Silence for Sandy Hook

My prayers and thoughts are with the people of Sandy Hook Elementary. I ask that you say a special prayer for these people as well! 

Monday Made It December Edition

I am extremely behind in posting for this month and I missed last month altogether. This post will contain many pictures and I apologize but for the visual learners like me it helps! I am joining Tara at 4th grade frolics for her wonderful and inspiring linky. Be sure to check out what everyone else has posted.

 

Made It # 1: Candy Cane Wreath

 This wreath was pinterest inspired by Beverlys and you can find directions on how to make your own by clicking this link.

Monday Made It #2: Classroom Door

This door was also pinterest inspired and came from this link. I am not sure whom the credit belongs too but this is our version of it.

 Monday Made It #3: Reindeer Light Hallway Display

We always have trace the children's hands and one foot. They cut them out and we put them together with red lights for our Rudolph display. We usually do two straight lines down the hallway but this year my Parapro made this display. 

 Monday Made It # 4: Jesus is the Riesen for the season gift

 This idea came from Pioneer Party that sells creative Christmas ideas for your friends and neighbors. If you click on the name of the company it will take you to the link where you can order it. Since I was in a crunch for time, I made my own version. I was so excited to find that small bags of these are sold at the Dollar Tree!! I am giving this gift to my co-workers on our last day. 

Monday Made It #5: Chex Mix

 I saw this idea on pinterest and it also came from Pioneer Party's website. They just sell the tag for it so I made my own and I was pleased with it. My co-workers got this on Friday and thought it was the cutest gift!

Monday Made It # 6: Hot Chocolate

 I went to Dollar Tree and bought the hot chocolate, peppermint sticks, and mugs. I put everything inside of the mug and found this cute printable via pinterest from Kara at Mine for the Making. Click here and you can go to her blog and find the printable.

Hopefully you found something to inspire your creativity! My heart goes out to the families in Sandy Hook and they are certainly in my prayers! I am so proud of the teachers and their heroic acts.

October Fun

We had many exciting and fun activities for the month of October. I have been so busy, I haven't had time to post in a while. So I apologize for all the pictures in one post.

Measuring pumpkins with unifix cubes

Life cycle of a pumpkin flannel

Candy Corn Estimation

Fudge round spiders - Students counted out the 8 legs and made the spider

Shape Scarecrows

Pumpkin Investigation Chart by my student teacher

Name spider web - It is hard to see but they wrote their names on a spider and created a web

Spider webs

Shape Jack-o-lanterns

 

We learned a lot of information about pumpkins, scarecrows, and spiders this month.

Monday Made It Monthly

I am linking up with Tara at 4th grade frolics for the monthly addition of Monday Made It!

 

Apple Nachos - YUMMY!!

My inspiration came from Manifest Vegan and her version of apple nachos. If you click on her name it will take you to her page where you can see the ingredients that she used. She chose pecans and coconut but I am not a fan of either of those additions.

My ingredients:

About 1 TBS Simply Jif Creamy Peanut Butter

Dark Chocolate Chips

1 Large Fuji Apple

Sliced Almonds

 I sliced my apple thin and drizzled melted peanut butter over the apple. Then I topped with almonds and dark chocolate chips. I poured the remaining peanut butter over the top and enjoyed with my Mama. It was really good and full of flavor. 

Pumpkin Counting Mats

I used free clip art from the internet and added the numbers with text boxes to create these counting mats for my math center next week! I am going to give students pumpkin seeds to count with. 

Have a great weekend! 

Apple Unit

We are enjoying learning about apples. We had an apple taste test, explored the inside of an apple, painted with apple halves, measured and weighed apples. We completed a KW chart about apples, counted with apples and baskets, and tore paper to glue on an apple.

We celebrated Johnny Appleseed by making apple trees. We used Twix, sugar cookies, green icing, and red hots. Here is one of my students finished product.

We are working on AB patterns too. Thank goodness for die cut machines!!

Miss Lynn came and read The Apple Pie Tree to us and helped us make an apple pie. It was so delicious!!

We are going to finish our unit on apples next week with some exciting activities.

