Fun With Friction!

Today in school we learned about friction!

We started by talking about riding our bikes and how we'd rather ride on a smooth road than on the grass. This was an easy connection to the idea of friction!

We moved onto an exciting experiment to test out the force of friction. We set up ramps and rolled Hot Wheels cars around!

I tried a LOT of combinations to make a good ramp with the supplies I had on hand in my room and in the building. Three textbooks and a file folder provide a nice, smooth ramp! We tucked the edge of the file folder underneath the stack of books to stabilize it a bit.

Then we tested the friction of three surfaces - the cafeteria floor, our reading rug, and a tumbling mat.

It was a really fun experiment, and everyone totally grasped the idea of friction!

In other news, we are having a legit birthday party tomorrow in my class. One of my parents emailed me today and said she is bringing a cake. If it wasn't a Friday, I might have hesitated....... but I did promise my class we could watch Scholastic's Taylor Swift reading webcast, so it kind of works out perfectly. :)

Hope you have a great Friday!

Gravity!

I'm teaching forces and motion in science right now and I am LOVING IT! I absolutely, one hundred percent adore teaching content. I love it, the students love it, everyone is happy!

Today we covered gravity and watched this super cute video

Then we extended our learning a little by hypothesizing which would fall to the ground faster - a heavy book or a marker. We were SHOCKED to find out that they fell at the same rate. Who knew?

Types of Motion

Yesterday we started a new science unit that I am REALLY pumped about - Forces and Motion!

Today we learned about motion. We made our books and desk contents move all over the place in all different types of ways. The engagement was through the roof!

As a culminating activity, we completed a picture sort. We sorted pictures into three different types of motion - straight, back and forth, and circular. They loved that big word - circular! :)

My students did a great job with this! I think it also really cemented the idea of motion into their little brains. :)

If you're teaching about Forces and Motion and would like to use this sort, feel free to download it (for free)  from my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Noodles and Bagels!

Happy Mother's Day - at least for a few more hours! I really have no idea how teacher moms do it. At the end of the day, I am legit exhausted! If I had to go home and still be on my game, it would be disastrous. So, I am really in awe of you all. :)

Just a few things tonight!

First, let me show you this cute little thing we did this week. We are going on a field trip to a nature museum tomorrow (ahh!!) and part of our time at the museum will be observing butterflies. So we learned about the butterfly life cycle and made this little crafty thing.

This is a printable from The Mailbox so I can't share it with you... but it would be pretty easy to make your own version. We used different noodles for each stage of the life cycle. I didn't have anything for the egg, but I would have used orzo or ditalini. For the caterpillar stage, we used rotini, for the pupa stage we used medium shells, and for the butterfly stage we used bow tie pasta! Or I think the box said farfalle... whatevs.

It was a good assessment because I would hold up a pasta and ask which stage it represented, and I was able to figure out right away who knew what was up with the butterflies!

I've also seen it where you use the noodles to make a little necklace of the life cycle. So there you go!

Second, my natural resources post was featured on Bagels and Blogs today!

Bagels and Blogs is hosted by Donna at Math Coach's Corner. She highlights 5 blogs a week with creative ideas that usually come with freebies! You should look at today's edition as well as past Bagels and Blogs posts!

Third, if you were paying attention above..... we are going on a field trip tomorrow! I am feeling very anxious about it. We are taking a train AND a public bus so I just hope everything goes well. Keep me in your thoughts tomorrow!

Hope your week goes well!

You Get a Tree! And You Get a Tree!

Today was Arbor Day! I was scrambling for something to do for it. Last year, I visited the Arbor Day website and found this really sweet Tree Diversity project that I did with my 7th and 8th graders. This year I had a hard time finding something age-appropriate that was fun.

So I just fell back on my favorite thing ever... read aloud!!!!

We read this lovely little book, Franklin Plants a Tree. I just happened to have it in my library! It's actually an Earth Day book but it worked out well enough for me today.

In the book, Franklin's teacher gives him and his classmates saplings of their own. Franklin starts out as a crabbypants about his tree being so small, but he eventually comes around and brightens up. Hooray for you, Franklin.

While we were reading the book, I stopped once and said, "Wow, how nice of Franklin's teacher to give him his very own tree. Wouldn't it be sweet if you guys got your own trees?"

"Yes," they sighed in envy.

Well well well! Luckily enough for them, my mom is a forward thinker and had bought 12 little saplings for my class! When the book was over, I told them I had something for them. Then I whipped out the trees, Oprah-style! "You get a tree! And YOU get a tree! Everybody gets trees!!!!!!!!!!"

