What we've been up to ....

 Here's a glimpse into what we've been working on lately

Before we jumped into place value to 9,999 we reviewed place value to 999 with a fun partner game. 

Each student's desk is taped off into 3 sections with the headers: standard form, expanded form and word form at the top.  The deck of playing cards is the bright green stack in the back

Dry erase board is used to keep score. 

 The opposing partner draws a card from the deck and shows it to their partner.  The partner then correctly sorts what form the card is in.  The opposing partner affirms or corrects and gives a point or does not award a point. 

 student's game board with correctly sorted forms

 orange cards were challenge cards where the students had to write the number in a certain form.

They loved it and it was great review. 

Science: We are learning about soil and experimenting with humus, clay, and sand. 

 Here students are using the hand lens to observe the types of soil

 We record our daily findings and activities in our Soil Journals

 This was by far our messiest eperiment yet. Playing with wet humus, sand, and clay and seeing which one could be rolled into a ball. 

Clay and humus were are winners.

Clay took first place in the most messiest of them all.

Behavior Party numero uno: CupCakes

We provided the cupcakes and then students got to create their own cupcake by choosing the icing, and toppings. 

It was a HUGE success.

is your mouth watering yet?

End of the School Year Activities

I am so happy to be on summer break and have finally uploaded some photos from our last few days in the classroom.  Not only did I have to shut down the school year with report cards, IEP progress reports, and cumm folders, but I also had to pack up and move my classroom a few doors down into a new classroom. (the journey of unpacking, setting up and organizing will come later during the summer). Whew talk about exhausting.

Here's a few things we did the last few days of school.

Water Balloons

On one of the HOT days where we weren't allowed outside after 12 pm due to heat conditions, we headed outside with pages from our memory books, Popsicles, and a tub full of water balloons.  

First we sat around in a circle and I had each student share what they were most proud of from this school year. While they stood up and shared, I dictated their answers for a page that would go in their end of the year memory books.  Also while sharing we enjoyed icees as the sun was blazing down on us. 

Once we cooled off we practiced throwing our paper airplanes for the school wide Air Show that would take place the next day.  This made for some sweaty, ready to get wet students.

Then I had them pick partners and we played a few rounds of water balloon toss.  The last thing we did with the water balloons was a have a water balloon war.  We had a blast and it was a great way to cool down.

We also started  our End of the Year "remember me" shirts.  Each child got a shirt with each students handprint on it.  This served as a memory of all the friends they made this year as well as the specials times we shared as a class.  I got the shirts at a local thrift store and used my teacher discount at Michaels to get the fabric paint. 

We all wore our shirts on Awards Day. Here's how fabulous they turned out

yaay for fun crafting activities.

Candy Math

We also did a fun candy math activity using the following template i found via blog surfing: Candy Math Document  . This involves candy and math skills so you can't go wrong.  We used Skittles and M &M's. 

Once we completed the steps in the activity the students were able to eat their candy.

I don't know which they enjoyed better: the math activity, or eating the candy at the end (wink wink)

Feel free to snag any activities/ideas for future end of the school year days.  Also feel free to leave any activities you do with your students. Sharing is a MUST in the teaching world.