Have a great weekend!!

Color Week

This week at school we read Mouse Paint to begin our unit on colors. The kids always love this book.

 We completed lots of color activities to go with our color unit. 

Color Carnation Experiment:

We put water in the cups, added lots of food coloring, and placed carnations in the cup. The students predicted what would happen to the flowers. We got some pretty crazy ideas but most thought they would grow big and tall. The next morning when we returned to school we looked at the flowers and discussed how they changed colors.

 

Mixing Colors Experiment:

 This idea I got off of Pinterest but the original pin is from here.

 We put water in the two outside cups. We added the blue and yellow food coloring. We placed the paper towels in the yellow and blue water and watched the colors quickly run up the paper towel. We put the other end of the paper towels into the empty cup. We talked about the colors and what we thought would happen. We left the cups overnight and the next morning the children were excited to see we made the color green.

 Some students drew his or her observation of the experiment and told me what happened during small group time. I love at the beginning of the year when students are so attached to their symbols and think it is a part of their name and draw it on their papers. Too cute!!

Nature Color Hunt

We used paint strips from the store to find colors outside on our playground environment. The students did a great job collecting items that were the color of the paint strips they were given. We made a poster with the colors and objects to hang in our science center. I forgot to take a picture of it before leaving school Friday. 

We also read A Color Of Its Own and described what color we would be if we landed on the object we were holding and changed colors like a chameleon. We read Where Is The Green Sheep? and predicted where we thought he would be before finishing the story. I had one who guessed it right! She was so happy!!

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Weather Week Fun

This week we learned about weather. I am terrible about not taking pictures to share and I am going to work on that since I have a blog now. I decided to share some of the activities that were BIG hits this week.

Lesson 1: Matching/Sorting the Rainbow

 We used Skittles and matched the colors on our plates. Next week we will sort without plates or bowls to match colors. Of course the students loved eating the skittles when they were done!!

Lesson 2: Writing in Clouds

We wrote in shaving cream and pretended they were the clouds. We talked about how to form certain letters but in the picture below the students is practicing making lines from top to bottom. So many students struggle with starting at the top of their paper when making letters. 

Lesson 3: Rainbow Fruit Cups

This picture is from Color Wheel Meals because I forgot to take one at school. If you click on the picture, it will take you to her website.

We used strawberries for the red, mandarin oranges for orange, pineapple tidbits for yellow, green grapes for green, blueberries for blue, and purple cool whip for the top. The students loved eating these. We talked about following a recipe and had a chart poster with the ingredients and directions. Students followed the recipe to make his or her cup.

Have a great weekend!

Monthly Monday Made It

It is time for Monday Made It. I am so glad Tara decided to keep this going because it keeps me accountable to complete projects.

Monday Made It #1: Canvas Print

I attempted to make my own canvas with one of my favorite sayings. I used stickers to make the words on the canvas and then painted over them with several layers. I added the zebra with a stencil. Not too bad for my first attempt. Maybe the next one will be better.

Monday Made It #2: Tissue Paper Canvas

 I got this idea off of Pinterest but the original source was from here. She gives a detailed description and step by step instructions. I printed this picture for my Mama onto tissue paper and then mod podged it onto the canvas. Of course there are some wrinkles, but it turned out better than I thought it would. 

 

Monday Made It #3: Alphabet Bag

I put rice and letters into a ziploc bag and used duct tape to seal it. I printed the letters onto a piece of card stock and laminated it. I am going to add this to my book center with a dry erase marker. When students find a letter, they mark it off.

Monday Made It #4:  Spanish Give Me Five

I was so excited when I found this on Pinterest. Donna offers it in English and Spanish. She also has many other great freebies. You can download the freebie by clicking the picture below which will take you to her blog.

 I cut the Spanish cards out and put them on a poster. I have several Hispanic students and I hope this will help us teach them the correct way to sit during story time. I never thought about they wouldn't know what cross your legs meant in English. I am learning just like my students are this year! 

I hope everyone has a great Labor day and enjoys the day off! Be sure to check out all of the other fabulous projects on Tara's linky.