Science Vocab

I'm always looking for interesting and different ways to help my students remember the vocabulary in our science units. I'm pretty sure I do something different for each unit. That can be good and bad. On one hand  it is good for them to learn different strategies. But on the other hand, consistency is helpful. 

For this unit I broke them up into pairs and had them define and draw a picture of each vocabulary word. I definitely saw some good group work and some not so good group work. But that is part of life and they really do need to learn how to work through that. 

I love some of the pictures that showed up on these posters!

Electricity

We had fun learning about electricity a couple of months back. (Ha! Now that I look at this picture I see that he spelled "electric" wrong! Oops!) The students had to color and label the open and closed circuits. Then they had to explain them on the inside of the paper. We even labeled the light switch in the classroom with "open circuit" and "closed circuit." My students loved it when I asked one of them to open the circuit.

Mad Libs

I love love love using Mad Libs in my classroom. They are such a great way to practice grammar. 

And the students think they are hilarious! 

Often I'll have a list of types of words on the board in the morning. As the students wait for class to start they write a list of those words and we put together the silly paragraph as a group. You never know what is going to happen. That is the fun of it. 

Here is the Mad Lib we did this morning:  

Bagel (noun): a glazed kid-shaped roll with a fuzzy texture, made from ducks that are dropped into happily boiling me and then baked.

Balloon (noun):  a wonderful bag that rises in the bacon when it is filled with hot chicken.

Baseball (noun): a game ran with a bat and a rainbow loom by two teams of nine birds each. These two teams play  under in the trees and at bat.

Winter Olympics

I dedicated the month of February to the Olympics on my classroom. 

We had a blast. I found some great activities on Pinterest and TPT. 

Here are a few of the things we did. 

Poetry Unit Coming Soon!

My poetry unit is coming up soon! I'm excited!
This year I'm teaching a combo class of 2nd and 3rd grade. When I previously co-taught a combo class we did the poetry unit all together, but because of scheduling I've decided to keep in a 3rd grade thing this year. I have a gut feeling that next year it won't be a combined class so I figure the 2nd grade will get to do it next year when I have them all on their own.

I can't wait to share some of the poems my students write this year!

Columbus Unit

We made these back in the fall. Not sure where I found the ship to cut out, but they turned out really cute. Under the water they students wrote 4 facts of what they learned about Columbus. 

Snowflake Angles

Another great Pinterest idea for my Geometry Unit! 

After learning about right, acute, and obtuse angles they students used popsicle sticks to create snowflakes. Each snowflake had to have each kind of angle. 

They were SO excited to take them home. 

Also fun decorations for Christmas/Winter! 

Lines of Symmetry

I had so much fun teaching my 3rd grade Geometry unit this year! I was able to find so many great ideas off of pinterest. 

My students had fun creating symmetrical objects with a definite line of symmetry. They were sad when I said they had to stop for recess. :) 

Paper Dolls

I have a new obsession in my classroom. I've begun making paper dolls to go with the Bible stories I tell. My students love them! I love teaching my students Bible stories and it is fun to have these little paper dolls as a visual. All I take is coloring pages, color them, cut them out, and laminate them. Fun fun!

Personality Poems

Here are some examples of my students' personality poems.  They really loved writing this one. Each student had to choose a person to write about. It could be someone they know or a fictional character they liked. 

This is the format we used:

L1 - name

L2 - 4 adjectives describing the person

L3 - loves ____

L4 - fears ____

L5 - needs ____

L6 - gives ____

L7 - believes ____

L8 - name

Once again I loved seeing the different people/characters my students chose. No two poems were alike. This class loves that opportunity to be creative! I really should give them more opportunities.

 

Couplets are next! Those are a little more tricky. Can't wait to share them!

Count-A-Word Poem

My poetry unit is going full swing! I love doing a poetry unit. But I especially can't wait until we have our poetry night. I love seeing my students share their poetry with the rest of their peers and their parents. They always do such a great job...always, I've only done this one other time. Ha!
Anyway, I wanted to share a few of my students' Count-A-Word poems. Sorry that the pictures are a little fuzzy. It is on the dark side in Starbucks.





A Count-A-Word poems is not a rhyming poem. It has a specific amount of words on each line.
L1 - 1 word
L2 - 2 words
L3 - 3 words
L4 - 4 words
L5 - 3 words
L6 - 2 words
L7 - 1 word (same as the first)

I let my students choose anything they wanted it to be about. I just said they could not write about a person (because we were going to write personality poems next). We read a few examples, wrote a few as a whole group and then brainstormed some topic ideas. I love the range of poems the students wrote. They were very creative! There were only a few poems that had similar topics. This has to be my favorite unit to teach.

Stay tuned for our Personality Poems! 

Gotta Love the Impromptu Projects!

