Very Excited!

A few weeks ago I hosted a Stella & Dot trunk show for some of my teacher friends. It was such a great way to unwind and talk about something other than school on a Wednesday night. Needless to say, I fell in love with this company and am so excited to start my own Stella & Dot business. Although I could very easily spend hours in front of my computer working on school related projects, Stella & Dot will be another creative outlet where I can also earn some extra money...and all teachers need that! Click on the picture below to see this irresistible line!

Corn Harvest

Two days of school and one teacher work day are all that come between me and sweet summer vacation! In the meantime, I am enjoying our last days together. On Friday we "harvested" our corn... we walked out to the garden, pulled up the entire corn stalk and then found the ear of corn on each plant. My students were amazed at how such a tall plant could grow from a tiny seed. They LOVED the corn and even ate it RAW, right off the cob! They took a lot of pride in their harvest and this is definitely a project I will do again next year. 

Room 102's Corn Factory

In awe at how tall their corn plants grew!

This came from a seed?

Mama, Is It Summer Yet?

I know this is THE question on everyone's mind at my school! So today we read Nikki McClure's book, Mama, Is It Summer Yet? As I was reading this book to my class, I realized that my planned lesson on schema was good, but my students were more into guessing what season Mama was describing to her child. A light bulb went off in my teacher mind and I decided that this book would also be a great review for the Science SOL on seasons...so I created these "book bits" to use tomorrow as a follow up lesson.

I plan on cutting each excerpt apart and passing them out to small groups of students. Their job will be to guess what season their "book bit" describes. Then we will come back together and discuss each group's inference. The objective is for the students to realize that all of the "book bits," except for one,  are a description of spring because spring comes right before summer! I will ask them what season MOST of the book takes place in. After we discuss our inferences and conclusions, I will have students choral read the book with me one more time.

Under the Sea Unit

With just 2 more full weeks of school, I am determined to keep our schedule consistent while planning some fun activities that we finally have time to do. I loved the under the sea painting that Really Roper shared. This will definitely be one of our art activities this week.

Here is a math station game I just finished making for our Under the Sea unit. We are going to review time in math because we need more practice! I have some activities in the "Time" math station basket that are harder (i.e. they work on telling time in 5 minute increments), but my students who are struggling need to practice time to the hour and half hour... click below for the game!

Poetry Notebooks

I planned to share some of our poetry notebooks from our duckling unit we finished a few weeks ago, and low and behold Just4Teachers also posted on poetry notebooks. I will definitely be borrowing her idea about having my students autograph each other's notebooks.

Recently, one of my students was out for a week and I sent home some work for her to do with her mom. One of the things I put in her bag to work on while she was out was her poetry notebook. Her mom called me and told me how much she loved looking through the notebook and seeing not only how much more complex the poems became over the course of the year, but also how her daughter's illustrations became more detailed. I can't wait to send home her notebook complete with the end of the year poem and autographed class picture ! I hope it is a keepsake my students will hold onto and maybe even read over the summer!

Math Station Numbers

Here are the numbers that I used this year for my math station management chart. The colors behind the numbers correspond with the color basket I used for each station. I am rethinking the basket idea for next year because they were too small and didn't hold up well. But I will definitely incorporate these numbers again! A few people asked for them, so here they are! 

Debbie Diller's Math Stations Blog Party

I was so excited to come across the blog party about Debbie Diller's new book on math stations. As we wind down and come to the end of this school year, I am ready to purge and organize. I have tried out a few new ideas (i.e. a new way of organizing my magnetic word wall so it is more accessible), and I think this is a great time to think about how I want to organize my math stations next year.

I am definitely going to keep my system of managing math stations. This worked great; however I may add some pictures to the numbers so that students have a clearer idea of which concept they are working on at each station.  I also found that I can have no more than 2-3 students per station.

I can't wait to start organizing manipulatives and mapping out a better way to allow students to have some freedom in what they are working on in math stations.

Tomorrow I will take pictures of our duckling unit...complete with baby ducklings! This week we are working on reading and comparing The Little Red Hen stories. Hopefully I will have some printables and pictures to share soon!