Eggs Away!!!!

Oh how I love a good old egg drop!!!  The kids had to engineer their own crate to survive falling from a two-story window.  I saw some amazing designs- like this...

It was so cool to hear the children talking about how they tried their first design at home and then after it failed had to go back and redesign it and test again! Do I hear engineers???!!! I just get so giddy about science and how they have applied the principals we've learned all year at home in their own investigations!!

Saving the City of Ember

     Have you read that book, City of Ember?? If not, you should.  My children ate.it.up.  I love the book!! I recently went to the NSTA conference in San Antonio and attended a workshop using this book as a bridge between literacy, science, and math.  I read the book aloud to the class, although it would be fantastic as a whole class novel.  We created machines to do a simple task in the City of Ember. (simple machines, physics). We did not get to do everything that I had wanted to do with the book, more later on, but we did a few investigations. Finally we got to watch the movie was part of our countdown.  And what goes better with a movie than popcorn?

     So you may be wondering what else could you do with the book. Well thanks to NSTA I have a whole slew of ideas! They had their students actually measure out the distance of the city and walk it outside so the kids could see that the city was actually very tiny.  They had them create machines, but they suggested taking it a step further.  It was suggested that you set up a store and supply room just like in the book, around the school, you will also need a trash heap in your room.  Kids could "shop" the trash heap everyday and search for things to help them with their machine.  They each got a limited budget to spend at the store or supply depot so they had to get creative with their designs. I am super bummed I didn't get  time to do all this this year. But, I can guarantee will we be doing it next year!!

Days 10-7 Final countdown!!

     Last week we continued our countdown of school while continuing to work hard along with having fun.  With 10 days left the kids got to bring in a snack of their choice to eat. Usually I am pretty firm about what they can bring in- I believe in eating whole, clean foods and I try to teach my students about healthy eating.  With that  being said sometimes you just need to be able to also enjoy the "junk" in moderation of course.  We did go and burn off some of the junk the next day with an extra recess. We were able to challenge our kindergarten friends in a kickball tourney- girls vs boys.  I love to see my students interact with our little friends. As tough as they all act in the classroom, they are so sweet and nuturing to the little ones.
     Thursday we had a mystery guest reader!  It was Mrs. Kazmierck, the principal at our middle school. She came and shared her most favorite book- Where The Wild Things Are .  The kids were really excited to see her enthusiasm for the book.

   
We also got to support our 4th grade friends in the classroom during their recorder performance!

Day 14-12 & Some Comic Life!

I didn't snap any photos those days, bummer. But day 14 was Wacky Wednesday, we had wigs, silly socks, and a lot of backwards clothes and mismatched shoes.  Yesterday we got to relax on our beach blankets during literacy with some beachy music strumming in the background.  Today, was one of their favorites- sit by your friends. This is a BIG reward for this crew!

On an aside... Do you ever come across something at the end of the year and just smack your head and say "Gah! Why didn't I find this sooner!!!???"  Well that was me on Monday after I came across Comic Life. I had the app downloaded on our class iPad and it never dawned on me that there was an actual site! Let me tell you- it is pretty awesome.  We have been looking at graphic novels, and comics as other forms of writing in our class.  So this site fit in perfectly!  It is free for 30 days then you have to pay for a license fee, I am not sure what that is yet, but I will totally  be paying it.

For this project I gave them a list of choices for what they could share on their comic page. They could choose either the year in review, a science concept, a social studies concept, or their favorite book.  The first step is for them to sketch planning panels in their journals and write out what information they are going to share on their page.

Second, they took their ideas and added them to an actual panel template that I printed from the website and wrote out their scenes and sketched their characters.  Next week we will be taking our scenes and really drawing them and adding detail and color so I can scan to add to their page. I am super excited to share their finished projects with your!!

Had I known about this software sooner I would have been all over it.  I for see me using it as a timeline. Every week/month I, or the students will create one and post it in the hallway. Moving to an IB school I can see the kids using it as evidence of meeting the different aspects of the learner profile.  I also would like to use it in my wall displays we are required to have as a way to represent student response and profile some of the photos of them working!! Such fun things to do....!!!

Day 15--- Chalk it Up

So today we took our math outside- and I know tomorrow was supposed to be chalk day, but we popped the balloon early since it's going to rain tomorrow.  Today we began our investigation into collecting and analyzing data. We did this by calculating how long we could stand on one leg and compared that data from right to left foot. The students put their times on a line plot. We then had a great discussion about our data and how it compares to that of adults.  Some of them can stand for a looooong time!! The max they could stand was 3:00 minutes and had to have their eyes closed.

Day 16- Cinco de Mayo....belated!

Today was our fiesta for day 16!! We had some yummy homemade refried beans, and cheesy nachos.  Delish!! This morning to exercise our brains before we ate we got to do some real life work with fractions. The kids had to help us solve how much of the items we needed and what fraction of the amount would each student get.  I think these conceptual problems are great to show kids what math looks like in the real world, especially fractions which we use so much more often than we realize!!  Ole!!!

Day 17- Wacky Give Away Day

Obviously this was quite the frenzy!! I had a bunch of items to give away, random toys I'd received over the past nine years.  I had quite a few books that I got from the International Reading Convention that haven't even been published yet that I sent home as I knew they wouldn't be on reading level for my 4th graders next year.  I also had a slew of science stuff leftover from my son's 6th birthday party- mad scientist themed.  So, as you can guess they kids were scrambling for all sorts of goodies! Kids love this type of reward and teachers look around your rooms and at home, I can guarantee that you will have some item that one of your students would treasure!!
Sorry no pictures from this day...

Day 18- Gum Day

So yesterday for our countdown the children were able to chew gum in class. Who knew such a simple "reward"  would make them go crazy!!

We also continued our class work while chewing and amazingly enough they were really quiet!  We continued working on the Web 2.0 tool, Storybird. Here is a sample of a story one of my students created. 

Along with Storybird we are playing around with Animoto.  Here is a video created by a student. Our end goal is for them to create an end of year book review on Animoto to share with our 3rd grades friends for some summer reading inspiration.  

Day 19- Happy May Day!!!

Yeah it's May....and it is going to snow today!! Really? Snow?  Come on Spring get with it.  Oh well. We are still enjoying our May Baskets! Who doesn't love some popcorn and candy to start the day?

We also spent this morning working with a great Web 2.0 tool called Storybird.  In this tool I have created a class and assigned a task for them to just practice using the features.  I love this tool for it's tie in with poetry and also for those kids that struggle writing. Everyone can feel like an author with the use of this tool.  The students can choose from a variety of images and the add in their text.  They can publish and share or purchase the book in a PDF or bound book.  And the best part....it's free!!! 

Day 20- Game Day

Today the children were able to have some fun with friends playing games that they brought from home. It was so great to see them sharing and talking while working together on a variety of games! But, that was only after we actually did some hard work of course!

Currently we are learning about plants and animal interaction. We have been focusing on the importance of pollinators in our world.  We began by studying bees and learning about their parts and functions. We then moved to flowers and their relationships to bees.  Today we actually got to dissect a flower so the children could see the parts of the plant up close and really tie it in with what they have learned.