To say they were pleased would be an understatement. I had screaming, lots of hugs, and general craziness. Some of the trees were named. These names included Red, Katie, Mr. Baby, and Isis.

It was really exciting and a great way to start the weekend! :)

E is for Experiment!

I haven't been very diligent about updating you all on our ABC Countdown!! :(

So far we have gotten through A - Animal Day, B - Buddy Reading Day, C - Clean-Up Day, and D - Dancing Day. Dancing Day was definitely the best and reminded me that I NEED to incorporate movement breaks into my day on the regular!

Yesterday was E, Experiment Day! I was looking for something quick and fun, so I looked around online and found this cute little experiment using only a few materials: Skittles, bowls, and water!

Before we started, we each made a hypothesis about what would happen if we put Skittles in water. Some thought the Skittles would disappear, some thought they'd dissolve, and one wishful thinker thought they'd explode. Haha!

What really happens is that the colors come off and make a beautiful little display!

Here we are in our little experiment circle!

I gave each of the kids 3 Skittles. Then I filled their bowls with JUST enough water to cover a Skittle (so, hardly any). Then I instructed the kids to carefully place their 3 Skittles equally apart so they weren't touching in the bowl. And that was it!

It will take a few minutes to start dissolving, so don't despair if you don't see the color instantly start to spread! I was a little worried at first, but it just needed some time.

The kids are still talking about it excitedly today! Super fun, super simple, and hardly any cleanup. :)

Making Models of Fossils and Homework Club

Last week we did a fun little guided inquiry lab to learn about fossil imprints.

First, we used Play Doh and a plastic cube to make an imprint.

Then we wrote down how our imprint and the cube were alike and different. Size and shape were two of the ideas the kids had.

After that, the class had to secretly make an imprint of something else in the room. They shared their imprint and the rest of the class had to guess what the original object was.

The dice one was my favorite! It absolutely illustrated what we were trying to learn - that imprints and fossils look like the animal or plant that made them. And that observing and studying fossils teach us about what came before us!

We had a great time and it really drove home important information about fossils. :)

And in other news - a few people wanted to know more information about Homework Club. I actually got the idea from Molly at Lessons with Laughter. 

I made a little chart that I hung on the whiteboard in the front of the room with everyone's name on it. At the beginning of the day, I put a little sticker next to everyone's name who brought back their finished homework. After 5 days have passed, whoever has brought their finished homework back every day will get to eat in the room (instead of the cafegymatorium - haha), I'll show 20 minutes of a movie, and I'll give them a little treat. Once the initial "trial period" of 5 days is over, I'll probably extend it to a few weeks before we have a special lunch. I just wanted our first try to be doable for all the kids.

Like I said yesterday, two of my boys who have regularly missed recess for most of the year have brought their work back finished BOTH days so far, and that is a big deal to me! I wish I would have done this earlier, but now I will know for next year. :) I feel like I say that a lot!

New Glasses and Oviraptor Eggs!

Today my new glasses came in!

They are a lot different than my old ones so they will take some time to get used to but so far I like them!!

We are in the middle of our dinosaur unit and today we talked about how paleontologists continue to make new discoveries that change their thinking about dinos. The kids really thought this was cool - that even adult paleontologists learn new things and change their minds!

I read a few pages of this book to accompany what was in our science text. It's a great book!

We learned that scientists used to think that Oviraptors stole other dinosaurs' eggs, but they later determined that Oviraptors were actually just protecting their own eggs. My class called it "babysitting"... haha!

To integrate our Oviraptor info with math, we learned that Oviraptor eggs were about 20 centimeters long. Then we measured around the room and found objects that were longer than an egg, shorter than an egg, and about the same length as an egg.

This isn't my original idea (I borrowed it from the book), but I did make a little recording sheet that you can use if you're interested! Just click on the picture to have it. 

I also decided to start a "Homework Club" for kids who bring their homework back every day finished. At the end of 2 weeks, whoever has brought their homework back finished every day will be able to have lunch in our room and I will show 20 minutes of a movie or something. I have a few kids (4 or 5) who never do their homework so I keep them in from recess to do it unless they can get it done before we go outside. I hope this will encourage them to do it at home instead of playing Wii for 4 hours............ we'll see how it goes!

Head, Thorax, Abdomen!

Today we took a little detour from our normal course of action. My cousin, Kelley, is going to school to be a teacher and she came in and taught a lesson to my class!

She is in a crazy class called Insects and People, and for her final project she had to either write a ridiculous paper, rear an insect, or teach a lesson about insects. Clearly she picked the best option. :) So today my class learned about bees!

I definitely did not take pictures of everything... but she had the kids make a black and yellow foldable about bees.

