Week 16- Cell Projects & Colonial Day

This week we only went to school for 2 days. We'll have the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving break. Even though we were only there a couple of days, we had a lot of fun.

Last week I shared #projectrippleeffect with you. We started making happy posters for all the adults in our school building. We finished making them this week. Since I was guiding this I didn't include my name in the list for a poster. So while we were making the other posters my class snuck and made one for me. It made my day and also made me happy.

Today we had colonial day at school. This was a traditional colonial lunch. We made butter and had biscuits and stir about (colonial stew). It was delicious!

The kids had a great time making butter. They kept asking if it was ready yet. We shook jars for a while before the butter was finally finished.

After lunch we played marbles and jacks. I told the kids we were going to play colonial games with a twist. I had each group choose what they wanted to play and then use the iPad minis to find out how to play the game. Most of them had never played these games before and we are keeping them in the room to play when we have indoor recess.

We are almost finished with our completely digital cell projects. Some of the finished videos are coming in now so I wanted to share a couple of them. They were a little stressed about getting their assigned cell correct. My students have not had any experience identifying cells when looking at real pictures. So I told them not to worry about it. I'm looking for a completed project and evidence to show why they think it is a plant or animal cell.





STUDENTS: What was your favorite part of our colonial lunch? We had a lot of yummy food and fun games. I'm curious to find out your favorite. I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!

Week 21- Taxing the Colonists, Bucket List, & 100th Day

I've had a few emails about my photos not loading correctly on my blog so I'm trying something a little different this week. Thanks to those of you who let me know. I'll also be working on getting a new design to help solve the problem. If you have suggestions of where I can find some cute blog designs I'd love to hear from you. I really want red, black, and white with polka dots to match my classroom. I truly appreciate the fact that I have followers and I'm excited that I can share things that other teachers want to use in their classrooms.

This week we started Pasta for Pennies. We are raising money for leukemia and cancer research. We had a visitor come to the school and talk to everyone about cancer. He had volunteers wearing red caps (red blood cells), white caps (white blood cells), and purple caps (cancer cells) to demonstrate cancer and chemo.The students who represented chemotherapy were dressed similar to Power Rangers.

The white and red blood cells were just hanging out until the cancer cells came in and pushed them all together. Once the chemo was injected they came in and "killed" the cancer cells. It was a really neat demonstration and presented in a way that all the students could understand.

We also learned how the colonists felt when they were taxed after the French and Indian War.

We used Skittles for money and each student had 18 of them. King (or Queen in our case) George and Parliament decided what to tax. Then the tax collector went around the room collecting taxes. Our tax collector was not a very popular person after she had to collect taxes on jewelry, glasses, pants, and other items. This helped the students understand how the colonists felt about being taxed. 

Friday was the 100th day of school so we had a little fun! Some of the students dressed like they were 100 years old.

   

We wrote a Bucket List of things to do before turning 100.

  

 

I displayed these in the hallway along with pictures we made. I found an app called Aging Booth. I took pictures of the kids and it ages them! Needless to say, this was a huge hit. No one liked their picture but we all looked old. Check out a few of them.

  

 

I even had them do one for me (I didn't like mine either). 

As you probably know, we had been doing random acts of kindness for a few months. My students have really embraced this and done nice things for people. Several left thank you notes for their mailman and others have been leaving notes for each other. I even had several special notes left for me this week. They really made my day!

STUDENTS: Did you show a random act of kindness this week? Share what you did and why. Why is it important to do good things for others?