This is a project that was just SO much fun. I got the lesson from this website, and I basically followed the instructions to a T. Clas...
This is a project that I just can't quit. I've been doing it for several years now and the work just keeps getting better every year. Sometimes I wonder if readers get bored with seeing some of the same projects each year. Looking at these totems, who could get bored? One of the things I like best about this lesson is that it's hard. It's really hard for some kids. Good. The most difficult aspect of the lesson is drawing an animal in such a way that it looks like it has been carved into a totem pole. Negative space is essentially nonexistent. I tell my students that they need to use about 98% of their paper. It really forces students to entirely re-think the way they have drawn animals for their entire lives. It makes them learn! I've been dealing with combined classes with 4th grade this year and I was initially concerned that it would negatively impact the quality of student work. For this project, it absolutely didn't. Students have produced more high level work this year than any previous year. The stress of teaching 34 kids at once has apparently paid off. Enjoy the work! Download my lesson plan! Wow.
It's several weeks into the school year and I haven't posted anything about my new class yet, but it's all good- they're a great bunch! I have 11 kids and they are loads of fun and full of personality. I'm so lucky that their transition was easy, I didn't even have any criers on the first day! We've been hard at work on identifying their names, identifying the letters in their names, and getting the muscles in their hands strong enough to be ready to start writing their names. Here are some pictures of the name writing activities we've done so far this year. We started learning about names by focusing on the first letter. My students fancied up their first letter with paint and glitter. We made fancy names using some of the materials in the art center. On Deanna Jump's blog I found this cute Wheels on the Bus activity. My kids had a hard time getting through the song without giggling...it was a lot of fun! If you want the words I used for the poster here they are: Wheels on the bus poster words And here are the things that the students cut out: Wheels on the Bus student papers We worked a lot on name identification too. We used do-a-dot markers to decorate their names. We also put their handprints on the paper too and laminated it so that they can be placemats for playdough this year. Here are my students fishing for their names. I printed out clip art fish on cardstock and wrote the names of each of my students on the fish. Then I attached a paperclip mouth on each fish and gave students a magnet on a piece of yarn to go fishing with. They loved trying to catch their names! We worked on fine motor skills and letter recognition by making name mosaics. They came out really nicely! We also did the same thing but with pasta. We worked on learning the letters in their names, in order, by putting together name puzzles. I used a hot glue gun to go over their names so that they could be used to make crayon rubbings. We used alphabet stamps and glitter paint to stamp out their names with the letters in the right order. We did a similar thing using playdough to make the letters in their names. If you want my favorite play dough recipe go here: Playdough Recipe This is a sorting activity. Students were given foam letters and they had to sort them into two columns, letters in my name and letters not in my name. Once we finally started writing their names, we used this disappearing names worksheet where they slowly start writing more and more of their name and we went outside in the HOT, HOT sun and used sidewalk chalk to write the bricks surrounding our early childhood playground. Here's a poem we used throughout our time working on names. If you have any great name activities leave a comment!