Our current science unit is on Stars and Constellations. I love studying the stars! After we finished reading a lesson today I decided that it would be fun for my students to create posters about what we have learned so far. It was random, but I love what I see coming from these students. They are following a check list and working well as groups. It is interesting to see the leaders come out, leaders clashing with each other, compromising, creativity, silliness, and art. All of these things are important in the learning process! I can't to share pictures of this project!

Here is the checklist I gave to them. 

• Title
• Information
• Correct Spelling
• Cursive
• Easy to read/Neat
• Names of people in the group
• Pictures
• Color
• Creative
• Everyone participates
• Work well as a group

Cursive

I always forget how stressful cursive is in January.
I teach cursive in the first half of the year and in the second half we use cursive in every subject.
It never fails that first time I ask them to do an entire assignment in cursive there are several students who panic. I try to remind them that it will take us longer, but there are some that I just can't convince. A handful of them are whining about it, one is crying, and the rest are frustrated over it taking a longer time. Good grief! I guess I'm just torturing them.
Muah ha ha ha! (yes, that is my sinister laugh)

Phases of the Moon

I found this great idea on Pinterest! (I love finding things on there!)

The students used Oreo Cookies to model the phases of the moon. 

They had a blast and were excited to munch on a few when they were done! 

I had them working in pairs because I wasn't sure if I would have enough cookies. I find that when I randomly pair students together it works the best. They all got right to work. It was a huge success!

Keep Those Lesson Plans!

I'm only a beginning teacher, but I've gotten some great advice from my peers this year. They all tell me to keep my lesson plans. This may seem logical to you, but I'm not just saying to keep your lesson plan book. It is helpful to be able to look back at your lesson plan book for sure. But I'm thinking about it in a more electronic form.
At my school we have to post our lesson plans, including the objectives, onto the program RenWeb. This how parents and administration can see what we are doing in our classrooms (other than coming into the classroom of course). Before I post them on this program I type them all on a Word document. That way I have them all in one place to look at next year when I'm planning out my lessons. Some of them will change slightly since I am learning what works and what doesn't, but at least I won't have to rethink every single lesson.

So...
KEEP YOUR LESSON PLANS!!

New Obsession

Sometimes kids are so funny. It cracks me up what I find in their desks. I don't look through their desks very often, if at all, but I asked them to clean them out on Friday due to a school preview day coming up. A few of my students didn't really understand the task apparently. What makes me laugh is the amount of children who have accumulated a lovely rock collection in their desks. No wonder they can't fit anything else in them (!) they are full of rocks! 

A handful of my students have decided to spend their recess time crushing rocks out on the playground in order to find crystals. This wouldn't be a problem except that the school secretary has asked that they stop due to the amount of students coming in bleeding from cutting themselves while breaking the rocks apart. Well I guess they are back at it again. So funny.

 

Do you remember playing with random things in your desk growing up?

Cereal Box Book Report

This is my first year teaching 3rd grade. And I completely love it. One of the online resources I've used is Beth Newingham's website. She is a very talented teacher. One thing I found on her site was the Cereal Box Book Report. Her site gives all the information you need to put it together.
This is such a fun book report. My students were really excited to do it when I explained what they would be doing. I asked each student to choose a realistic fiction book that was at least 100 pages long. This proved to be a little tricky for some of them. I might rethink that for next year. They had about 3 weeks to finish the project.
I was so pleased to see how creative my students were in doing this project. They named their own cereal, decorated the front of the box, created fun puzzles on the back of the box, wrote a summary of the book, and put a prize in the box. It was so fun to go through them.

Can you figure out what books these cereals are based on?

Leap Day!

I showed this to my class this morning 

(I know...I'm a day late, but I just discovered it last night!)

It is a great explanation about why we have an extra day every 4 years.

Flowers

I found this idea on Pinterest and it led me to The Inspired Classroom blog. There are great ideas on this blog.
My class just finished up a unit on Plant Life. Before the test my students did these flip books. On the front they colored in a flower (which I drew and photo copied), labeled the parts, and cut them into sections. When they finished this they defined what each part does for the plant behind the flaps.

Bird Paintings

When I first started teaching I was hired to teach elementary art. This wasn't my strongest area, but I could do it. A friend of mine gave me the best book when she found out what I was teaching: "Drawing With Children" by Mona Brooks. I had heard of Mona Brooks in an art class I took at TMC, but it was a brief conversation. I didn't realize that she had so many plans for teaching children how to draw. This book is wonderful!
Mona Brooks uses basic shapes and lines to get students started in drawing. Then she gives great step by step instructions on how to draw different things: parrots, lions, still life, etc.
My 3rd grade students loved drawing their parrots. And I love that all of them are different! Once we finished drawing them we painted them with watercolors. This proved to be a little harder than planned and one of my students did have a meltdown, but all of the results were beautiful.