Sunday Scoop October 26

TheSundayScoop

Five for Friday October 24th

Hello again! I'm linking up with Kacey with Five for Friday for the first time! Let's see how this goes!

 

 

 

This week I introduced order of operations for the first time and I used this NCTM Bingo game! All you need to play are the BINGO cards for each player and markers/chips to mark the bingo spots. Here is the complete lesson with the Bingo card Printable and the best part is that it is FREE: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Lesson.aspx?id=2583

To further extend the order of operation lesson, I found this awesome game! It does have some more difficult problems as you can see on the screen (exponents), but the students enjoyed the challenge. The game let's you play with one or two players. They will need clipboards and paper and pencil to work the problems out. The set up is like the game show Millionaire. I was surprised by how much the students wanted to play this game as an option during some extra time in the computer lab. I went ahead and added it to my classpage and many students chose this over some other popular online math games. Here is the link if you decide to check it out: http://www.math-play.com/Order-of-Operations-Millionaire/division-millionaire.html

 

 

Sandra Markle is an amazing author. I used almost all of her books to teach my Living Systems Unit and all about animal adaptations. This book pictured above is one of the many interesting and kid-friendly books that my students just loved! The illustrations are amazing and the facts are pretty interesting! Must read if you are teaching about animal adaptations and survival in your science unit!

 

 

I think I found this idea on Pinterest, but to teach about the difference between seed and spore dispersal this worked well. All you need is glitter and bigger seeds like acorns or sunflower seeds. I took the students on a nature hunt. Luckily we have an oak tree on the school property. I shared with the  students how seeds typically fall near the tree and usually don't travel far (unless squirrels, or water interfere) and how that lowers the ability for these seeds to actually become trees. I demonstrated spore dispersal by blowing glitter out of my hand and the students saw how much further those "spores" landed. We then discussed how these spores would have a better chance of survival vs. the seeds. Student's then searched for ferns with spores (which we found) and picked up a few acorns as well. Very fun outdoor activity!

 

 

Finally, this week we started our Matter unit. We began with learning the important vocabulary: Solid, liquid, and gas. We added notes to our interactive notebook and then we participated in a solid, liquid, gas magazine sort. Students searched through magazine and food ads and found all sorts of creative examples. There were a lot of student discussions about which pictures would work or not. Very successful lab! The solid,liquid, gas worksheet in the picture is, you guessed it, a FREEBIE from TPT! Get it here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Matter-Liquids-Solids-and-Gases-Sort-325039

 

 

Thank you all! Follow the linky party by clicking on the Five for Friday picture above!

Student-Led Parent & Teacher Conferences

This week marked the start of my student-led parent & teacher conferences. For these conferences, we start by setting goals for Math & Reading with the student leading the conference. Afterwards the students track their progress throughout the year and keep track of it all in their "Data Binders". At the end of the year, we hold Celebration conferences where students and parents come in to celebrate all the progress that was made and review all the data in their binders. Today I posted my newest product which includes many of the forms I use in the student data binders! If this is something you'd like to start to improve your conferences here is more info on where you can find it:

Here is the link to my store:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Student-Data-Binder-for-Goal-Setting-and-Tracking-Progress-1515480

I'm also giving away one free copy of this product tomorrow on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/thejunglespot

Thanks for stopping by and happy conferences!

Odd & Even lesson

In Math we are exploring odd and even numbers. Before we got into the mathematical definition of odd and even numbers, I had the students explore this concept with colored tiles. Each student selected a handful of tiles and they tried to build partners. I followed a lesson from the Virginia Department of Education and it was really helpful. Afterwards we listed which numbers gave us "partners" and which ones gave us tiles that were "left over". The students enjoyed sharing and exploring with the tiles.

After that discussion, we came up with some common "rules" for odds and evens.

Today we got to go play some review games for odds and evens in the Computer Lab.