When I left the Vegas conference I was filled with excitement and a driving force behind how I can begin to find my new voice for this blog. Leaving the classroom for administration has changed my focus and I want to share with you some of the things I am doing with my staff. I want to give a BIG shout out to the very lovely Mrs. Spangler from Mrs. Spangler In the Middle- I was lucky enough to sit next to her at one of the TpT conference sessions and we talked about what I could offer the blogging world now that I am not a middle school teacher anymore. This post was one of those ideas :) THANKS Lisa! So imagine sitting in your classroom ..you prepared a ROCKIN' lesson. Everything is falling into place and you know you are in the ZONE. From the corner of your eye you see the beginnings of crazy town starting to surface in the back of the room. Little Suzie is about to loose it.... Maybe it starts with a sigh or a yell, then it begins to bubble over the yell is a scream ... maybe a cry. What do you do?!?! First know that you are not alone! I think every teacher can relate to that scenario and the panic that sets in when you know a student is about to burst and they are escalating rapidly. When I did this PD with my staff we started with a post it activity. In order to handle that child we first need to look inward. We need to figure out are our buttons ...and what pushes them! They needed to answer these three questions .... Each teacher was asked to write down all the behaviors that PUSH their buttons and post them. We are human and behaviors will irritate us! But what pushes my buttons isn't necessarily what pushes the teachers down the hall's buttons. The physical act of writing down what aggravated me is very powerful. Then they needed to write how it makes them feel. This step helps label the emotion...when you do this.... I feel .... As teachers we are not supposed to feel negative emotions....YA RIGHT! That little angel who comes every day and pinches or yells or rolls their eyes at you will elicit an emotion from you and its ok that those behaviors aggravate you. However while the behavior may enrage you we all know that those emotions are productive. They wont lead us to an end result that allows everyone in the room to continue in the learning process. So now I am more aware of what behaviors are my "buttons" ... and we identified how they make me feel ... The last step is identifying how these behaviors will impact the relationships I am building in my classroom. As we got to this phase the post-its it was clear... If I react with that emotion I will not be building any sort of quality relationship with my students. Not only that, if we live in those emotions and react from those emotions it will take a toll on our health and well being. So now that I am more aware of MYSELF... how do I deal with those behaviors?!?! Here are 5 ways to DEESCALTE ... I will be revisiting this topic and giving more ideas and tips for behavior interventions!! I would love to hear feedback on this topic and if more posts on behavior would be helpful so feel free to leave a comment if these strategies are beneficial!! :)
Today, 4th grade starting working on their self portraits, inspired by the art of Tad Carpenter, and the fabulous art teacher Katie Allain. You can check out their art on their Instagram accounts, if you click on their names. He's the artist who designed the cover for the book, Wonder! Here's how we created ours! Materials: Sax 90lb paper Sax liquid watercolors Sharpie markers Pencils hair examples Day 1: Talk about the book and movie, Wonder. I plan on playing the audio book, and listening to it while they work. I demonstrated how to draw a simple outline of a face and a simple hairline, like the artist did. I then demonstrated how to trace/color with a Sharpie, and paint with liquid watercolors. I also put up different hair styles on the screen. I think individual copies at their tables would work better, btw :) Here's my fist 4th grade class, working on theirs today!
BEN GR.5
20 Free Name Activities for the First Week of Kindergarten. Check out these amazing hands-on and fun name activities! Integrates multiple skills.
These free Montessori printables include language, science, geography and more. The PDF downloads can be found in our free resource library.
At the beginning of the year I like to focus on NUMBERS!. The first week of school, I like to review numbers 1-5 to get a feel for how well my student know their numbers. Then, each week I focus on a number for the entire week and teach them a variety of ways to show […]
Anyone struggling with missing pencils? Here is a plan to help your students NEVER LOSE A PENCIL AGAIN! Try this out! Each student gets 4 pencils to keep inside of his/her toothbrush holder. Yes, a toothbrush holder! You know, the kind that you can get at Wal-Mart, The Dollar Store, or Amazon! Place the student’s name […]
A great assessment tool to use to assess your preschoolers skills to prepare for conferences. The assessment sheets are a nice way to present the information to parents/caregivers in a clear easy to read format. This pack has skills that would be appropriate for those in a 4-5 year old preschool setting to get a glimpse of the skills they know before heading to Kindergarten. **Now Included in a bundle with 3-4 year old assessments and conference printables! Click here to purchase bundle at a discounted price! Parent Teacher Conference Forms and Assessments for Prek What's Included: -3 Different Assessment Sheets ( Fall, Spring or a general sheet) -2 Sheets with Social/Emotional Assessments and Comment areas (or Glows/Grows area) -Cutting Sheet -Tracing Sheet (2 to choose from...dotted or faded solid line) -Name Writing Sheet (3 types to choose from) -Patterning Sheet -Creating Sets -Uppercase Letter Sheet -Lowercase Letter Sheet -Number Sheet (0-20) -Color Sheets -Shape Sheets Related Items: For a similar assessment geared towards 3-4 year olds, follow the link below! Conference Assessment Pack 3-4 year olds Conference Reminder, Questionnaire and more *All items in this pack are copyrighted...please see TOU *If you have any questions or happen to notice an error please leave a note in the product Q&A! :)
I LOVE teaching about California history because I grew up in Illinois, so when I started teaching 4th grade, I learned all kinds of new things about California that I didn’t know before! And no one knows how to teach CA history better than my good friend LeAnn! She has been teaching 4th grade for […]
7th graders started their quarter off with a project inspired by this Blick lesson as well as the work of Andrew McCormick's students. To introduce the idea of graffiti, we talked about street art (the ethics behind illegal and legal street art) as well as the idea of reverse graffiti and it's implications. We also used many resources from http://graffitidiplomacy.com/ to help up along in our name designs. Value shading with colored pencil and pattern design (with the metallic sticky paper in background) was a big focus of our work and reflected on our rubric. These were a great first project to begin with since students names were so obviously drawn into the work. Hopefully they help me learn names faster this quarter! Check out this graffiti generator for ideas on how to get started drawing names in graffiti styles. http://www.graffiticreator.net/ Very cool! Check out some of our finished work below...
