Exploding into Science

The class was so excited today to build volcanoes. The students reviewed together vocabulary terms like erosion, lava, magma, and volcano. Students were given all their materials to build their volcanoes, and made predictions about when and how their volcanoes would erupt. They collaborated together when adding all the ingredients for their group's volcano. Mrs. Guinn did a great job teaching this lesson today and I loved being able to capturing their faces full of excitement when the "lava" erupted! :)

Valentine's Day Celebration

The kids had a blast creating their Valentine's Day goody bags and passing out all their sweets to one another.

My Favorite Sweets

Each year I love having my students write about their favorite sweets. This hallway displays always turns out so nicely. It was amazing how many of us shared the same sweet tooth for certain goodies. With Valentine's just around the corner, we are hoping we will all receive our top choices. ;)

Writing Workshop with Lester Laminack

I had the privilege this past Saturday of listening to Lester at a workshop at WKHS. He is always a treat to hear and he inspires the "inner writer" in us all. I so stalked him for a couple pictures and for an autograph copy of his book, Saturdays and Teacakes.

Desk Fairy - "Deskerella" Visits!

Last week we started receiving visits from "Deskerella" who is the desk fairy for our classroom. We never know when she will be visiting and looking for neat desks. She will only leave a surprise to students who have left their desk and area space neat and tidy. Once she visits, she lets you know by leaving you a sweet note and treat!



This is an example of a tidy and neat desk!

Bubblicious Writing!

Even though the classroom smelled like strawberry, grape, and sour apple gums all mixed up for a while, we all had a blast with this writing - including ME!! :)






It was so exciting to see so many kids chewing their gum while they used their schema to write. Some students had never been able to blow a bubble before. Luckily, we were able to capture their first moments on camera! :)






Well for those of you who know me well enough you know I very much dislike gum!! Just thinking about it makes me ill. I used to love it and chew it as a child, but as I got older my love for it died! LOL! I don't know what happend or if I had some traumatic event take place but for some reason I can't stand to chew it or smell it. Anywho, I put those feelings aside because I know how much my kiddos love chewing gum. I found a cute writing idea on the web on "How to Blow A Bubble" and decided to use it to review transitional words and to teach expository writing. The students had to write the directions for how to blow a bubble. In order to help them write out these directions, I allowed them to actually chew some gum while practicing making bubbles. It all goes along with the model of "I Do and Understand!" We worked on word choice and using vivid vocabulary.

Multiplication BINGO!!

Of course who doesn't enjoy a game of BINGO?!? Right? In order to practice using our multiplication facts we decided to let the kids play some BINGO during Everyday Math this past week. It was a HUGE success and the kids were even more pumped up about learning their facts afterwards. We will continue to practice our facts and hopefully everyone can continue to master their facts 0-12 in order to participate in our Icecream Sundae party coming up very soon!!