Five for Friday

Hey y'all! I'm linking up again with doodle bugs teaching!

It's been a fun week back after break and we've been super busy. Here's some of our highlights from the week.

On Monday we had new seats and new teams as well. We played some team building games and each group made a team name. This activity was an idea I saw on Pinterest that referenced Ron Clarks  "The End of Molasses Classes". The use of balloons is a fun and easy way to spice up any activity! We played it were the kiddos had 3 minutes to pass around the balloon and show a number with as many representations as they could think of. The winning team that showed the most ways got to pop the balloons!

My students also had a blast doing a measurement activity and predicting how much they'll grow this year. After doing some measuring the kids surveyed each other and graphed what they thought they would grow. We found out the average child grows 2 and a half inches a year!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/New-Years-Measurement-2271736

I promise this basketball hoop has educational value! LOL! This has been an idea for several months, that has finally come together. There's still some things I'd like to change, like make the posters larger, but for now it is what it is!  So this is our 8 mathematical practices display, and it has an interactive feature! We've been working on discussing the elite 8 and how we use them in class and at home. When they can justify how they use a practice, they can make a basket! We've only had one make it in so far, and it was a dunk so even better. I sense a fraction component coming on with percentages :)

For science we've been diving into forces and motion, and got to see it in SLOW-MO!!!!!! While learning about Newtons Laws, we tried out this demonstration and it was a hit!

I have 3 packs of pencils left in my classroom.. I'm desperate! I've done pencil wars before and it was really motivating to students to try and keep track of their things. If they can keep their pencil until January 28th I'll make a sweet treat! We'll give it a shot and every month have a new reward. With switching classes it can be difficult to keep track of all their stuff, so hopefully this will gently nudge them into holding onto their pencils :)

Hope you all had a great week back! I know I'm exhausted, time for some Zzzzz!

Diana

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Rock on,

Diana 

Five For Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! Here's my top 5 for the week.

Last week we had our elf on the shelf Bruno join our class. I'm at a new school this year so he took a little longer to find us, perhaps because someone's garage was a little unorganized.. But none the less he has been moving all over our room and cracking up kiddos like usual.

We were a little worried how Stubs would react to sharing his tank but they seemed to become great friends! :)

Despite the craziness of the last week before break, my students have still been very motivated to practice their multiplication and division facts! I love how filled up our monster is, we needed to introduce a new one! Each time a student passes a math fact they add to the monster. It's funny to see how our monster grows and even has teeth on its feet HA!

I've also dusted off my circuit machine to livin up the room a bit. I wanted to make my focus board a little more cohesive yet simple. The message should be clear and consise for my students and for visitors to see what we're learning. I think it's really coming along!

Not only is my classroom getting a makeover but so are my nails! I just got the jamberry gel enamel system as a Christmas gift and I'm in LOVE! It really stays on there, so next time I'll be a little more careful and stay in the lines :) If you haven't tried Jamberry wraps or the gel enamel it really is the lazy girl solution to great looking nails. Coming from someone who goes to school with wet hair and half my makeup on, this is something I can keep up with!

..and let's not forget, IT'S OFFICIALLY CHRISTMAS BREAK!!!!!! Looking forward to the next 17 days of no alarms!

Link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 exciting thoughts from your week! 

Rock on,

Diana

Reindeer Race! A forces and motion experiment!

When faced with the impossible feat of teaching an actual science lesson days before break, just bring in the reindeer! "Real reindeer?!?!" a student asked... no.. I'm not that good ha! We had a lot of fun with this experiment today though and explored how force affects distance and how gravity can affect motion.

Our first experiment was to race three reindeer going at different inclines. One reindeer was going up, another was going straight or level, and the final reindeer was going downwards. Before the buzzer sounded, we discussed which one we think might win and go the farthest. Most students felt it would be the reindeer going down, because it's easier going downhill. We just couldn't explain why, not yet anyway.

The race began and guess what?! That reindeer going down hill went about 5 inches.. WHAT?! I'm frantically thinking "oh great, a dud". We tried it again.. same result!! This just can't be right though, we really thought he would win! But wait, I notice the straw we used had the ridges on it from where it can bend. I bring this to my students attention and something amazing happened. One kiddo piped in, "Those ridges probably made more friction because it's not as smooth and slowed it down!" Oh friends, I could have cried. YES! I THINK YOU'RE RIGHT!! So we switched out the straw and it worked like a charm. We had a good talk about how scientists and even teachers (whahhhht?) can make mistakes. The beautiful thing is we learned something neat from our mistake.

