Once upon a time (in my first year of teaching), I taught a tessellation project to my 4th grade students. Just like any good fairy tale, at some point things took a turn for the worse. As great as some of the projects turned out, I was exhausted by the amount of hovering it required me to do as a teacher and left me yearning for a different project. But again, just like any good fairy tale, this story has a happy ending... After taking a 3 year break from tessellations, I have finally made my comeback with an awesome tessellation project for my 5th grade students. Yayyyy! I started this project by showing my students an awesome PowerPoint that I put together that explains exactly what a tessellation is, some famous examples from history, and then differentiates between the 3 major types of tessellations: translations, rotations, and reflections. After showing them the PowerPoint, I gave each of my tables a basket that contained a few 3"x3" pieces of tagboard, a written set of directions (in case students get confused), scissors, and tape. Then I showed them step-by-step how to create a translation tessellation piece using my document camera (see the directions to the left). **A trick that I used this time teaching was to have students draw their shape from one corner to the adjacent corner. That way they don't have to worry about lining up the cut-out piece directly across from the original cutout.. you just have to line it up on the side. (This sounds confusing.. just look at my visual below.) Once students finished creating their own pieces, I passed out large sheets of scrap paper and had them practice making tessellations with their piece. This was their opportunity to make sure that their piece was properly crafted and that it would work. This was also a great opportunity for me to be able to walk around and assist those that found that their piece wasn't working. Once they verified that their pattern piece would work, I asked them to turn their piece around and see if they could see something that they could make their shape into (some type of character or monster). Monsters are honestly the easiest to do because, as I explained to my students, you can take any type of blob shape and slap some eyes on it and call it a monster (just being real). :) Once my students knew what they were going to make their shape into, I gave them a sheet of 9"x9" white drawing paper to use for their final project. I advised my students to use the original edges of their tessellation piece to help them to line up their shape on their sheet of paper. Even though this cuts off part of the piece, it really does help to make sure that everything stays properly aligned. I also explained to them that just because you can't see the whole shape, doesn't mean that they shouldn't add the additional details they were planning to add for their character - they just need to add what they can see. Once their pencil drawing was done (including adding details), students were asked to outline everything with a sharpie marker, and then add color with either crayons or color sticks. Many of my students decided to take their tessellation patterns and make each shape into its own character in a series (instead of just repeating the same thing over and over). Doing that really helped to keep more of my kids engaged in finishing their project because it made it a little more creative and a little less repetitive. If you are interested in this lesson, I have an incredibly awesome package posted up in my store. Seriously.. it has EVERYTHING. Included in the package: 1. Tessellation PowerPoint: An introduction to what tessellations are, a brief history, M.C. Escher (with a link to a interview he did), his influences, his artwork, and the three main types of transformations used in making tessellations – translation, rotation, and reflections. This PowerPoint includes animated slides, which make it easier for students to visualize the shape’s movements. 2. Color Your Own Worksheets: Grid-filled pages that students can demonstrate how to draw translation, rotation, and reflection tessellations on. 3. Practicing Transformations Worksheet: Worksheet asks students to reflect specific shapes over horizontal and vertical axes, translate shapes, and rotate shapes. 4. Step-by-Step Direction Sheets: Three step-by-step instruction sheets with visuals showing how to create stencils for all three transformations. These instructions also match up with the included videos, which also demonstrate how to create them step-by-step. 5. Practice Tessellation Sheet: This page includes the base stencil for all three transformations shown in the videos and step-by-step sheets. 6. Transformation Videos: 3 videos demonstrating how to create a reflection tessellation, translation tessellation, and rotation tessellation (including how to do a graphite transfer or light table/window transfer for complex details). Also available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
This is one of my FAVORITE art lessons for 2nd grade!! I LOVE each and every one of them!! (More info. and how they were created below! Plus a little virtual gallery walk video!) &nbs…
First, here are the freebies - :) Poetry month has officially ended, but we are still enjoying writing poems in class! Last week, the st...
Please Note: All images seen below are of my students artwork only. These photos/lessons are not posted in any particular order regarding the flow of my curriculum. Abstract Self-Portrait Paintin…
Sample a day of Rooted in Reading with these lesson plans and activities for Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, and Grammar!
