Week 17- School Play & Factors

This week on the reading test my students had to write about someone who inspires them. Riley made my day when she wrote about me.



We have been learning about factors in math so here are a few of the pages we made in our interactive notebooks for math. On this page we listed our vocabulary on different colored sticky notes. You can see the way we do factors. We call them factor rainbows. It helps the kids know when to stop listing factors. When you get to the other side of the rainbow you're finished.



Mrs. James, our math coach, came in Thursday and made a flipbook with the kids too. They also solved some fun math puzzles. She left me a 10,000 chart. I've never seen a chart so big! I plan to put it up next week and start using it when we return from Christmas break.



Today the drama club performed their play, Hansel and Gretal. Ryan and Colette were the lead actors.







I had several students in the school drama club and I'm so proud of each and every one of them. Their performance was amazing!



STUDENTS: It is almost time for Christmas break. Tell us about a Christmas tradition your family has.

Week 16- Unfair Taxes & Handwashing

Since this week was Hand Washing Week we did a little experiment. I gave each kid some germs (special powder) to rub into their hands. Then we looked at our hands under a black light. Then I had different kids "wash" their hands different ways: water only, soap and water, and hand sanitizer. Here are the results.

Washed with soap and water


Washed with hand sanitizer

Washed with water only


The kids were a bit grossed out when we talked about how hand sanitizer kills the germs but leaves them on your hands. Maybe we'll have some good hand washing taking place now.

We are also learning about events leading up to the Revolutionary War. I randomly picked a king (in this case we used a queen) and members of Parliament. We also had a tax collector (pictured in the back).


Each of the colonists earned skittles. Then the king and Parliament declared taxes on certain items to help pay for the French and Indian War.



After this the kids could understand why the colonists felt like this was so unfair. Here you can see a student trying to figure out how he can pay the tax on pencils when he has more pencils than skittles.



Our class has also been learning about the digestive system. I grossed a lot of them out this week with the video below. It shows the steps in the digestive system. Their reaction was priceless!



STUDENTS: This week we helped our nurse start an experiment at school. Tell our readers about the experiment and what you did. I would also like you to make a prediction about what you think will happen with our experiment and why you think that. Don't forget to "kill" because!

Week 15- Measurement & Artists

This week we started learning about idioms. We have a list we are learning the meaning of. So this week I had two students wear shirts to go along with our idioms. Ananda wore her "Let's Go Bananas" shirt because we are learning that go bananas means to go crazy.



Brooks pointed out that his shirt shows how the Angry Birds get hot under the collar.



We learned how to convert customary measurement this week too. Check out our brain dumps. What is a brain dump? It is a visual representation of the concept we are learning. The kids learn these and write them down from memory to be able to convert measurement.

Inches to Miles


Ounces to Tons


Fluid Ounces to Gallons- Way to go Ryan L. for coming up with this one! I have always used the big G brain dump and it was a different format to convert measurement. Ryan came up with this brain dump so it is the same as the others we were learning. It really helped the students to see how to convert capacity.



Want to see how we used our brain dumps to convert measurement? Check out my ShowMe video!



Of course we had our silly moments! This week we had an assembly and the students who sold tumblers were able to pick our prizes. I sold some tumblers too so I was able to pick a few prizes myself. Check out our mustaches!



Then when playing idioms charades, Brady hid under the desk to act out "in the doghouse".



Our reading story this week was about Leonardo da Vinci so we studied several different artists. Today the kids used the style of their favorite artist to create their own self portraits! Check out a few of them. They really did a great job!







STUDENTS: Tell us what you learned about your favorite artist this week.

Week 14- Cell Cakes

This was a short week but we had a lot of fun! Today we made cell cakes. Parent volunteers sent in cakes for the students to use to create a cell. Each group had time to meet and decide what type of candy to bring to represent each organelle we learned about.



As you can see, they had a lot of fun making their cells!





Check out our completed cell cakes!

Cake 1



Cake 2



Cake 3


Cake 4



Cake 5




We also drew a turkey using Activity TV's T is for Turkey.



After they drew the picture I had the students write about their favorite Thanksgiving food. Mine was my mother in law's dressing!



We also did a little something different with writing today. Normally teachers have students write what they are thankful for. I gave the students a topic and they had to tell me why they are thankful for that item.



Some of the topics included shoes, band-aids, clocks, chairs, and fire drills.



Thanks to Mrs. Reasner for sharing this activity! It was a different way to write about things we are thankful for.



STUDENTS: Look at the pictures above and see what number your cake is. Tell us what number your cake is. Write about one of the organelles and the candy you used to represent it. What does that organelle do in a real cell?

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Week 13- My Teacher is Missing & Math Apps

This week I went to a math workshop and got some great things to share. Our math coach shared some iPad task cards she made so I thought I'd feature them on my blog this week. You can purchase her task cards on teacherspayteachers.com. Click this link! iPad and Math by Haley James

I want to show you a screen shot of each app that goes along with the task cards.

Population Matters


MLB at Bat



National Geographic Park Guides



Measure Map



While I was learning today my kids wrote about me. I left a "My Teacher is Missing" writing assignment. I'm going to share a couple here.

Missing Teacher by Raina

When I came to school I noticed my teacher was missing. I looked everywhere for her. I went to the other classes and looked for her. Then the principal came and asked why I was out of class. And I told her that my teacher was missing. The principal said what! And so we looked outside. But there was something strange, we saw her car. So she had to be in the school somewhere inside the school. Then we called the police. They were coming over to the school. So they came and helped us look. We still couldn't find her. Then all of the sudden my friend said she found blood. But it was just cranberry juice. So we followed the tracks. It went into the teacher's work room. It was my teacher. She was getting all the Dr. Peppers.

Missing Teacher by Ryan L

It was just another typical day: getting ready for school, ride the bus there, and go to class. When I got there, though, we had a substitute. Most people thought she was sick so I did to. Then, a week passed and we realized she had to have been kidnapped. That afternoon I put up "MISSING" signs all over the city. Later, I put together a group of kids called the SSK, that stands for Secret School Kids. One of the kids found something that looked like an alien space ship. He called me and told me to come imidiatly. When I saw the ship I thought our teacher must be inside. Some kids didn't want to come in because they were scared but that was ok. When we got there we split up. The place was kind of high tec and greenish. Then I came to a door that said "teacher chamber." I thought that must be where she was. It was locked though. So I stole the key and unlocked the door. There was my teacher! She was tied up and so I untied her. I told the others and we all came out of the ship. We went to school and celebrated! Then everything was back to normal.

STUDENTS: We have been using the iPads in class every week. What is your favorite app to use at school? Why is it your favorite? Don't forget to use 7 up sentences to answer the questions!

Week 12- Order of Operations

This week our math coach, Mrs. James, came and the students got to play order of operations bingo. We had several winners and the kids had a great time playing!



Here are a few of our winners!



We use a lot of songs in the classroom but this is the kid's favorite order of operations song (by Ron Clark).



We have also been doing a lot of writing. Our class is reading A Writer's Notebook by Ralph Fletcher.

This book has been taking us step by step through creating our own writer's notebook. This week we chose an item from one of our lists and wrote a paragraph about it. No one said they didn't know what to write about!



As you can see, everyone worked hard and wrote about paragraph. Next week we will begin sharing what we wrote.



STUDENTS: We have been making a lot of lists in our writer's notebook. Tell me what you wrote your paragraph about this week. Then explain why you picked that topic. If you write a 7 up sentence you'll get a bonus ticket!