Week 5 & 6- Hiccups & Math Fun

When I got home last weekend my internet was down and I wasn't able to do my weekly post. So this week I'll share a few things that happened over the last 2 weeks. 

Have you ever had a kid with the hiccups in your classroom? My students get them all the time and I have a great way to get rid of them. It works every time. Give the student a cup and have them fill it with water all the way to the top. 

Then turn upside down and drink that way from the wrong side of the cup. So your top lip goes on the outside edge and your bottom lip goes on the inside edge. Drink some water that way and then stand back up. Easy way to cure the hiccups every time!

Have you seen this book? I gave one of the activities a try during math. 

One of the pages has dice roll prompts. So I partnered my students up and had them work in pairs to solve word problems. They rolled a dice to discuss a question before the problem solving started. 

Then they each worked separately to solve the problem. Finally they would roll the dice to choose the final discussion question for that problem and compare answers. 

There was a lot of on task discussion about math! They decided this was a lot more fun than just sitting and solving the problems alone. Plus, everyone was engaged!

We used my favorite reading strategy again this week, Keep It or Junk It. I also hung my posters on the wall under the clock so everyone could see them. 

This is another great way to have students working together in groups. They work to find words to help answer a focus question and them write an answer to that question. 

Have you used Kahoot? I created a review quiz to help prepare for the social studies test this week. We did it Monday and when the kids came back to me Tuesday they were begging to play again. They didn't care that I hadn't made a new game yet. 

I grouped my students to work as teams and submit their answers with the iPads. It is like a game show and they earn points for each correctly answered question. It also shows the leader after each question. They were cheering so loud when the correct answer showed up that I told them they would have to have a silent celebration or Mrs. Reasner and Mrs. Smith (our neighbors on either side) would ban us from playing. 

I wanted to share a picture of me and my Kindergarten buddy. I talk to him every morning in the gym and he has been trying to learn to tie his shoes. He works so hard and almost has it down!

Finally, here is a picture of my wonderful 5th grade team! We all purchased matching shirts and wore them today. I have the best team! Our shirts say, "In 5th grade we... share, love, laugh, grow, show respect, apologize, sing and dance, do our best, encourage, make mistakes, create, play, word hard, have fun, learn   We Are Family

L to R: Mrs. White, Mrs. Reasner, Mr. Schmitt, and Mrs. Smith

STUDENTS: I'd love to hear from you! What is your favorite part about 5th grade so far?

Week 3- Heart Maps, Posters, & Videos

We started the week with #geniushour. My students worked on finishing their heart maps and deciding what their passions are. I also had them begin choosing that they would like to learn more about.

We also used my favorite reading strategy, Keep It or Junk It during our social studies lesson this week. I was so impressed with one of my groups that I asked them to create a video explaining how they did it. 

This is the first time they have used this strategy and I was super impressed with their answers. Check out their video explaining the strategy.

We also took some time to share our place value math posters with each other. 

I had some really creative posters and I'll try to remember to take some more pictures next week to share. 

We finished up the week by starting our unit on energy in science. I have started having students come up with hand motions to go with what we are learning so they can remember it easier. Here are the hand motions my class (Mrs. Smith's homeroom) came up with. I told them we would have to create a video so I didn't confuse the two classes. 

I overheard one of my students saying this school year was already flying by. I love hearing things like that because time flies when you're having fun!

My kids also told me I have OHKD, obsessive Hello Kitty disorder. They are learning how much I love Hello Kitty and Jakob came up with that new disorder.

STUDENTS: Share what you know about energy. What do you want to learn about energy? Answer these questions to earn a ticket for the good job jar.

Week 12- Keep It or Junk It & Math SCOOT w/QR codes

This week I tried a new classroom activity and I think my students enjoyed it. I feel like they understood the material a little better than usual after doing Keep It or Junk It.

I divided the class into groups to read a section in the text and create a list of words that would help them answer the focus question. Our focus question for this lesson was: "What is erosion and what are the ways in which it happens?"



The students decided if they would read together and make their own personal list or if they would read alone while making the list. Once they developed their own list their group had to work to develop a group list of words that would answer the focus question. They voted by showing numbers with their fingers- 1 keep it, 2 junk it, or 3 cloud it. If they put it in the cloud they had to come back to the word when they finished and make a decision.



Then each group shared their list with the class as a whole. Then the entire class voted on words to add to the class list for keep it or junk it.



Both of the science classes developed a list. In the end they used the list of words to write a paragraph to answer the focus question for the lesson.









Here are just a few pictures of the notebook pages that each individual made. You can see on the first list the ones crossed out were the ones that group decided to junk.





We also used the iPads during this activity. I had the students add information to the wall about weathering. For this wall, They were able to share what they thought weathering was, we added the list of words, and some definitions. I thought this would be a great summary of information and a great way for students to revisit what we did when they need to study. I posted a link for this wall on our Edmodo page for the students. Both classes contributed to this wall. If you don't know about Padlet you have to check it out!

Created with Padlet

At the end of the week I asked a small group to create a Gami about keep it or junk it. I let them decide what to say and how to do the gami. Austin created this one along with the help of his group members. I love the way he took a picture of our classroom so it looks like his character is talking in our class! Great job guys!



Check out my previous post with the posters for Keep It or Junk It.

This week our math coach, Mrs. Hamlet came to do an activity with my math classes.



She had decimal math task cards and the kids played a scoot game to answer each card. Then she had a QR code sheet the students used to check their answers.





We had enough iPads so that each group was able to share to check their answers.



STUDENTS: How do you feel about keep it or junk it? I felt like you guys were able to defend your choice of words so well. Do you think you understand more about weathering and erosion because of this? Would you like to try it again?

Keep It or Junk It

Have you ever hear of Keep It or Junk It? I learned about this strategy last week when our instructional coach introduced us to this video:

Organize Your Thinking to Critically Analyze Text

She had a picture posted of  the steps for Keep It or Junk It. I can't wait to try this with my students so if you follow my blog you know I had to make some posters. I thought I'd share them in case any of my teacher followers want to give this a try too. I'll post back later and let you know how it went.