One page was about the life cycle of a bee.

This isn't the finished page, but each bean stood for a stage of the life cycle. Underneath the beans, the kids glued a little piece of paper that said how many days the bee stays in that stage.

There were also pages about types of bees and body parts of bees! We also used a page from Reagan's Gone Buggy Unit!


Part of our super fun day was learning a song about an insect's body parts. I took a little video in case you've never sung this song before. My class LOVED it and sang it all day.

Later, we resumed our normal science unit and learned why fossils are important. We had a special conversation about extinction to make sure we knew that when something dies, it isn't necessarily extinct.

We put together these little fossil puzzles to help us understand that fossils give us clues about plants and animals because the fossils LOOK like the plant or animal that they came from!

I would give this to you... but it came from my science Teacher Activity Guide! I actually ordered this over the weekend because I don't have any of the supplemental stuff for my science program... only the kid books and my teacher's manual. And I had to ask my principal to buy the teacher's manual for me! But the guide was well worth the $4 I paid for it because they really liked this activity and it helped them understand different types of fossils and the type of work that paleontologists do.

And now that this linky party is over a week old, I think it's time to join up. :)

Mini-Paleontologists

Yesterday we started our fossils and dinosaurs unit! We filled out a little schema chart, which includes such things as:

• Dinosaurs are all dead.
• Birds are dinosaurs.
• Dinosaurs run fast.
• Dinosaurs eat people.
• Fossils are from old dinosaurs.
• Dinosaurs are all big.

And so on. We have a lot to learn!

Today we learned about how fossils form and how they can teach us about the past. We also briefly discussed what a paleontologist does. To make it real for them, the kids dug through chocolate chip cookies to get out the "fossils"!

First, they used a toothpick to VERY CAREFULLY remove the chips. We talked about how real paleontologists don't just dig with their hands; they use tools. Also that if they just chip away at the fossils, everything will get messed up and they won't be able to figure out what they dug up.

After the chips were removed, they used paintbrushes to brush the crumbs off. This totally did not do anything but they were bound and determined to brush off all the crumbs. Haha!

At recess, my class found a "fossil" that they had to show me.

I'm guessing it is just a little concrete bump but who knows? Maybe it is a worm fossil. Haha!

I'm planning on doing a few more dig things as we move forward. Tomorrow we are going to make fossil prints in playdough to show how we can learn things from fossils.

Lastly, I voted today!

Illinois people, get out there and vote!!!

Earthquakes and Books and Earthquake Books

Is anyone else Shaking Out tomorrow??

At 10:15 AM, think of me and the kids as we drop, cover, and hold on!

We practiced today and the kids are really worried that I won't be able to drop, cover, and hold on to my own desk in time to save myself. I told them I'd do it as soon as I knew they were safe!! :)

I picked up a book at the library today to add to our little drill-io.

It's a little text-heavy but they are really into science and weather so they might sit through it. I'll keep you posted! I also got a few easy readers about earthquakes in case the first graders want to read a book to themselves! They are finally independently picking books at their levels and actually attempting to read the real words! I love you, first graders.

Speaking of books, a few people wanted to know what book I was reading that I mentioned in my Currently yesterday! Here is the cover.

It is a memoir of this man's life growing up as a child of Mexican immigrants in east L.A. and also his gang situation. It is really interesting and very heart-breaking, as I said. One part so far that touched my heart was when he started first grade in an all English speaking classroom. He could tell his teacher didn't want him there and she didn't know what to do with him, so he played with blocks all year in the back and didn't know how to ask to go to the bathroom. It made me so sad.

It's easy to read and very engaging, so if you are interested in this type of book like I am, then I suggest you try it out! He uses a ton of Spanish words and there is a little glossary in the back, bless his heart.

And lastly, is anyone out there on Goodreads?

I am! And I love it. It helps me keep track of what I'm reading and what I've read! I put a little widget on my sidebar that shows my currently reading list. You should friend me if you are on Goodreads! It is the bomb dot com.

And lastly! Thank you to everyone who gave me some advice about my name-calling meanie problem! It did not get better today, as one of the kids couldn't find his shoes... which ended up being in the garbage! Ahhhhh! People, I am only 25 and you are going to give me an ulcer or something! One girl said, "We should have a rule - don't take your shoes off. That way they won't end up in the garbage." I said, "I really feel like people shouldn't be afraid of their shoes being thrown away!!!!!!!!!" Ay yi yi. But starting tomorrow, I am taking steps to correct this! Wish me luck. :)

Learning With Snow

I am realizing that everything I've talked about lately in my blog has concerned snow ......... it's hard to ignore.

