Mother's Day Projects

My Tried It Tuesday this week are the word clouds we made for Mother's Day at wordle.net These were super easy and even made for a good review on adjectives! Here are some pictures of the Mother's Day "wordles" that we created!

 

 

What new things have you tried lately in your classroom? Link up with Fourth Grade Flipper's Tried it Tuesday linky party!

 

 

P.S. I plan on putting up my 100 follower giveaway on either Friday or Saturday. There is still time to be a part of it if you are interested! Fill out the form in yesterday's post :)

Giveaway Help and Mother's Day Project!

I posted yesterday about wanting to have a giveaway for reaching 100 followers and many blogger friends offered to help. I appreciate it soooo much! I have noticed that lots of other, more experienced bloggers have set up a form to fill out to help with giveaways, and I think I finally figured it out! So if you would like to donate to my giveaway, please fill out the form below. I am hoping it will make it easier with the setup of the giveaway! Thank you!!

What do you have your students do for Mother's Day? A couple years ago my assistant principal went around at recess and asked students for adjectives describing their teachers and he made a wordle out of it. I absolutely love it and have it framed and hanging in my classroom! This year I decided to do the same project for Mother's Day. The students had to come up with a list of 15 adjectives describing their moms. We used http://www.wordle.net/ to create our word clouds. It is a free site and very easy to use. We found that typing mom three times seemed to work the best to make MOM really stand out in the word cloud. We also messed around with it a bit and figured out how to use the custom colors section. The projects turned out great! The students glued them onto scrapbook paper and I laminated them. Nothing like a cute, free project! I will try to take some pictures tomorrow and post them!

Flash Freebie/100 Followers/Mentor Text Linky!

I blogged a few weeks back about having a project funded through Donorschoose.org and I have already received my class set of Out of My Mind books! We started reading the book this week and the students love it! The book has really given my students a better understanding and appreciation for students with disabilities. Here is a summary of the book from the author, Sharon Draper's, website:



"Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there’s no delete button. She’s the smartest kid in her whole school—but NO ONE knows it.

Most people—her teachers and doctors included—don’t think she’s capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows. But she can’t. She can’t talk. She can’t walk. She can’t write.

Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind—that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice . . . but not everyone around her is ready to hear it."

 

 

I finally finished my novel unit for this book and it is now up in my TPT, which means I will give a free copy to the first two bloggers to comment and leave their email! Or you can check it out by clicking on the picture below.

 

 

 I have reached 100 followers! I am working on setting up a giveaway and would love it if any of my blogging friends would like to participate! Please leave a comment if you would like to be a part of my giveaway! Thanks!!

 

Sorry for such a long post, but I also wanted to link up my must read social studies mentor text. In social studies we spend most of the year learning the states and capitals. I found a great game to practice the states and capitals and later learned the game was inspired from the book The Scrambled States of America by: Laurie Keller. If you are teaching the states and capitals, I highly recommend the book and game!

 

 



 

 

 

What books do you use with social studies? Go link up with Collaboration Cuties Mentor Text Linky and share!

 

 

Science Day and Where the Wild Things Learn/ Hunter's Tales from Teaching Giveaways!

Amelia at Where the Wild Things Learn has a great 200 follower giveaway going on now! She has a K-2 and a 3-6 giveaway, and I am a part of it! Make sure you enter it!

 

Bethany at Hunter's Tales from Teaching also has a great giveaway going on that I am participating in. Click the picture below to enter!

I had one of the best Fridays in a long time! I had this idea for a science day and luckily I work with some great teachers whom agreed to participate with me! We had six teachers be a part of the science afternoon, and we each picked a different science experiment to do with the kids. We mixed up all of the fourth graders into six groups and they rotated throughout the six different science experiments. Some of the experiments they did were chemical reactions, tree rings, magic milk, surface tension with pennies, blubber hand, and nothing to sneeze at. The students looooved it, so I would say it was a successful event, and hopefully one that can be continued each year!

Interjections! Show excitement! Or Emotion!

Fiiiiinally , we got to the topic of interjections in grammar! My favorite Schoolhouse Rock song is definitely the Interjection song, it just never gets old! So I started this lesson out by showing the song once, twice, ok we watched it three times....but each time they had to write down the interjections they heard. By the third time we had just about all of them! Then I put the students into groups of three, and they had to write out a conversation between the three of them using an interjection to start each sentence. The students then shared with each other, and let me tell you their conversations were hilarious! We ended up talking with interejections at the beginning of each sentence the rest of the day...it made for an entertaining day!

 

 

Let's Get Acquainted: My Classroom

I finally remembered to bring my camera to school so I could take pictures of my three favorite parts of my classroom! I'm a little late linking up but better late than never! So for this week's Let's Get Acquainted Linky the topic is My Classroom.

 

 

My favorite part of my classroom is defnitely my reading corner. This year I added a chair, pillows, and a rug. It is now the perfect place for the students to relax and read!

 

Next up is my United States map bulletin board. This has been very useful while learning the states and capitals this year and it's bright and colorful, which I love!

 

 

Finally, I LOVE my windows! My first year of teaching I had a classroom with no windows, so having a whole wall of windows now is absolutely wonderful!!

 

 

What are your favorite parts of your classroom?

 

 

 



Science Mentor Text: Bartholomew and the Oobleck

I am linking up again with Collaboration Cutie's Mentor Text linky. This week's Mentor Text topic is SCIENCE!

 

 

One of my favorite science units to teach is matter. There are so many fun experiments you can do with solids, liquids, gases, and chemical and physical changes. I always start this unit by reading Dr. Seuss' Bartholomew and the Oobleck

 

 

After reading the book, we discuss the characteristics of the Oobleck. Then we make our own! Making the Oobleck really allows students to observe both the solid and liquid characteristics. Click the picture below for a freebie recipe on how to make Oobleck and an observation worksheet.

 

 

What are your favorite pictures books to use with science?