STAAR WARS!

Reviewing for STAAR!

Earth Day Globes

Earth Day! We are learning about Earth Day this entire week. :) We watched Wall-E after the grueling STAAR test, then talked about what Earth Day meant and the reasons behind it. The COOLEST thing is making our paper mache globes! I got this idea off Pinterest here. We are going to light up our room with them. The students will paint them like the Earth and then we will poke small holes on the land portion when they're dry. Then we will put a battery operated tea light under at the bottom to make them light up so it looks like lights from cities on the globe. Super fun! I can't wait to see the finished products. :)

Idioms!

We have been studying the different elements of poetry these past few weeks. One element that the kids just LOVE is idioms! The students made their own idiom poem and then put it on a cat or dog template. Then we hung them from the ceiling so it was "raining cats and dogs" for our April theme. :)

Here are some of the book we read that had idioms in them. Great books!

March Madness Giveaway!

I am giving away my Easter Math and Literacy Stations! Follow me and comment below for a chance to win this entire Easter Workstation Unit!

 

I'll announce the winner March 23rd. Good Luck! :)

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Geometry!

We are moving forward with our Geometry Unit. We talked about symmetry today and discussed how it's like a mirror image. We played a SmartBoard lesson as a class where the students had to determine lines of symmetry in letters. Then we went outside and explored symmetry in nature. We talked about how many things in nature are naturally symmetrical. The students gathered 4 or more things from nature that were symmetrical and glued them on a piece of paper. Later this week they will make their own "Bill Nye The Science Guy" video with their group, teaching about symmetry and congruency. Very exciting! I'll try and upload those if I can. :)

Using a mirror to make sure her leaf is symmetrical.

This wasn't a part of nature but the straw was symmetrical!

This was a very engaging activity!

Writing Persuasive Essays

The students have been working on persuasive essays these past couple of weeks. We have been studying the planets and author's purpose so they are writing pieces trying to persuade an alien to come move to their imaginary planet!

This is the flow map I introduced them to, to help guide them through their writing.

Here is an example of a student's introduction.

They brainstormed things their planet had using a circle map.

Then they organized their writing and wrote out the sequence using a flow map.

After they planned out their writing with thinking maps, they began writing their rough draft. They wrote in a different color for each section. This way, they could see if one paragraph was a lot longer than the others and see how the different parts created one entire piece.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

It's very important that kids learn how to problem solve. It's difficult as a teacher to "teach" how to be a problem solver. I've learned that the best way is to give the students fun mystery situations and have them figure out things on their own. We do a lot of logic activities that require the students to synergize to figure out the answers to their mysteries based on the clues they are given.

Synergizing! The students each had clues after a mystery was read to them. They had to figure out where items were hidden based on clues.

They learned how if one things is true, then they needed to cross out the other items or locations. Great problem solving!

Here is what the matrix looked like!