Please Note: All images seen below are of my students artwork only. These photos/lessons are not posted in any particular order regarding the flow of my curriculum. Abstract Self-Portrait Paintin…
This is one of my FAVORITE art lessons for 2nd grade!! I LOVE each and every one of them!! (More info. and how they were created below! Plus a little virtual gallery walk video!) &nbs…
This week we have been working on nonfiction research. After we did our whole group study on whales, I wanted to take it a little further and do
How adorable are these?!? This lesson took (2) art classes to finish (and I had JUST enough time to squeeze in one more lesson before the end of the year)! It’s a simple one —but packs in a bunch! …
I love using interactive lapbooks in the classroom. They are fun to create, engaging and can be used throughout the year to review skills taught. I finally completely my Lapbook Bundle and I am happy to share the lapbooks included with you. Whether you think your learners will enjoy creating all of the lapbooks, if you
Free, fun and useful Kindergarten - 1st Grade, Common Core aligned lesson plans, math games, calendars, behavior charts, materials and more!
To begin our inquiry into celebrations around the world, we looked at maps and globes to see how big the world is. We found Ohio on world, maps, maps of the United States and on globes. We read books to show how people live and do things in different parts of the world. We learned that people speak in different languages, eat different foods, have different homes, and different schools. Yet we all love, have friends, families, and have the same needs such as food, water and shelter. I set up an area where they could explore globes, world maps, maps of the United States, and different types of Ohio maps showing cities and lakes, roads and counties. Paper was available to show what they notice and create maps that they see. They were very interested in the compass rose and how it showed what direction North, South, East and West is. I also set up an area where they could explore continents through clay. Some tried to put the continents together to show the world! The kids practiced reading and creating treasure maps in our sand box by hiding "golden nuggets" and creating a map using the pieces in the sand and also on paper. After studying the maps and learning about how people live around the world, we started discussing different celebrations that the kids in our class celebrate. We have friends who celebrate Christmas Diwali, Ramadan, and Kwanzaa so I decided to focus on those traditions most. We started with Diwali. It is a beautiful celebration of light! One tradition was creating Rangolies out of colored salt and sand. We watch some videos of some being created and the kids were enthralled! Since I did not have colored salt or sand, the kids made mandalas inspired by the Rangolies we saw! I set up an area for them to explore and create their own mandalas using different loose parts. I added a book about mandalas for inspiration. I was amazed at the beauty they created as they used the math concepts of growing patterns and symmetry to create them. I love when art and math come together! They also crated mandalas using our pattern blocks. They even started using the same math concepts at the easel as they started painting mandalas. I let those who were interested create rangolies out of clay and beans. Many created lovely growing patterns on these also! Mandalas started showing up outside! Some friends collaborated to create the largest one they could with the long grasses drying in our garden! We watched a video that inspired the kids to try to create "Human Mandalas!" They had so much fun with this! Light plays an important part of Diwali. It is a celebration of light defeating darkness. One tradition is lighting small lamps called Diyas. Children who were interested, created diyas of their own using air dry clay and beautiful beads. Another tradition is to create beautiful henna art on their hands. We watched a video showing the use of henna to draw these beautiful designs on a hand and wrist. We have seen henna on some of the hands of our friends in the past. The kids thought it was absolutely beautiful and loved watching this! Inspired by the video, the kids created their own henna hands. I found an old map created by a previous class that was so faded the water had turned pink! We decided to freshen it up and use it to create a display that shows these different celebrations and traditions we are learning about and where they originated. We documented what we had learned about Diwali on the computer together and highlighted sight words we had learned. We noticed "they" popped up a lot so we are focussing on that word right now! It is one of the harder ones for them to remember. I then put out samples of our art to show some of the traditions. This was only the beginning of learning about different traditions and celebrations. We learned about Diwali, but have many more to learn about! We will show you what else we learn in our next post! SaveSave
How adorable are these?!? This lesson took (2) art classes to finish (and I had JUST enough time to squeeze in one more lesson before the end of the year)! It’s a simple one —but packs in a bunch! …
Measurement is one of my most favorite math concepts to teach. Put a ruler in the hands of a student and they are as happy as a peach! When Hope
I got up bright and early this morning and drove 2 hrs. in search of the perfect wedding dress for my daughter Taylor. SUCCESS! But, I'm one tired mamma so this is going to be
Are you doing a tot school transportation theme? We finally finished up our transportation themed activities this week and had a lot of fun with all the different modes of transportation we explored. Here were our plans for Transportation Week: And here are the details of each activity: Our favorite transportation books for the week […]
So way back in September we studied all about our five senses and I made a little recording sheet for an anchor chart activity I saw on pinterest from Spotlight on Kindergarten. I made a similar anchor chart and then gave my students some popcorn and we brainstormed ideas while we ate. {any excuse for food in the classroom is ok with me!} Here is our chart we came up with...... Then, I had my students fill out the sheet below choosing one word for each of the five senses from our chart. It's a freebie for you so click on any of the pics to download the recording sheet, as well as colorful graphics for an anchor chart or whatever else you might need. My students then picked one word to write on the popcorn shapes and then we displayed them out in the hallway. This bulletin board was thrown up in a hurry...don't judge. ;) Happy Monday!