Good news though - today was our first day of indoor recess!! Perhaps because the wind chill was below zero. I did Adventure to Fitness WITH the kids today, instead of working on other stuff, and it is quite the workout!!!!

Yesterday, I was scheduled to teach about changing states of matter through heating or cooling. My science book suggested freezing water overnight, recording the temperature in the morning, and then re-recording it throughout the day to show what happens when matter is heated.

Instead, we did the same demonstration with snow!! We definitely have enough of it.

I found 4 thermometers in my room, so I got out 4 cups and went out to recess with the kids (in the 10 degree weather..............) to collect our specimens. They packed the snow up to the top but by the time I took this picture, it was allllll water.

Then we recorded the temperature. I meant to check it on a regular basis but it totally slipped my mind so we just wrote it down every so often. Please note the strange variation in temperatures between the 4 cups... How did one get to 50 and one was only 25?? And I double-checked the thermometers! 

I'd like to leave you with a pair of sad pictures.

Here was the temperature in my car on my drive home today.

And here was the temperature in our classrooms........ that's a 61, people.

It's so weird - 61 feels amazing when you're outside in the sun. But inside your classroom in the middle of January, it's like being in a freezer.

What I'm Teaching Wednesday

For a few months now, I have been participating in the What I'm Loving Wednesday because I thought it was a great idea to remember all the positive things that I love! However, I pretty much only loved school things. So today when I saw Playing with Pixie Dust's post with the same title as mine today, I thought that made much more sense!

Also I have not blogged since Sunday because I kept forgetting my camera at school, so this might be on the long side.

I'll start at the top and work my day through the day. :)

First, every morning we have a "morning meeting." I need to learn more about this, so I do the best I can. Over the weekend, I read on Mrs. Jump's blog about her Chit Chat activity that she does every morning to review from the day before. I thought I would give it a shot. My students are seriously obsessed and they think this is a game, which is fine with me. It gives us a chance to review from the day before and to preview new ideas. It helps a little with spelling also! Here is our Chit Chat for today.

In case you would like to know... it eventually read, "Yesterday, we learned about liquids. We know that liquids take the shape of their containers. Today in Math, we will begin shapes. Do you know the names of these shapes?" The kids volunteer answers and help me spell the words. At this point, I write in the blanks to save time but I might release control of that when we get the hang of everything. :)

In science, we are still working on matter. Today we learned about gases, so after we had filled out the appropriate section of Mrs. Bainbridge's matter flippy book, I pulled the giant vocab visit papers out and we relabeled the pictures as solid, liquid, or gas using our new vocabulary!

I am super proud of how quickly they have grasped this material!!! I should have another fun post tomorrow about our science activity. :)

My last set of pictures shows the New Year's activity we did last week! I used the templates I found on Mrs. Lemons' blog. I read Squirrel's New Year's Resolution, which was cute.

As we went through the book, I wrote down all of the animal's resolutions on the easel. When they went to write their own resolutions later, almost half of the kids chose one of the character's resolutions, which was frustrating. In the future, I'll have the kids add more ideas of their OWN resolutions that actually apply to their lives!! The craft still turned out cute though.

What are you teaching this Wednesday??

Science Vocab Visit

The other day, Reagan reminded me of something I learned during my ESL Methods class last term - the vocab visit!

In a vocab visit, you place pictures on magnets on whiteboards (if you happen to have magnetic whiteboards.......... unlike myself) that preview the topic you're about to study. Students have a chance to study the pictures and then write notes, questions, or comments near the pictures. Later, you can use the pictures and comments to add new information to them as you learn new concepts!

This can serve as a pre-assessment and you can use the comments to determine what is going on in their brains.  Also, you can regroup the pictures (with help from the students) as they learn new things as well.

Anyway..... we did this today! We started our matter unit today, which I was anticipating to be a difficult subject, as several of our vocabulary words are mighty abstract. My wonderful amazing cousin Kelley googled and printed 21 pictures generally related to our vocabulary and topics. I gave them 2 minutes to look at them quietly (note to self and to you: 2 minutes is too long!) and then I was going to give them about 3 minutes to write about the pictures but they were so into it that I just let them go for a while!

And here are some highlights of what they wrote:

This was my first model. I wrote "cat" right above the picture (which was an example of a solid). Everyone else felt that they needed to add "cat" for some reason. I did appreciate the two questions though!! And the one answer, haha.

Are these melting?

This really opened up great conversations about our new unit and the students were excited to start learning! I quickly defined each of our vocab words and they seemed to grasp the meanings. It was definitely the highlight of a day that was a little difficult the farther along we went. :)