Our Giving Tree & Conduction Ice Race

I've been terrible about blogging this year! I'm so sorry to my followers. One of my goals is to get back in the habit of sharing what we're doing in the classroom.

If you've followed my blog for long you probably see that we love doing random acts of kindness in my classroom. I wanted to come up with a way for us to track the RAKs we had done so I decided to create a tree in the hallway. Each time the kids do a random act of kindness they write it on a heart. I plan to add the hearts to the tree as leaves. We are going to call it the Giving Tree.

Here's a picture of the tree before leaves & after a few leaves were added. I can't wait to see what it looks like at the end of the school year!

Our class was so excited that our Donor's Choose project was funded so we were able to get a few new Chromebooks. The kids used them for the first time this week and I can't wait to have them using them more often. 

Finally, we learned about conduction, convection, and radiation last week. 

I gave each student a piece of ice and they raced to see who could use conduction to melt it the fastest. 

Congratulations to the students shown below! They won a trip to Chick-fil-A in a limo! 

Week 31- Volume & Final Chemistry Experiment

This week we tackled volume! I found these great cubes my students cut out and folded. We taped them together and they used base 10 blocks to fill the cube. 

Want a set too? Paper Volume Cubes

Since I wanted them to understand that you can count the blocks or multiply l x w x h to calculate the volume this was a perfect activity. 

Each group worked on a set of 5 cubes and most groups asked me if they could just multiply to find out the volume. I was so happy that they came to that conclusion on their own! 

During small groups I taught the kids a new game! Each card has a topic and a list of words. The students can read the topic aloud to the group but they can't say any of the words on the card. The goal is to get your group members to guess a word on your card. They had fun playing this game!

We finished our chemistry unit this week. We have been studying physical and chemical changes so we made elephant toothpaste. 

Then they got to create a chemical change in a bag. They mixed calcium carbonate and baking soda in a large bag. 

Then each group added some phenol red in a cup and put it inside the bag. Once the bag was sealed they tipped the cup and watched what happened. 

They saw gas produced, color change, and felt heat from the bag. These are all indicators of chemical change. 

We also watched this video.

We talked about how younger students look up to them and decided to post positive notes on work displayed in the building. Each student created 2 post it notes that said things like "Great Job" or "Your work is outstanding!" 

We walked around the building and they added their positive notes on work throughout the building. 

STUDENTS: Which experiment was your favorite during our chemistry unit? Why was it your favorite?

Week 17- More RAKs & A Little Redesign

A few weeks back I was browsing Pinterest and ran across a pin where a teacher had her desks arranged the way I do mine sometime. She used drawers to help keep supplies close to the kids so I knew I wanted to do that.


The drawers came in this week and I love them! We keep paper towels, notebook paper, a stapler, tape, pencils, pens, and post it notes in the drawers. We are still figuring out what we need to add to them to have all our supplied close. I also added tissue and hand sanitizer to the top.

I'm also in the process of making the decorations to hang from the ceiling. I used wiffle balls and tissue paper to create these. I wasn't sure I loved them but the kids did so I'm keeping them. I just glued the tissue paper in the holes in the wiffle balls. They were super easy to make.



This week we continued our random acts of kindness (RAK). We selected different grade levels each day and went and posted positive notes to the teachers. We got so many comments about doing this and my kids are continuing to do nice things for each other as well.



We have several surprise RAK in the works for next week so check back to see what we've done!

One afternoon when we went to pack up we found that one of the students wrote positive notes for everyone and put them on their lockers. Great job!



I also wanted to share this game that my math coach, Mrs. Hamlet shared with me. The students play bowling with order of operations. They roll 3 numbers and write it on their paper. Then they use those numbers and try to write an equation to equal each number on the right side of the page. When they create an equation for each number they knock over the bowling pin (bottom left). I let them compete against each other.


This is the pdf file in case you'd like to use it too!



STUDENTS: What can you do to help someone else without expecting something in return? What is something that stood out to you in the RAK videos we watched this week? Can you duplicate this?

Week 16- Fractions & RAKs

I have so much to share about this week! We started learning about Holidays Around the World this week in social studies. Check out the file on TpT. It is a close read format and my students had fun learning about traditions in different countries.



We started learning about fractions this week and had several fun activities. We started with a living number line. I gave each student a fraction card and they placed themselves on the number line in the correct order.





On Thursday, during our small group rotations, I taught the kids how to play a game called From Here to There Fractions.





We used fraction cards that my former math coach, Haley James, gave me last year. The kids loved using these cards and couldn't believe I had playing cards with fractions on them.



Here is a picture of one of the game boards.



Want to know how to play? Watch this Gami that Haley and Avery made to explain the game.



I also had to do the chocolate bar activity with fractions. I love any excuse for chocolate.





We answered questions about fractions using the chocolate bar pieces.



Want to see the powerpoint I made for this? It is free on TpT: Chocolate Fractions 

And have I mentioned lately how much I love using Padlet with my students? This week we took pictures of our pages in the interactive notebook and I added them to the fractions padlet. That way students could go back and access it from home in case they forgot their notebook at school. It is also a good resource that shows the different ways I teach fractions. I like to show my students several different ways to do things and let them pick what works best for them.

Created with Padlet

My mom stopped by school this week and brought us a beautiful wreath for the classroom door. I love it!



Mrs. Reasner and I have been doing Random Acts of Kindness (RAKs) with our students during the school day. I gave my students a choice board and challenged them to do all of the items on the board this week. Find the choice board idea I found here. We also created a Motivation Wall in the teacher work room. I have seen several of these on Pinterest and knew we had to do this for the teachers. This is what we did. We also left other post it notes so that teachers can add some of their favorite motivational quotes to the wall. We didn't add a bunch because we wanted to leave room for others but I have a list of quotes I plan to add it no one else takes advantage of this.



To go along with the Random Acts of Kindness we started using the Christmas Kindness Countdown. It gives a different RAK each day for the students to do. This week we picked up trash, smiled at everyone, and made cards for our principal. I also showed them this RAK video and we talked about doing nice things for people and not expecting things in return. I think this is a great life lesson and I've seen my students doing nice things for others all week.


We also chose names for the Secret Santa RAK. Each student drew a classmate's name (I added my name too). We will do nice things for that student and reveal ourselves before the Christmas break. I also plan to have them make a picture of their RAK person and list things they have done for them. I found the idea on Pinterest (here it is). 

Mrs. Reasner shared the idea of writing positive notes for the teachers in each grade level so of course I was on board. We have been randomly selecting a grade level and writing a positive note on a post it note for the teachers. Then we go and stick them on their doors. I hope we have brightened some days this week with our little notes of love.

STUDENTS: We started doing RAKs this week. I loved seeing everyone doing nice things for each other. Has this carried over into your life at home? Have you done a RAK for someone at home or has someone done something for you? Share what was done. I'd love to hear about it.