I love finding first day of school math activities! These back to school activities are perfect for middle school or high school math.
Last week we began our Procedural Writing Unit. We began the unit immersing the students with different procedural books. Students went on...
Welcome to Mrs. Stucki’s Music Room! Children love scarf play and enjoy them using them in the music room. Here are some exciting scarf ideas you can use with your music class. 1. Play classical music and call out different animal names. Let the class act out being a certain animal as they move to the music. You can also use music from Carnival of the Animals for this activity. 2. Play High and Low games by having the class demonstrate high and low notes as they listen to the Chinese Dance, from the Nutcracker or any other classical music that has high and low notes. 3. Play the game Simon Says with scarfs as you sing different ways for the class to move their scarves. I use this game at the beginning of the year with kindergarten and first graders to help them learn how to follow directions. 4. You can play the song, Shake My Sillies Out from Share the Music using scarfs with the different movements throughout the song. Fun Scarf Routine by 2nd Graders 5. You can also play folk music and teach a dance routine with scarfs. 6. Have the class play freeze dance to any music. 7. Practice Rhythms with 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders by calling out a rhythm like whole notes. The class demonstrates whole notes by letting their scarf float in the air for 4 beats before they touch the scarf again. They continue the whole note pattern until you call out another rhythm like half notes. 8. Use scarfs as props to Classical music. Have the class place a scarf in their back pocket. They can pretend to have a horse tail and gallop like a horse to music like the William Tell Overture or The Wild Horseman. Have the class pretend to float like a butterfly as you play the music by Chopin. Pretend the scarf is a cape and tell them to be a super hero as you play Prelude to Act 1, from Carmen (Theme 1). You can have the class pretend to fly like a bee as you play Flight of the Bumblebee. Want more fun activities and ideas for your class? Be sure to Sign-up by email on my side bar to claim a monthly freebie, teacher tips & tricks. I would love to hear what tricks you use or other thoughts you might have in the comments below. Enjoy! Check out some of my favorite games and activities! Contact me via email: [email protected]
Isn’t it funny how little ones are just curious about everything and totally don’t have that grossed out reaction that we have as adults? I have to admit bugs creep me out, so I was totally not excited for this week’s theme. I tried my best to contain my feelings about insects so Madelynn could […]
We are starting our unit on Bears! Last week we read many versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Part of our work on the story included this story map. It is made for kindergarten students, but would be appropriate for first grade too. They drew pictures to show their ideas and then I labeled the drawing or wrote the dictation about what what happening in each part of the story. First, the kiddos worked on the setting and characters. I love this colorful busy picture that includes all sorts of details. She put the beds outside the house because she wanted to include some of the items from inside the house in the picture. This little boy drew just the house, but added the different sized bowls and had me label them. This was a great characters picture. So darn cute! Then on another day, students did pictures for the beginning, middle, and end of the story. First, we did an activity together where we ordered picture cards and talked about different parts of the story. It was great to hear the kids verbally retelling the story in their own words. That is one of the things that is great about doing an activity like this - a great way to really listen carefully to the oral language of students. I love the picture of Goldilocks in this one. Her hair is great! I was so excited when this little sweetie used the word "discovered" in her dictation to me. Woo hoo! Great language! I thought my sweet little students did a great job with this activity! And I was happy with how much they were enjoying the many versions of the 3 bears stories. And, now that they have done a complete story map with a very familiar story, I can start doing these with more challenging literature. OK, here is your freebie, just click on the link under this image to go grab it in my TpT store: Story Map FREEBIE by Katie Byrd I hope it is a big help in your classroom! Please leave some love in the comments if you are using it with your class. Happy Teaching!
I just love using sounds for transitions in the classroom! They are a way to gain students attention without shouting. In my classroom,...
Giving students an easy, independent activity to start as soon as they arrive on the first day of school is a great way to calm their nerves. It also allows you to focus on greeting new students and getting supplies organized and put away. Here is a great first day of school printable that students ... Read More about Read & Find – First Day of School Printable
Teaching music with fun, tried & tested lessons, DIY classroom projects & ideas your students will love with Tracy King, the Bulletin Board Lady.
This is one of my absolute FAVORITE art lessons! It incorporates focusing on (5) of the 7 elements of art – (Line, Shape, Color, Form, and Texture) and is inspired by artist Claude Monet …
How to adapt Reading A-Z books (or other leveled readers) to use during your Guided Reading instruction in self contained. Learn more at Mrs. D's Corner.
