Five for Friday{December 6th}

I'm joining Doodle Bug's Five for Friday weekly linky party. It really is the best way to share and summarize our week.  Speaking of weeks, I have have two left until I leave my school. TWO. My goodness, I'm going to miss my school, my teacher friends, and my students so very much. 

1) We made foldables for our Science lessons this week. Our focus has been on how waves, tides, currents, and storms affect barrier island, beaches, inlets, and estuaries. My partner teacher plans all of Science and does a fabulous job with it!

  

2) One of my favorite things is doing novel studies in ELA that correlate to our Social Studies standards. I LOVE our 5th grade Social Studies standards. This week we began our unit on Lyddie, which is the story of a young girl who goes to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in a factory, trying to pay off debts on their family farm.  We have some very special activities planned for the end of this unit, which just so happens to be my last day.

We are writing chapter summaries in a booklet we made.

3) Y'all know my love for 5th grade Social Studies. This week, we've learned all about WWI. We've taken notes in our notebooks and looked at lots of pictures.  We've really studied life in the trenches.  It's hard to imagine what those soldiers lived through.

4) After we assess the WWI unit next week, we begin a unit that I have been waiting all year for....the Roaring Twenties!! I personally find this part of history SO interesting and cannot wait to study/teach it next week! 1920's fashion, entertainment, etc... I cannot wait!!!

  

  

  5) Just a quick update on our moving situation...

We are officially moving out of our house within days.  I have SUCH mixed feelings. I'm so excited about our new house, which we hope to move into just days before Christmas. At the same time, it just saddens me to move out of the house we've called home for 6 years and especially because it's the house we brought our son home to.  For the next two weeks, we'll be living in a hotel (you can imagine my excitement....[enter sarcasm]).  I have 10 days left to teach my 5th graders and 3 of those will be with the new teacher, who is Australian, by the way. The kids met her and loved her. Again, so bittersweet! I want them to love her and I'm so glad they are so intrigued by her. I'll be honest, it was really hard to let her "take over" when she came to visit and just kind of sit back...it's going to be hard to let go of those reins, so to speak.  Overall, just be thinking about us and keep us in your prayers over the next month as we begin our new journey. Bittersweet is the only word I can use to accurately describe what I'm feeling (as I type this with tears in my eyes). What a roller coaster of emotions I am on!

Hodgepodge

My title pretty much sums this post up...it's a little hodgepodge all wrapped up into 1 post. 

Today was Neon Day for Spirit Week. Although not near as fun as yesterday, it was much more comfortable. I wore this neon orange workout top.  

I "stole" a Math idea and wanted to share it with you because I thought it was so cute!  Note: This was NOT my idea, nor did I make it! Our district Math coach shared it with us and then my partner teacher made us each one!  It's called "Numeration Street". What a great visual!

My first year teaching I was given a paper titled DRY MIX and some type of graph on it. I remember thinking, "What in the world is dry mix?" I ended up throwing it away because no one told me what it was, how to use it, etc. So, into the trash it went. 

Then....I began teaching 5th grade and had an "Aha!" moment when I realized DRY MIX was a way to help students remember variables and their placements!  Dependent Responding Y-axis and Manipulated Independent X-axis.  Our Science coach was nice enough to make this poster for each of us and it has helped SO much! Another GREAT visual!  Don't mind those Tennessee teddy bears...I bought one and a student bought me the other! Go VOLS! :) 

Field Trip!

We take our students on a BIG field trip! We have a chartered bus take us 3 hours away to Charleston, SC to see Patriot's Point. Actually, this was the first time 5th grade has been, but in 4th grade we took them to Cherokee, NC and it was also 3 hours away.  

The bus ride really doesn't seem so long. The kids are excited, we bring DVD's to play on the TV's, and there is a bathroom for emergencies. We definitely couldn't do it without our wonderful chaperones. 

The first thing we saw was this animal in the Charleston harbor. Any guesses as to what it is?

It was a MANATEE! How awesome is that?! We loved watching it come up from the water and then later saw it playing in this dripping water! 

We also saw 3 dolphins! I was so glad our students were able to see both animals. So beautiful!

The first thing we did was participate in a Science program, where we broke into 2 groups. It was completely connected to our Science standards and was LOTS of fun!