This game is a monkey driving game, where the students drive a monkey in a car either marked ODD or EVEN. They have to collect the bananas by driving into the ones that are correctly marked depending on the label on the car. The students enjoyed playing this game.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/monkeydrive/numbers/MDOddEven.htm

The Math Nook has a whole list of odd/even games that the students can play to practice. My students played many of these games and they were very interested in them. This site is awesome!

http://www.mathnook.com/search/search.php?q=evo

I hope you are able to take some of these ideas back to your classroom.

Cell Lab!

We started our unit on cells in Science this week. I found this cute project on TPT. I will share the link later. Basically, I had all the students bring in a cereal box to build a plant and animal cell.
That's the picture of my back table right before we started our lab. I gathered the following materials:
Glue bottles
Light green construction paper
Dark green construction paper
Orange construction paper
Yellow construction paper
foam stickers
sequins
Confetti

I asked for donations of craft supplies like: small pompoms, buttons, sequins, etc.

So after going over the parts of the cell, the differences between a plant and animal cell, watching Brain Pop movies on the cell parts, the students were ready to build their plant and animal cells. Here is a look at one of the animal cells that we started today:

I will post more pictures later! Any other ideas for this Cell unit (websites, links, crafts)? Please share in the comments.

Currently September 2014

Hello, I am linking up with Farley from Oh Boy Fourth Grade to bring you the Currently linky party!

 

I'm currently listening to the T.V. while I'm working on school stuff in my bed! I kind of would like to watch t.v., but I know I'll pay for it later! So, I'll have to pass for now.

 

I'm loving being able to take my girl's to their after school activities. Today was the first day of soccer practice for one of my girls and I enjoyed being able to take her, watch her play, and cheering her on from the sidelines. I was also able to spend some QT time with my other little one who is switching sports on me this year! I love this precious time with my kids.

I'm thinking of my birthday plans! My birthday is next Monday! I have class until 7:30 p.m. that night :(, so I am trying to make some last minute plans for this weekend! I have a long list of things I want, but I'm going to need to narrow that down to ONE!

I'm wanting my bathroom back! My husband had to demo our main bathroom due to a pipe failure and he's almost done with it! I really want my space back! I'm hoping it will get done before Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas and winter, I need another winter jacket to survive the cold days! I've been looking at Lands End, but having found something that I LOVE yet. Any suggestions?

3 trips! I have lots of places I'd like to visit, but for now, I'd like to go to the West Coast-----California. The girls would enjoy Disneyland and I would just like to see the Pacific Ocean and the beaches over there.

I also want to visit NY! I think this may happen before California. Not sure what I would do there yet, but definitely visit the Statue of Liberty!

Finally, I really want to go back to Mexico and visit the mountain where the monarch butterflies live! Only problem is that this is during January/February (not exactly my vacation time).

That's all for now! Now, head on over to the next blog and check out what everyone else is currently into!

What Friday? Blog Hoppin' Back to School 2014

 

So today is the last day of the Back To School linky party. Today the focus is on what we teach and what resources we use. Today I'm going to focus on Math. The day usually starts out with morning work. My teammate and I create a weekly packet that focuses on skills we are currently teaching and some review skills with a focus on problem-solving.

 

We used a balanced approach to teaching math, so most days we present a multimedia lesson using our textbook resources, videos, and promethean planet lessons. Then, we take notes in our interactive notebook. Usually that's followed by an exploratory math lab with manipulatives where students can practice the skill in a group setting. Afterward, students get to practice the skill independently on the left side of their interactive notebook. 

 

Once a week we take the students to the computer lab to work on Study Island. This online math program is awesome because you can assign the students a topic to work on and the students can play games to complete the task and earn blue ribbons. The students really enjoy this time. Here is what it looks like:

 

 

Each student has the list of skills that the program offers and it will list if they have attempted it and if so, what their score was. Teachers can print reports easily to send home to parents.

 

 

We also do a weekly problem of the week to help with problem solving skills. We teach the students to use the bar model to solve the problems as one of their strategies. Most of the problems come from www.bedtimemath.com

 

Here is an example of some of the problems. Most have a Science connection, so we love that!

FINALLY Enough Hours in the Day

21 Aug 2014

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That's all! Any ideas to incorporate into our Math block?