Today is the last day to save on all of the Halloween products in my Teachers Pay Teachers store! I've also got another Halloween Freebie (this one is for Math): Students will count each Halloween figure and list the total in the chart at the bottom. They will then count all of the pictures and see if they can get the correct number! An Answer Key is included in the download. Click on the photo below to download: I've also got this Halloween Freebie available: Click on the picture to access the download. :)
A free and easy diy kids printable craft. Build a cat with this 1-page printout. Color, cut and enjoy! Free kids printables, all the time.
Please Note: All images seen below are of my students artwork only. These photos/lessons are not posted in any particular order regarding the flow of my curriculum. Abstract Self-Portrait Paintin…
Need an effective way to organize all of your students' IEP goals, progress notes, work samples and all else?! Click to learn about color coded IEP binders.
I love when we have an Olympic year in music class. This is the second one we've celebrated since I began teaching, and we went all out! I started off by selecting 8 countries and then dividing each of my classes into 4 teams (I have 4 risers, so each riser was a team). Students in grades 4-6 participated, so there ended up being one grade level each on every team. Each day, students competed in a different Olympic event. The events we competed in were the ski jump, speed skating, curling, bobsled, biathlon, and ice hockey. Each event focused on a different musical concept such as rhythm, singing, note reading, rhythmic values, etc. Here are the posters I created for each one. We listened to the national anthem of the winning country after each event and kept track of each country's medals on the board in the back of the room. The students loved checking the board to see which country was in the lead. Here is the final medal count from the end of the month. Here are some pictures of the students competing in each event. We used paper plates for ice skates, actual curling brooms for curling, floor hockey sticks and tennis balls for hockey, and laminated tag board for cross-country skis. The difficulty of each event was modified based on the grade level. It was a great month! Speed Skating Speed Skating Curling Ice Hockey Instrument Family target for the biathlon Cross Country skiing to the target in the biatlon Biathlon Biathlon: matching the instrument to the correct target
My school is one of many that will be required to post our daily objectives in our classrooms next year. I've FINALLY finished mine! I purc...
Can you believe we only have 8 days of school left? Where did this year go? Looking back on all of the projects that we completed, I am very pleased with the quality and quantity of work that my students produced. I truly believe that I have the most talented, wonderfully amazing students in the world! While looking back over all of the projects, I was shocked and a little upset with myself that we didn't do printmaking this year. While in college, I LOVED printmaking. I even did an independent study in it and my entire senior art exhibition was printmaking. We did printmaking in 7th grade last year but I wanted to kick it up a notch this year and make it a bit more challenging. I decided to try reduction printmaking! For this project, I took a picture of the students and used paint.net to posterize the photos into 3 colors (black, grey and white). Students shaded on the back and transferred all of their white areas onto the linoleum. We use easy carve linoleum at school and it's so easy for the kids. We haven't had any slips (or bad cuts) this year! Students used the gauge to carve away all of the areas of their print that would be left white. Since we were printing on white paper, we didn't need to print this part. All that would be left would be the grey and black areas. They chose a color and mixed it with some white to make a tint. Then students pulled a proof. A proof is a practice print so they can see what it would look like. If they were happy with their proof, they could pull 10 or more quality prints. The students discussed what made a quality print and here is their list... enough ink, no white spots linoleum carved away where it was meant to be carved away (no stray marks) Ink has an orange peel texture No finger prints No smudges (where the paper slipped on the plate) After they printed 10 or more quality prints, they had to carve away all of the grey area, leaving only the black areas to print. They then mixed a shade of ink and printed on top of their first prints. Here is the final result
Get ready for the summer months with our summer activities for kids worksheet. Share your favorite summer foods, summer activities & goals.
4th Grade- Enlarged Flower Drawings inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe! Students learned about the artist Georgia O’Keeffe, and viewed examples of her flower paintings. We talked about the scale (s…
Notes: Overripe bananas freeze beautifully — just peel them and place them in a ziplock bag in the freezer. When you're ready to use them, place them in a colander in the sink to drain — they'll give up a lot of liquid and look totally repulsive, but they work beautifully. To make homemade buttermilk: place 2 teaspoons of vinegar or lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup. Fill cup with milk until it reaches the 1/2-cup line. Let stand for five minutes. Loaf Pans: I love this Chicago Metallic 8.5 x 4.5 - inch loaf pan for this recipe. You need two pans for this recipe. Flour: unbleached, all-purpose is best Eggs: I almost always use 4 eggs, because the eggs I buy are fairly large. Recently, the eggs I purchased were on the small side, so I used 5 eggs. I can never tell the difference between using 4 or 5 eggs, so use the amount you wish. 4 eggs will likely suffice always.
