing for apples, and finishing any last minute apple stuff! Gotta get some grades in there too and computer lab! Should be a packed day!

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