Food Chains and Poetry

This week has been a ball of fun for the kiddos! YAY! I love weeks were I am able to plan fun, creative things for my lovelies to do in order to express their learning. That is really a weakness for me....creativity.

This week we have been learning how animals get energy, this includes food chains. We created our own food chains from an ecosystem of our choice on styrofoam cups. Most of my students chose the forest or savannah. We used the cups to make a mobile.

First, I poked holes at the top of the cup. I gave everyone 4 cups to create their mobile.

The students wrote the names of their animals and plants with a pen. I tried using a crayon and marker, but neither one of them would write on the cup. The students then drew their animals on a piece of paper. Then they cut them out in order to glue them onto the cups.

I strung the cups together with string.

Here is our finished product. A couple of my students said that it looks like snow falling from the ceiling. Ha ha ha.

We are starting our poetry week in our reading series. There were some difficult words for them to understand without a little help. So, we talked about the words "alliteration" and "personification" through examples.

After that I had the students create their own alliterations and personifications. They had a blast! Their favorite part was creating personification examples.

 To quote my favorite TV show..."I love it when a plan comes together".

Oh...I almost forgot....I got a dog! It's a sweet little thing. Here name is Pete Sake. She hasn't left my side since she's been at home!

It's All About Weather

 It's spring break!!! I've made it!!!!!

     I love, love teaching our weather unit. It's not the fanciest thing in the world, but I love seeing my students get so involved with each lesson. There is always the black-hole of never ending questions. No way can they all be answered. Every once in a while, I am able to get the kiddos to find out the answers on their own. This is a rarity, but it does happen.

       Like any good teacher try to keep her students entertained, we have a couple of songs that we use to help our lovelies remember the water cycle and the types of clouds. The water cycle song is something one of my team members remembers from when she was in 3rd grade, and the cloud song was composed by an old 3rd grade team member.

Water Cycle Song

(To the tune of "She's Comin' Around the Mountain", and there are hand motions for each part)

Water travels in a cycle, yes it does
Water travels in a cycle, yes it does

Water goes up as evaporation (hands rise)

It forms clouds as condensation (Hands clap without touching)
Falls down as precipitation (Hands make come down like rain)
Yes it does.
Water Cycle! (Fist pump in the air)

Cloud Song

(Well...it's more like a rap)
Clouds, clouds, amazing clouds
Cumulus clouds are fluffy and white
Could mean good weather
It might! It might!
Clouds, clouds, amazing clouds.
Stratus cloud are low and grey
It might mean that rain is coming today
Clouds, clouds, amazing clouds
Cirrus clouds are wispy and high
This means it's nice and we'll play outside
Clouds, clouds, amazing clouds
Watch out for cumulonimbus clouds
Their thunder and lightening make a big
Boom-pow!
Clouds, clouds, amazing clouds

If you would like to have the PowerPoint presentations for these, you can visit my TPT store. Just click on the picture below.

Little Pig Webquest

As I am currently revamping some of my school items, thinking of things that I need to do for the kiddos, and reading my books; I remembered a webquest that I created for on of my graduate classes. It's a literature and science webquest using the story The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.

After reading the book, the students must determine if Mr. Wolf is guilty or innocent. He makes a very convincing argument. The students have to first research characteristics of real wolves. Creating a newsletter, they will tell their decision. To add some extra fun, everyone participates in a courtroom trial, using the information they found to help them create a real courtroom experience.

Click below for this awesome webquest

Volcano Projects

Going to grad school doesn't make it easy to post on a regular basis, let me tell you. I am so excited that we finally finished our volcano projects! Our reading story was all about volcanoes, so why not learn as much as we can about volcanoes??

We started out with doing a K-W-L chart before ever reading our reading story and starting our research. Then the races were off! I split the students into groups, giving them all different resources to use to find as much information as possible. They were to write all their important information in their discovery journals. This took about 3 days since we do not get a lot of time for science/social studies.

They had so much fun doing their research! It was hard to make them stop. Since we did not have enough books for everyone, we rotated the groups. This insured that everyone got a change with all the resources. 

After the research was complete, the students were busy little bees constructing their posters. They needed to include a pictures of volcanoes and the information that they found. Here a couple finished products...

I knew it was then time to finish our K-W-L chart. We were going to complete a science experiment to go with our research, but it has been too rainy for the past week. May be another time.

This coming week we are starting fractions!!! I'm pretty excited about this too, because we are going to be playing some great games and learn how to cross multiply. Fun, fun, fun!!!