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Welcome to my Freebies Page! UPDATE: Games 4 Learning has a new home and we have some great giveaways for you! Visit us at Games4Learning....
I am surprised that I am up posting right now as today was an exhausting day. The kind of day I would not trade for anything but I am tired. The art room was double booked all day today and will be again tomorrow to make sure that all of my 1-5 grade artists are able to meet Will "Kasso" Condry, Muralist, to view him painting a mural in the art room "live" and to participate in a collaborative circle painting project that I am running. Busy, busy, busy. All that were in the art room today know one thing with certainty---> Will Condry is quite incredible. Before I fall asleep, here are a few photos from the day. Update: June 28, 2013. This blog post has been VERY popular due to Pinterest and has generated thousands of page views for this blog since Dec. 2011. If you create a project inspired by this post, please share your results and link back! Have fun! I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE THESE CIRCLE PAINTINGS .....and now..... Kasso mural sneak peek...and he's not nearly done.... He painted in these expressive circles the "skeleton" for this section of the mural in minutes. student asks a question to Will Condry while he paints
These free printable Homework Punch Card Bookmarks are the perfect incentive to get homework done, and make it more exciting!
This is just a short excerpt for the page.
Read to Self Read with Someone Word Work Listen to Reading Read with a Teacher/Teacher Time Word Work is still my work in progress, so look for updates to this post as I continue to grow and add to the effectiveness of this choice :) For now, though, I will give a brief overview of how it goes in my class. First, the anchor chart of expectations: All students have five independent spelling words (aside from the class list of words) that they work on each week. These are kept in their spelling folder (I'll blog about this after I get some pics) and include third grade words from the district and list of 1200 high-frequency words from Rebecca Sitton. Students are responsible for these five words and have the chance to practice them, as well as class list words during Word Work time. Students have a variety of ways to practice these words: White Boards- (a class FAVORITE!)- they can practice cursive, print, and/or sentences Stamps- I purchased several of these sets and ink pads in multiple colors (be sure they are washable!) and this is a close second favorite Sign Language- kids will work with a partner using these sheets to help and try to guess the words Secret Code Spelling- each letter is worth its place in the alphabet (a=1, b=2, c=3, etc.) and kids will work to spell out their words in numbers, then switch with a partner and decode (This is available as a freebie HERE.) Scrabble Tiles- I post more info about this center HERE. Money Words- similar to secret code, but each letter is worth a coin amount. I blog more about this center HERE. I am always on the lookout to add more individual spelling practice activities. You can keep updated on my quest here on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/3rdGrThoughts/word-work-spelling/ What I noticed was that sometimes students' stamina in practicing these words waned, especially with our 25 minute session length. Also, we don't have spelling words every week (short weeks, in particular), but we do Daily 5 every day, so what were we to do? Enter DonorsChoose.org!! (you can read more about my love of Donors Choose here) I found a wonderful product at Lakeshore Learning that covers all of these amazing word skills that I teach throughout the year, including: synonyms & antonyms context clues prefixes, suffixes & root words idioms similes & metaphors analogies and more! Their At-My-Desk Vocabulary Set was perfect- already assembled, quality pieces, directions card that is very easy for kids to understand (yay!), and full of concepts that always use extra practicing :) The price was jaw-dropping a bit steep, so I applied to Donors Choose and ta-da! it became a part of our Word Work Center! Yippee! {happy dance} Seriously, donors have no idea how much they make my students' and my day! <3 Now, when kiddos feel like they have had enough practice with their words, they can go to our spinny activity center and choose an envelope to work with at their desk. They LOVE them! And the best part is that, while some of them are a once-and-done activity, most of them a student can do over and over! So that is my Word Work in a tiny nutshell. Are there any great activities that I should add? Let me know how you do Word Work- I would love to continue to tweak this to make it more perfect for my students :)
One of my favorite language arts lesson to do in teaching students about synonyms. Using the idea of a "synonym roll," every year my students are extremely engaged by the lesson. Want a terrific synonym lesson complete with the outlines for the cinnamon rolls themselves? Here is my lesson plan typed up along with 36 words with synonym examples, 3 different sizes of rolls, and a synonym brainstorming page for students. Synonym Roll Lesson Plan You can also head over to my TPT store and download the outlines.