The next experiment was to blow up balloons at three different sizes- small, medium, and large. The string this time all stayed level. We let the reindeer race again and measured the distance each one traveled. Students then paired up with a partner to discuss how the bigger balloon had more force to push the reindeer down the string.

To reflect on what we learned from the experiments students answered a writing prompt using their conclusions from their experiment recording sheets. These kiddos were so engaged and curious, they wanted to know what would happen if we made some of the balloons heavier than the others or filled some with water. I love to see their little gears turning!

If you'd like to try out these experiments with your class you can check out my product here. It also includes interactive notebook flaps and graphs the students can complete with their observations. I wish we had the time to graph our results! Time just flew by as we did our reindeer races :)

Click HERE for the link!

Merry Christmas! & rock on,

Diana

Five for Friday

It's been a fun and hectic week! We're getting into the Christmas spirit at home and in the classroom so it's just been a lot of fun and excitement all week long :)

Like I said, I've been getting into the Christmas spirit and nothing does that like cookies!

The tree is also up with a special ornament!

When I was in 8th grade I gave one of my favorite teachers a pickle ornament and shared the tradition of hiding it in the tree. I now teach her daughter and when she gave me this gift of my very own pickle she was smiling ear to ear! And so was I!! 

We also welcomed back Bruno!

As you can see, he got a little lost (like where was he hiding! I'd like to know too because I spent a lot of time looking -_-) but luckily he found his way to my new school and the children have been over the moon about his adventures around our classroom this week. He even scribbled al over my science board.. Oh Bruno.

Our school was chosen to be a part of the teacher rewards program that Walmart does. Each teacher received a $50 gift card to use for their classroom!! I knew exactly what we needed.

We have a cube organizer holding up our fish tank, and it works beautifully. It's sturdy but compact, because space is an issue. Storage is an issue too, so it was a no brain-er that we could use another one for all of our books!

They look so snazzy together 😄

In personal news, I've become an old lady... But a fashionable one I'd like to think.

I learned to knit over thanksgiving and made this beauty! It's very warm and I love how chunky it is! I even had a kiddo ask me to teach them to knit during recess yesterday. Warmed my heart!

In farm news, because I usually talk about my goats, I needed to give the chickens some credit. We have an olive egger in the bunch! One chicken just started laying these beautiful dark green eggs! 

Off to make some omlets before school. Remember, after today, 3 1/2 days left till break!!!!!!!

Rock on,

Diana

Organizing with command hooks

At any given point in time I have at least two packages of command hooks stashed away in my desk drawer. I believe there are so many great uses for these nifty hooks and I keep finding new uses! Here's just a few of the ways I organize my classroom with command hooks.

We use timers to practice our math facts but when they were placed in a basket the cords kept getting tangled. Hanging the hooks right where our centers are kept worked perfectly and no tangled cords!

During math technology students use Moby Max, so in case they forget their username or password all of the cards are on a ring and kept on the other side of the math center bookcase. We also use Seesaw, a great way for us to safely share our work and comment on other students work using our tablets. It's hanging on a hook because it can be flipped around for Block 2's QR code to scan. 

Ok, there isn't command hooks here but there was fresh paint on the walls so they wouldn't stick. Otherwise I wouldn't have made holes in the wall.. Whoops! So this is a hook and claw clip combo- AMAZING. Yes I get this excited about claw clips. This is our anchor chart so I regularly take it down to hang a new poster up. This makes it easy to move back and forth without a bulky stand. 

The clips may be a little difficult to see here but they're holding up all of these envelopes. These envelopes have coupons in them that my students can buy with their "dojo cash". We do a classroom economy where good behavior and completing quality work gets them cash to shop. However all of the things to buy are more experiences than material things. I like that it connects doing the right thing with a warm fuzzy feeling :) Anywho, my students are such sweeties and hard workers so they shop pretty frequently, making this system of envelopes on hooks pretty easy to manage and see all of their buying options. 

So that does it folks! Do you use command hooks or other nifty things to organize your classroom? Comment and share!

Rock on,

Diana