Week 37- Final Week of 2013-2014

This was our final week of school, but we didn't slow down all week. We started off reading to Kindergarten students. 

All the students loved this! One of the Kindergarten student said he wanted to read all day with his partner. 

This week we also did another engineering challenge: Cup Pyramid. I loved seeing the creative ways my students came up with to solve this problem.

Wednesday we dissected cow eyeballs! This was a hit with almost everyone. We had a few students who had to leave because they were a little grossed out. When you made a slit in the front of the eyeball to get the lens out liquid squirted out. 

Check out the faces! They were really grossed out but had a lot of fun. 

Thursday was 5th Grade Graduation! We were all dressed up for the program.

Brandon and Dyani won the Principal's Cup this year for outstanding leadership, character, and positive attitude. Congratulations!

After Graduation we had our final walk. The 5th grade students walk the entire school while all the other students and teachers cheer them on. It is great because our 5th grade students get to see all their former teachers. There are normally lots of tears shed. 

 Here is a picture of Mrs. Reasner, Mrs. Smith, and myself (left to right). We were all dressed up for the occasion too.

That night we had the 4th grade and 5th grade dance. So needless to say, it was a full day!

The last day of school was field day and class party. The fire truck also came and hosed us off for a little while. 

 It was a hot day but we all survived!

 We came in for lunch and to cool off for a while.

I loved it today because so many of my former students came by to see me!

It has been a wonderful school year! We had so much fun and learned a lot along the way. It was great to get special notes from my students thanking me for being their teacher this year. I will miss all my students! I hope you all have a great summer!

Week 36- Refraction, Engineering Challenges, & Pentominoes

This week we did a little experiment to see how refraction works. My students put a penny under a cup and then filled the cup with water. 

Refraction makes the penny disappear! 

I divided my students into groups for the House of Cards Engineering Challenge. Smart-Chick on TeachersPayTeachers has several great engineering challenges.

Each group got a deck of cards and a pair of scissors. Their goal was to build the tallest free standing structure. I loved seeing them work to find a solution to make their structure the tallest.

I also think my students really loved doing this! 

The tallest structure of the day was from Skyler, Jared, and Evan. Their tower was 31 inches tall.

Then I had them stretch their brain in math. We pulled out the Pentominoes and had them work to create as many different 3x5 arrays using different combinations of 3 of the pieces. 

We only have one more week of school left before summer break. I can't believe it is coming to an end. I have some more fun activities planned for the last week of school, along with awards day and field day.

Week 35- Finished Testing & George Washington QR Codes w/7 Habits

This week we finally finished taking the ASPIRE tests! We were all happy to have that behind us.

In social studies this week our focus was on George Washington. My students used a QR code to access a website about Washington. They used the information from that site to fill in their flip book in the SS interactive notebook.

Each group worked together to find important facts to add to their flip books.

Then every group made post it notes for our poster about how Washington used the 7 Habits. 

The next day we completed a Venn diagram about George Washington and King George III and how they each used the habits. 

On Wednesday, they used another QR code to access the Rules of Civility that Washington had to copy as a student. My students picked 3 rules and wrote them in words so other students could understand what they mean. They also had to explain how each fit into a habit. 

Check out our final display for Synergize.

This is the project I shared last week! In case you missed it I'll give a quick overview. I printed pictures of my students working together in our classroom. Each group worked together to write a paragraph and one student typed it. Then another student used the iPad to record the paragraph and create a QR code that visitors can scan and hear them read the paragraph. 

Week 34- Weather Days, Testing, & QR Codes

This week we dismissed early two days in a row for the thread of severe weather (tornado watch/warnings). Thankfully we were spared but a community in a neighboring county was hit.

We took the ACT ASPIRE test Wednesday and Thursday so I don't have a lot of fun things to tell you about. However, Friday we started learning about integers. I wrote numbers on index cards and we made a human number ling. Then we "folded" the number line at zero to show how 5 and -5 are the same distance away from zero. 

We also played math games this week. Are you familiar with the book Nimble with Numbers? You should check it out if you are looking for a good resource books with a mix of games and practice. I love how they have 1/2 pages of practice problems. We learned how to play a game this week using the order of operations. Here is a quick view of the board you use. 

In each box the players take turn writing in numbers 1-20 (you can't repeat a number). Then you use the order of operations to add, subtract, multiply, and/or divide to create equations. The answers to the equations are written in the circles. The goal is to get one or more equations that equal the same number. That's how you score points. Let's say you create 2 equations that each equal 20. You score would be 40 for that round. 

The hardest part was not being able to move the numbers once they are written in the boxes. You can add parentheses but numbers cannot be put in a different order once they are written in the box. This is a 2 player game and both players use the same board to create equations. This could be played in pairs but this week while we were learning we all played it together as a class.

We were also working on a display about synergizing to go in the glass cabinet in the front hallway of our school. I went back and printed out pictures from my blog where my students had to synergize. Each group wrote a paragraph about how they synergized during the activity in the picture. Each group then typed up their paragraph and someone recorded it. I created QR codes to go along with the work. Want to hear some of my kids explaining how they synergize in class? You can scan the QR code or I also added a link if you click on them. Listen to a few and see what you think!

Jared's Group

Michelle's Group

Reed's Group

Avery's Group

Dyani's Group

Once we get the cabinet completed I'll post pictures for you to see. We have two more tests to do next week and then we'll be back to regular days. 

STUDENTS: What did you think about testing this week? Which was the hardest and which one did you rock?