Hey everyone!!! I hope everyone is having a great start to the NEW YEAR! It's always great to have a fresh start and a clean slate. (Although, is it just me or does your new year always begin in August?) : ) One of the things that I have been working on during my winter break is our lesson plans in science. By the way, we have a brand new standard this year in science!! (AND new standards are always exciting!) Drum roll...our new standard is... LIGHTS AND SHADOWS!! I know...so fun...kind of...except...I have never taught light and shadows, EVER!!! (Confession is good for the soul.) I mean, I have always taught first grade standards, AND light and shadows have never been one of our standards until now. So I definitely had to share what I learned with my first grade friends!! YOU! I have a lot of ideas, freebies, and links that you might be able to use, too. This blog post is part one of two...so hang tight...shadows will be coming next week!! We are going to launch our unit with Oscar and the Moth by Geoff Waring. He has a great collection of easy to understand books on science. This particular book is about light and shadows. Oscar the cat and his new friend the moth set out on a little journey to learn about shadows and light. Isn't Oscar a cutie? Light is energy and it makes objects visible and without it, we cannot see anything! So we are going to first discuss the kinds of light that we find in our world and list them by two categories: natural light and artificial light! We are going to use an anchor chart just like The Lesson Plan Diva's chart. Perfect! (You can check out her anchor chart by clicking on the photo above.) We are also going to be looking at all the different types of lights in real life. Would you include matches or a lighter? I am still debating. Since we don't have a real darkroom we are going to be using the restroom in our classroom. Hysterical! Just the thought of being in the restroom is going to crack my little firsties up! I am going to take them into the darkroom in groups cause my darkroom is tiny! My students who are not in the darkroom group will be working on the activity sheet below. You can find it free here! In the darkroom, I am hanging pictures of objects around the room. I want my students to see them when we shine the flashlight around the darkroom to make them visible because of light. We will discuss how light makes it possible for them to see the objects. And when I turn the flashlight off, the objects are no longer visible. (Yes...I totally expect some shrieks!! Eesh...but in the name of science, right?) In their science journals, they are going to record what they observed by drawing or writing what was visible in the darkroom. If you would like a copy of the pictures that I am going to use in my bathroom darkroom, you can find them here! We are also going to be looking at peep boxes. Have you ever used peep boxes? Kindergarten-Lessons.com is where I learned about peep boxes!! You should totally check out the website because they have some great suggestions and ideas for light and shadows! You can click here! They are not hard to make and you can easily make one for your students to see. Here is an example of one I made: Without light you can't see anything inside... But with light, you can see lots of things on the inside! I can't believe this box already had a peep hole!!!!! My students are going to record what they see inside the peep boxes in their science journals. You can find the scene that I used for my peep box here. It's so fun and exciting to look inside!!! I will be working on another one this week and I will let you know how it goes!! What kind of activities do you do for light and shadows? I am dying to know!! For the second part of our light and shadow unit, we will be talking about shadows and shadows will go along perfectly with Groundhog's Day. Yeah!! So come on back! I can't wait to show you what we are doing with shadows! Hoping you have a great week back!! An InLinkz Link-up
A dinosaur theme is a sure fire way to capture little one’s interest and curiosity. Just talking about dinosaurs with toddlers is so much fun! Our week was filled with names to learn, questions to answer and hands on activities to try. Here were our plans for Dinosaur Week: And here are the details of […]
I'm a literacy lover...getting my Masters of Education in Reading makes that pretty evident. So, when it comes to teaching math in the classroom I often felt like I was doing a terrible job. My brain does not go the math route. And trying to convince my learners that math was amazing got a little
This folding surprise pumpkin craft printable is super fun! Use it as a Halloween card or as a fun pumpkin craft for at home or in the classroom.
We are gearing up for summer this week with our ocean theme. Just 2 more full weeks of Tot School then we will be switching things up for summer, and we are so ready for some fun in the sun! Here were our plans for Ocean week: And here are the details […]
How adorable are these?!? This lesson took (2) art classes to finish (and I had JUST enough time to squeeze in one more lesson before the end of the year)! It’s a simple one —but packs in a bunch! …
The first two weeks in a special ed classroom are more than academics. Ideas on what to teach, what to practice, and what you should be doing.
This is one of my FAVORITE art lessons for 2nd grade!! I LOVE each and every one of them!! (More info. and how they were created below! Plus a little virtual gallery walk video!) &nbs…