Of all the areas of math, our 10-year-old isn't especially fond of geometry. To give him a little extra protractor practice, I thought up this angles game. Anytime he has the chance to beat me, his attitude is "bring it" so I knew this would pique his interest. What You Need to Play PDF of the Earth game board and angles cards Paper Protractor plastic sheet protectors (optional) Pencil (or if using sheet protectors, fine-tip dry-erase markers) Assembly Download the PDF free from Google Drive here. Print one Earth for each player (or team if you're doing this as a classroom activity). Print two or more copies of the angles cards. Cut out and shuffle. If you anticipate playing over and over, slide the Earth pictures into a plastic sheet protector. This make your game boards dry-erase. How to Play With the cards shuffled and placed faced down, each player takes a card on their turn and then lining up the protractor with the start line, draws in the angle stated on the card. On their next turn, the reference line becomes the line just drawn, instead of the start. The first player to get all around the world (i.e. past the start line) is declared the winner of the race! Read This math activity got us thinking about what life was like in different places across the globe. To further our understanding of cultures and time zones, we read a wonderful book that lead us on a journey that only took a single moment in time.
Teachers, this is your ultimate classroom design guide. Your one stop for classroom setup, decor, bulletin boards, organization ideas & more!
This project is relatively simple and takes learning about lines into the third dimension. I posted about this project back in 2013 and it was one of my most popular blog posts. I usually do a line painting project with the kindergartners. This is a great way to learn about types of lines, practice painting with a paintbrush and develop all those great fine motor skills you want the little ones to learn such as gluing and coloring. 1. The … Read more... →
Worksheets are a snoozefest...try this Super Fun Engaging Activity for ANY SUBJECT + a freebie!
We hope your learners enjoy learning about the five senses of our body with this Five Sense Clip Cards Freebie printable.
Are you wondering how to make a lap book? Then you're going to love the ideas, tips, and resources presented at this blog post. Plus a FREEBIE!
The above anchor chart is on classifying quadrilaterals. It is important for students to understand that there is more than one way to classify a quadrilateral. For example, a square is a quadrilateral because it has four sides and four angles. It is also a parallelogram because it has two pair of parallel sides. It is a rhombus because it has four right angles, two pair of parallel sides, and 4 sides of equal length. It can also be a rectangle. So, a square is a quadrilateral, parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, and a square. This anchor chart is on how to graph using the coordinate system. The students learned to graph ordered pairs by "running" down the x axis, and "jumping" up the y axis. You always have to run, then jump! This anchor chart is on solid figures. Students need to be able to identify the number of faces, edges, and vertices in each figure. They should also be able to identify a figure by looking at a net. A net is the figure unfolded, as shown on the left hand side.
Learning about Japan for kids with these CUTE and FREE Japan Coloring Pages including - Mt Fiji, sushi, bonsai, cherry blossom, kimono, and more!
Teaching fractions with hands-on manipulatives and activities helps students develop a conceptual understanding that will endure.
A new school year usually means a new teacher, new expectations, and new routines, so our students sometimes don't respond as we'd hoped when we try to get
