Wrapping Up Testing

State testing is over and it's time to breathe a sigh of relief.

The first half of Friday the students rotated through centers.

Here, students are making butterfly cupcakes. They spread purple or pink icing onto the cupcake. Then, used 2 pretzels for the wings, 1 sour straw for the body, 1 Skittle for the head, and 2 Twizzlers for the antenea. 

 

At this station, they are making colorful eggs. First, strips of scrapbook paper were placed over an oval and cut to size. After gluing the scrapbook paper onto the first oval, a second oval was cut out and glued over the scrapbook paper to make a frame.

 

 

 

Symmetrical butterflies were made with the help of Ms. Gros. A paper was folded in half and students traced out half a butterfly's body with food coloring. The paper was carefully folded and pressed down so the food coloring would print onto the other side.

 

 

At another center, the students decorated spring trees. 

At the last center, students worked on a spring packet.

When the mess...I mean creativity...was cleared, we began reading the first chapter in Charlotte's Web.

For each chapter, the students will complete the following activities in their novel folder:

-  find vocabulary word used in the story and copy sentence or create your own sentence using word

-  summarize 

-  journal (2 to 4 critical thinking questions are provided and students choose one to answer)

-  homework questions

Students participated in academic relays the last half of the day.

Two classes competed in each relay. For one relay, the students had to pop a balloon to get the question contained inside. Once answered correctly, they raced back and tagged the next participant.

 

In the second relay, students had to give up a shoe. Each shoe contained a question. The students raced to find their shoe, correctly answer the question, and race back to tag the next child.

New Spelling Centers and Counting Change

The students did well for the past nine weeks with the current centers, but a change was needed. Ms. Gros set up the following centers:

Play-Doh: Students spell words with Play-Doh

Puff Glue: First, the words are written in marker. Then, they are traced with puff glue.

Spin-a-word: Spelling words are written on a spinner. The students spin a paper clip and write the word that is landed on. This is done 20 times. Finally, the students create a bar graph of words spun.

We began learning about money last week. 

One activity the students enjoyed was coin rubbing. I found this activity on Brain Pop Jr. The students showed amounts using coins and made an imprint by shading with colors. 

We also received letters from our pen pals yesterday!

We can't wait to catch up with them!

Reading Centers

After the students spend 10 minutes in spelling centers, they begin reading centers. There are 4 centers they can be assigned.

• Phonics - With Ms. Gros, the students receive phonics instruction.

• Comprehension - Students choose a fiction story, read it, and answer questions found on the back.

 

• Lexia - a software program that diagnoses the student's skill level and provides practice or instruction where needed 

• Reading Skills - Students read a story and complete an assignment depending on weekly skill. Students created a flip book identifying title, author, characters, setting, and plot.

Hurricane Isaac Writings and So Much More

After being "off" for 8 days, the students had so much to share. They experienced a lot during this past week due to Hurricane Isaac. My partner teacher, Ms. Gros, provided them with an opportunity to share. The idea came from another fantastic teacher at our school, Mrs. Shepherd. 

First, Ms. Gros had the students divide their paper in three and illustrate their feelings before, during, and after the storm.

Then, they discussed descriptive words using the five senses. We ventured into the cafeteria and sat the students on the stage with their backs to the cafeteria. They wrote words using their sense of smell and hearing to describe the cafeteria.

 

The students turned around to look at the cafeteria after jotting down some words and then used their sense of sight to describe.

 

Ms. Gros and I were extremely please at how well the students did on this assignment! They were engaged and wrote two columns of words for each sense! At lunch, the students used their sense of touch and taste to write descriptive words and shared when we returned.

Our next step was to create a Flee Map to prepare for our Hurricane Isaac writings. A Flee Map is a graphic organizer that can be used to outline a writing.

Two choices were given as a topic sentence: "Do you want to know why I have been out of school for eight days?" or "Do you want to know what happened in south Louisiana?" Students chose a topic sentence and wrote it in the top rectangle along with the sentence "Hurricane Isaac hit Louisiana." They then thought back to their illustrations of their feelings before, during, and after the hurricane. In the first square, the students wrote "Before Hurricane Isaac, I felt ___." They inserted their feeling and wrote three reasons why they felt that way on the lines under the first main idea. The remaining squares were filled with "During Hurricane Isaac, I felt _____" and "After Hurricane Isaac, I felt_____" and filled in supporting details. Finally, a conclusion sentence was written in the bottom rectangle. The students wrote either "Now you know why I have been out of school for eight days" or "Now you know what happened in south Louisiana," depending on which topic sentence they chose.
Tomorrow, they will use the Flee Map to write their story.

A quick lesson as given on looking up words in a glossary. The skill learned in this lesson was used to define vocabulary words. The students wrote the vocabulary word, wrote the page number it was found on, and wrote the definition.

We ended our day with centers. Ms. Gros' group created a necklace with beads and stars (in preparation for tomorrow's expository writing.) My group reviewed previous math tests and learned test taking strategies. The remaining students either practiced math skills from games on this blog, watched math videos on an iPod, or read a story with the Leap Pad.

We accomplished A LOT today and I am looking forward to tomorrow!