Five for Friday

Hey there,

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for five for Friday! It was a fun week and we've stayed busy. Here's what we've been up to...

Talk like a Pirate Day was Monday! Arggggg!!

We learned about rounding by walking the plank and searching for treasure!

I blogged all about what we did as pirates on Monday here: http://dianarowland.blogspot.com/2016/09/talk-like-pirate-day-arggg.html

Here's some of the pirate rounding activities we did on TPT- https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pirate-Rounding-2789718#

We've started our states of matter unit this week. I love using Hope King's unit that you can check out here- https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/As-a-Matter-of-Fact-A-Matter-Study-Including-11-Lessons-Engaging-Experiments-641340

This adorable lesson shows the molecules for each of the states of matter. They love jumping around like crazy kids to show how the molecules move!

This activity is the balloon poke, where 3 balloons are set up. One has air, the other water, and the last one is ice. The kids describe what each balloon feels like and then we pop them! They're always so amazed by the ice balloon!

My LOL for the week!

Outside my classroom I have a white board that I've been using for math jokes. I'm not sure if it's more for my enjoyment or the kids haha! I'm on the lookout for more math jokes if you know any!

MY NEW FAVORITE APP OF ALL TIME!

Classkick is this great app where students can solve problems on a tablet and I can view all of their screens on my ipad! They can virtually "raise their hand" for me to check, or to ask a question. I can check their work and leave little stickers or notes. My kiddos LOVE it! They love seeing that I've checked it.

They asked me "is it rite?" and so I gave them the check, I usually leave an apple sticker too.

I could also catch any mistakes, like these kiddos rounding to the nearest 10 instead of 100.

Right now I have enough devices to let them work in pairs (I'm blessed to have 12 tablets!). This would be even better if I had 1:1

Farm update!

I want an alpaca so bad... just have to throw that out there.

Guess who's looking at alpaca.. ME!

That's all folks! Rock on,

Diana

Talk Like a Pirate Day! Arggg!

Today is "Talk like a pirate" day! When I realized the night before that this very fun day was upon us, I ditched my boring lesson plans for rounding and kicked it into high gear to give it a pirate theme!

Setting up

I had quite the shopping list, but everything was fairly cheap and easy to find at Walmart!

Pirate hooks were fashioned from solo cups and pipe cleaners. Eye patches were made from black felt and elastic string.

Students also got their very own "plank" with a number line on it to help us round to the nearest 10!

"Beware of Pirates" chalkboard pennets from Walmart! I hung these between the two third grade classrooms for students to see as they arrived at school.

Our pirate door is a plastic red tablecloth with four strips cut in it. This took less than 5 minutes to cut and hang up! 

Onto the Lesson!

We began our unit on rounding today. The mini "planks" they have are like a number line. We discussed how to find what tens a number comes between using their planks. I have copies of these in my product that can be glued to large Popsicle sticks or paint stirrers! 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pirate-Rounding-2789718#

With their hooks they pointed to the tens a number would come inbetween and then they'd draw a number line on their board. 

Our long row of desks made the perfect plank! We pretended our plank was like a number line. This brave crew member had the number 32. So we discussed how one end would be 30 and the other 40. Halfway down the plank would be 35. She walked the plank, but didn't reach halfway so we'd round down to 30. 

In the "Rounding Pirates" resource there are practice pages with planks to keep the metaphor going! (By the way, I'm so pumped to have Monica in my class!)

Time to put it into action!

I used the QR code rounding cards from Teach Create Motivate. You can check out her product here- Place Value QR Code Hunt FREEBIE by Teach Create Motivate on Teachers Pay Teachers

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Place-Value-QR-Code-Hunt-FREEBIE-2456143

 I hung them in the hallway so we could spread out and complete the recording sheet for some treasure! 

Students could scan the QR codes when they had completed their sheet to check their answers. Once they finished they got their gold! Rolos are what we got- yummy!

Checking for Understanding

I tried to monitor the best I could to catch anyone who had trouble with finding the two tens (this place value understanding seems to be the hang up when it comes to rounding). To wrap up the lesson and give me an idea of how well they understand, we ended with a treasure map. Students worked independently at their seats to do their map. These also made great hallway displays! 

If you'd like to try a little pirate rounding with your kiddos you can check out the resource here! 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pirate-Rounding-2789718#

Rock on me mateys!

Diana

Five for Friday

We just finished the second week of school! I'm so ready for this long weekend :) I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for 5 for Friday to share the highlights from our second week!

Organization and storage!

We got new (to me) desks this year and I love them! They're light, big, and the chairs stack nicely on top! However, they don't have storage underneath which posed a problem.. we do interactive notebooks and they have a few other supplies. I could always have them keep it on the floor under their chair but I could just see the tripping and sliding that would occur.

A teacher was getting rid of book boxes and I thought BINGO! Each table can store their notebooks and folder there! 

Kiddos just come up and grab their notebook when it's time for them to do their assignments. If we ever need to all get our notebooks at the same time then just one kiddo goes to grab them for the whole table. It's been working great!

I saw the desk fairy on "Learning in Wonderland"' instagram account and I HAD TO HAVE ONE! Especially since we don't have the storage, keeping desks neat has been a challenge. Kiddos loved to see our fairy move in and I can't even pretend I didn't copy it even down to the door color :) She has such neat ideas! She also makes the light box designs I bought- if you haven't checked out her blog you must!

You can get the same fairy door on amazon right here.

Our standing desk and balance boards!

Over the summer I planned out a grant proposal for balance boards. I used to have bouncy chairs at this small group table, but honestly the bouncing up and down gave me a slight headache. I still feel there is a lot of benefit to those chairs so I have them in the room for the kiddos to use during math centers. I just couldn't have six bouncy children right in front of me while I tried to teach! But besides that selfish reason, I also had seen a lot of good coming out of the standing desk and balance boards. I noticed many of my students liked to stand while they work, but would have to bend over. I bought bed risers for my table and did a Donors Choose project for the balance boards! We were so fortunate to get the Target funding for the balance boards, and they are a hit! My students actually prefer these to the bouncy chairs! They're also quiet and not so distracting (to peers or their teacher LOL!)

I got the steppie balance boards on amazon if you want to check them out here!

Did you see the dry erase tape idea get shared around on Facebook? I'm trying these as name tags and quick checks. Each desk has a foot long strip that they write their name on, answers to math questions, or write sweet messages to the other class to start their class off on a positive note!

I will say, after two weeks of using them I have already had 4 or 5 peel off. Water bottles are sworn enemies of the dry erase tape! The condensation just peels them right up! I have now taken clear packing tape to secure both ends to hopefully stop the peeling. We'll see how that holds up!

Farm update!

This here is 4 dozen quail eggs! All boiled up and ready for pickling :) 

I have to let them sit for one more day before I can give them a try!

That's all for our week! I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend. My husband's birthday is Sunday and our 1 year anniversary is Tuesday, so I have some shopping to do! Have a great Labor Day weekend and stay dry!

Rock on,

Diana