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Friday, April 18, 2014

Five Random Things from my week.

It's time for Five for Friday! I have been very forgetful lately in regard to documenting the miracle as it happens. But I did have enough to participate in this favorite linky this week! Whoot! Don't forget to read about everyone else's week! Just go to Doodle Bugs Teaching and read about our five random things from our week or our day. And don't be shy about leaving comments. Everyone loves to be loved in the form of a comment.

Numero Uno. (why am "speaking" in Spanish? No idea. It just sounded fun this morning).



My first grade group read The Amazing Ocean. It was a hard read for them. I decided we needed a connection to reward ourselves! So we wrote a sentence about one creature in the book and illustrated and labeled it.

Numero Dos.

Seriously? Yep, those are tights (aka pantyhose) on her head. 
Punky with her fully contained ecosystem: 4th grade science project.
Science at our house. My daughter's fourth grade class is having a science fair and needed a project. Our first few ideas got shot down. This one was at least as much fun for Mom, maybe more. But the smile says it all, she was proud. Her question is: will everything live. Everything includes: 2 small crickets, 2 sow bugs, 4 small guppies, 2 small aquarium snails, plus water plants, aquarium gravel (on both levels), soil, dead stuff to decay (leaves, and sticks and grass), grass seed to grow in the dirt, and a couple small marigold plants (left from when my previous First grade reading group planted them before Spring break-- handy, huh?).

Numero Tres. 


A second grade student that I work one-on-one with read Make a Boat That Floats. Then we made a boat and put it in water so it could float. We found out that it sails smoothly if you breath hits the water, but if you blow directly at the boat, it swirls around in circles as it moves. It was fun, it was motivational. 

Numero Quatro.


This is the wild yak that my Second grade group made. Last week we read Yaks of the Mountains and found out that one male wild yak can be up to 8 feet tall and 11 feet long! How do drive the monstrosity of this size to your students? So we got bulletin board paper and we make a wild Yak. We (um... mostly someone else, thanks Kelli!!) hung it in the hallway after school. I don't know how many people said, "Look at that COW!" A teacher suggested I put YAK on him really large, but I decided to put, "I am not a cow! Read to find out more" so that students and adults will come close and read about our yak! I had at least as much as the students and we all learned a lot.  One of their favorite facts was the a wild male yak weighs as much as car, or 2000 pounds. I said, "lets put that in terms of students, figuring that an average second grader weighs around 50 pounds, how many second graders would equal one yak?" We wrote our yak facts on the yak with black crayon. We will present our information to the second grade classes next week. This was a time consuming project but very rewarding! 

Numero Cinco. 

Best friend time. Once again I didn't get a photo of my friend and I. But I was given strict instructions by one Punky-girl to take lots of pictures of Stella, my bff's bff. Okay, more like her kiddo. So here is a picture of my friend's "puppy" Stella. I made the hour and half trek to my friend's house and we had lunch, shopped, watched college students blow glass (this is a long process and we actually got too hot and had to leave early), and talked and talked and talked. Good for the soul. 



2 comments:

  1. Found your blog through 5 for Friday! I love all the hands on activities you used to extend understanding of the books you were reading. I work with all ages in small groups and feel the pressure to use all of that time for serious reading instruction when it's the hands on activities that actually help it stick and make it meaningful for the students.
    Have a great weekend : )

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    1. I agree with you 100%! I feel pressure to do the "serious instruction" sometimes too, but I'm trying really hard to not give in to that! The lead teacher in the reading room is very supportive of comprehension extension and hands on learning! So I feel like I am back on track with giving the extra boost and allowing students to make that connection. It is hard sometimes to stay focused on this because our time with students is just too short, but small groups are the perfect place to bring in learning of broader depth (in my humble opinion).

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