After the Science program, we had a picnic lunch in a shady area that had picnic tables. We always give students a gallon sized Ziploc bag with their name on it prior to the trip. This is what they pack their lunch in. It makes it so easy to just toss the bags in coolers because they pack so easily. We also saw it's their "ticket" to get on the bus.

After lunch we toured the USS Laffey (no pictures) and the USS Clamagore. Our students couldn't believe we were actually underwater on the submarine.

I did start feeling very claustrophobic at this point! It was a tight squeeze with lots of students! I can't imagine being on the submarine for a long time.

Finally, we made our way to the USS Yorktown! One thing that was SO NEAT about it is that they were having a veteran's celebration so there were lots of veterans there that actually served on the aircraft carrier! Is that not awesome?! We spoke with a gentlemen who flew the planes we saw. 

After touring the USS Yorktown, we made our way to the gift shop before heading home!  It was an absolutely exhausting, long, but most importantly FUN day! 

Surviving

Y'all, my title states what I am doing around here...just surviving! Sadly, I don't even have enough pictures to share with you about my week.  We had some fun moments, but the stress has seemed to rise.  To make a really long story short, my son is sick again this weekend, now with strep throat which is resistant to the antibiotics he was already on for a double ear infection. His medicine (liquid and powder form) has made him puke massive amounts every. single. time. Finally, he got 2 shots and another antibiotic that we are praying will work.

While I have a minute, I have a fun Science experiment I wanted to share with you!  This was 100% planned by my partner teacher, Sarah and I think it was a lot of fun!  We have been studying about friction and the effect of lubricants.  We had an experiment where we used different types of lubricants on a wooden plank and tested the speed of a toy car as it went down the plank. We tested 4 lubricants: oil (cooking oil), water, Dawn dish detergent, and glue. We also tested it once without any lubricant. What do you think would be the best lubricant? Surprisingly, it went the fastest without any lubricant! I thought soap would be the best, but it wasn't at all. That led us into a discussion of how lubricants work differently in different situations. 

We talked about the variables that could've affected our result. We probably needed the same piece of wood, but we would've had to clean it off and let it dry each time which would've taken all day. We probably should use the same piece of wood each year. We probably needed a piece of wood that was clear from any debris. Etc, etc. As scientists, we should repeat this experiment many times to check our results. All of which we don't have time for, BUT it was still a FUN experiment! We graphed our results and compared lubricants afterwards.

Weekly Recap: Five for Friday

Whew!  Sleeping in this morning (until 7:30 at least) never felt so good!  This first week back to school has been one for the books.  I don't know if it's because it was the first week of school or because I am in a new grade level or a combination of both, but I felt overwhelmed at times and seemed to stay late or bring work home every day.  That's not my normal. When I am home, I try not to do school stuff because I only get a few hours with my son before it's time for bed/bath.  I sure hope I can get in a better routine next week. However, we had a GREAT first week of school!!  I just need to work on time management better next week.  Here's our week in a recap for Five for Friday!

1. Math - Y'all know I am all about being real.  This summer I posted about how I was going to do Math About Me boards.  Y'all, they were a flop! Ha! I'm not posting them, mainly because they have student's personal information on them. Some were really good.  Some were wild.  For example: I have 5,000 x 10,000 shirts. Really? 50,000,000 shirts?  Crazy!  LOL!  

We did have one really fun Math activity, though!  We read "The Warlord's Beads".  In the story, Chuan and his father create a counting frame (precursor to the abacus) to help his father keep count of the things he has to count for the warlord.   

We made our own counting frames to review place value and help us solve several problems!  And we got to have a little snack while making them!  I totally choked on my fruit loop and had fruit loops flying out of my mouth as I was choking and coughing....true story. 

2. Writing - We lead up to Writer's Workshop by students helping me create a Writer's Workshop looks like/sounds like chart, along with expectations that we all agreed to.  

We also made heart maps, which was our first writing activity.

3.  Science - We began by learning about the Scientific Method and then participated in an activity called "What Is Your Lung Capacity?" Students really enjoyed this experiment.  I hated covering faces in this photo because of the smiles I had to cover up!

4.  Social Studies - We set up our SS notebooks with our first page being a short writing prompt: Why is Social Studies important?  We shared and discussed what we thought after students finished writing.

Our first unit is Reconstruction, but I always like to start the year off with a little geography review.  We reviewed cardinal and intermediate directions, as well as oceans and continents.  

5.  I was super excited to get a package in the mail this week from Scholastic!  These books will be for a novel study we are doing later this year!  Each book was only $1.00, but I used my points so I only paid $3.50 total and that was for shipping!

Five for Friday

This week I've been doing what lots of you are doing...trying to savor the last days of summer, buying school supplies, and working on my classroom!  This is my last "official" day of summer.  We go back next Monday for a week of Professional Development, meetings, etc.  Here is a peek at my week! 

1.  I bought a cute, new teacher's bag!  If you're like me, you have tons of bags, but when I saw this bag on Very Jane, I thought it'd make the cutest teacher bag.  Now, please come in the mail before August 19th!

2.  I bought some cute teaching shirts!  I found a website called teachershirts.com.  I bought this Peace Love 5th Grade shirt on clearance for $8.00!  It's actually a spider orange tie dye instead of the multi-colored, but I think it'll be really cute.

I bought this shirt for my mom for her birthday and ordered an extra for myself! :)  It is in the multi-colored tie dye, which I love. Can't wait to get it in the mail today!

3.  I finished my classroom museum display (for now).  I consider this to be a work in progress as I continue to collect items for it.  It's not exactly what I'd envisioned (although I'm not 100% sure what I envisioned), but I do think it's really neat.

4.  I bought lots of pocket charts for my room!  A few weeks ago I found turquoise pocket charts at Target for $1.00 and bought two and then wished I'd gotten more.  So, this week I loaded up because I really use them a lot in my room and I wanted to have a few extra's.  It seems like every time I buy "just enough" of something, I always wish I would've bought more.

At a Math meeting this week, I found out that we have to display Math "Power Words" in our classrooms this year and that they would be looking for them.  This Math Vocabulary Wall sign and the pocket charts will be PERFECT to display the words!  I also downloaded the Science Vocabulary Wall sign to keep track of important Science terms as well.  I downloaded the signs from That's So Second Grade's Teachers Pay Teachers Store (click the link to visit).  I love all of her designs!

5.  I created a few things for my classroom!  1) Number sticks to help keep tracking of the writing process (inspired by That's So Second Grade).  2) Student Helpers & Class Ambassador signs. 3) "FUN" banner to go above my Snapshots of the Year area.

Question for YOU:  A lot of people have asked me on Instagram if I have a TPT account.  I do not have one, at least for now.  I am completely new to creating things (like the numbers and signs above) and need some newbie advice!  

1) The rainbow chevron background (which I absolutely ADORE) was free on a blog.  Would I have the right to sell products using it since I didn't purchase it?

2) Where do you get your clip art from?  Is the rule "if you purchase it, you can sell it on your products?"  For example, if I use clip art from a free clip art website, can I sell a product using it?  

3) What are the unwritten rules of selling on TPT?  I've noticed on everything I buy, there's a page at the end telling where the font, clip art, and backgrounds are from. Any unwritten rules I'd need to know about?

4) Do you change everything to a PDF so that people cannot reproduce your work and use as their own?

5) Can you use free fonts to create products to sell?  All of the fonts I have are ones I've downloaded for free.  Could I use those or can you only use fonts you have purchased?

Another advice would be greatly appreciated!!  

Throwback Thursday {Science}

Today I am linking up with The First Grade Parade in her series "Throwback Thursday".  I started my blog back in 2011 so I went way back to a post I originally wrote on November 1, 2011.  This is such a fun Science activity that I will miss doing now that I won't be teaching astronomy anymore!

This week we have been studying about astronomy. I think it can be a hard topic to teach. The kids always have so many questions about it, but they ask some HARD questions! My go to response if I don't know, "Great question. Let's research that!" One activity we do is a shadow activity. I pair the kids up in groups of 2 and let them decide who is the artist and who is the statue. We go outside (weather-permitting, of course) and the statue chooses a position and the artist traces their shadow using chalk. We put the time inside/beside the shadow. Then, we go back outside every hour and do the same thing, with the statue standing in the exact same position. Side note: Because of lunch, activity, CLOUDS, we only did it 3 times but you still get the same effect.

Here, you can see some examples of what our shadows looked like at 8:45, 10:00, and 11:05.

My students did such a great job understanding the time of day based on the shadow. I had a picture on the Smart Board of a boy standing with a shadow and we talked about how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and then determined if he was facing the west, what time of day it would be! Hard topic for 4th graders, but I felt like they really got it!

This is a great activity to use if you teach about astronomy and specifically, shadows.  

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