Girls' Camp {June 15} Monday Made It

The first three are from my week as camp director for my church's Girls' Camp. They had a fun filled week of different activities and learning about the outdoors. They went on a hike, did a service project by planting flowers at a senior living community, spent time canoeing, making a couple of crafts, learning archery, wilderness survival, preparing meals, and being spiritually uplifted. It was great, but I am glad that it is over for this year. :)

We made headbands from old t-shirts. This yellow one is an example I made. 

Cut 2 straps that go around your head.

 Cross them and match the ended. 

Hot glue the 4 ends together.

I added a bow and used a small tab of fabric to give it more a finished look.

This girl made her own by cutting three long strips, pulling on them to stretch them out and then braided them. She ended up hot glueing the ends to make sure it stayed secure.

The girls were way more creative than me, but I didn't get pictures of them all.

I forgot to get a picture of a final product and one of the girl's instead of my toddler's.

You use canvas and draw a design with sharpies.

Then take rubbing alcohol and a paintbrush and lightly brush.

It smears the sharpie and looks pretty cool.

My toddler liked the painting with the alcohol a little much, so hers didn't come out very bright. You can see the corner of another girl's in the bottom right of the picture.

We made tin foil dinners one night. We were hungry and I didn't get a finished picture of this either.

What we used:

hamburger patties

carrots

celery

sliced potatoes

a dab of beef gravy

salt & pepper

It was yummy!

We had salad and s'mores to go with it.

I am going to be out on maternity leave for the 1st quarter. I was able to make an example of what I want my kiddos to work on during their social studies rotation with me. 

I'm using a combo of two TPT products. 

Native American Lapbook by Fifth in the Middle

Native American Unit by Rockin' Resources

We won't study all the cultures the lapbook lists. There is an editable form, but it won't hurt for the students to know that they are there.  I starred the ones we will study on the front.

My students will use the information from the Native American Unit to fill out the info tabs in lapbook pockets.  The table is the answer key of what information each pocket should contain.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Don't forget to check out other Made Its and link up with your own!

*Steph*

{4.24} Five for Friday

We are lucky enough to have a fabulous half time art teacher! This wall used to have a different mural on it, that in my opinion wasn't very pleasing to look at. This year she decided to have students paint over it and break it into sections to represent the different animals & habitats in Alaska. These are some 5th graders working. I'm super excited about the final product!

I do not have any sons nor do I have to help my husband tie his tie. This young man asked me to help him with his this morning. Uh-oh. 

Luckily, we had a male sub in our grade level or else I would have sent him to our 1 male teacher in 3rd grade or our custodian.

How many males do you have working in your building?

April snow showers are common here… we ended up with this one for a a day and half. 

Hopefully we're done with it now. :)

We used Socrative again! I love it! 

I created a 10 question review for our last three lessons. Students worked this quiz at their pace and then moved right into the lesson video. I downloaded the report and I love how they color coordinate so that I can see right away which were answered correctly or not. I'm a little sad to see that much red, but at least I know what we need to go over again before our quiz.

I ended up with an unexpected doctor appointment yesterday afternoon for our coming baby girl. We had an assembly in the afternoon so it was fairly easy to adjust for a sub. Everything ended up being just fine and I was out of the office within an hour. That meant that I got to spend the majority of a wonderful sunny afternoon with my toddler. She loves her leaves, sticks and dirt! 

Pretend It's in the Lesson Plan

Do you ever have activities just jump into your brain? 

I'm not sure if it's inspiration or just my pregnancy brain but I've made some last minutes adjustments to my lesson plans lately. 

We had been working on inferences and deductions. It was the Friday before Easter. 

I had been reading some "What Am I" riddles to my reading comprehension group and one boy said, "These are fun! I want to make my own." 

*Spark*

Pulled out the construction paper… whipped up an example… let them try it out

I thought they turned out decent for spur of the moment. Next year I will have it actually planned and we'll spend a little more time on it. Enjoy!

(Close ups of a couple eggs and their clues coming soon… I forgot to take them and if I don't get this posted, it may not happen.)

Once a week we specify one of our homeroom blocks as geography. We've been spending a lot of time on learning the states. I have one puzzle of the whole US. I wanted the kids to have to place the states but didn't want to make paper puzzles. 

What do I do? 

I gave each student 2 puzzle pieces. (I have 27 students but a couple were absent so it worked out.)

They then had to put the puzzle together as a class, silently. They could only touch their own pieces, but they could suggest where someone should put their pieces by pointing. They also had to step out of the inner circle if they didn't have any pieces in their hands. This kept 1-2 student from taking over the whole activity. I also timed them. It ended up being a great class building activity. Everyone was involved, most of the students were pretty positive with each other. That is a huge plus as this has been a rough year with the way our students have been treating each other.

My future plans for this… acquire 3-4 more US puzzles and have races with smaller groups. 

If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Squiggle Lines

What do you do when your co-teacher is caught up in a meeting and can't take her half of the kids? 

You pull out some task cards that are waiting to be laminated, 

have the kids draw pictures 

and compose a story to go with that picture using the basis of your reading programs.

(Honestly, I can't remember who I got the task cards from. It was a freebie sometime this last summer and I can't even find it in my mass of products that I own, so if you know whose they are please let me know!)

Our reading program that the SPED teacher and I both teach, though different levels, have the students work on writing sentences and paragraphs that report on pictures. After students created a picture based off their squiggle line, they had to create a story using the Before, During and After structure.

Here are some of the pictures they create. I outlined most of the shapes in black but I missed a couple. See if you can find the shape. 

I probably shouldn't have a favorite, but this one is definitely it!

5th Graders are Thankful for

There are a few things that we make sure to do as a 5th grade team, not matter which reading class we have. That way all kids feel included and it helps create community. 

This is a great activity because students have the opportunity to think creatively and express themselves. We begin with the normal THANKFUL acrostic poem. I challenged my intervention students to think about things that weren't tangible. If they wanted to say something tangible, they also had to explain why. 

 Then we looked at different autumn scenes, mainly pumpkin oriented, and the students created their own using crayons. When they were finished, I washed over them with black watercolor paint.

The finished product….

I'm linking up with Joanne from Head Over Heels For Teaching and her Spark Student Motivation Saturday linky because my students were completely engaged in this activity. Being able to express themselves and draw with crayons made them feel really good about themselves. Since we spent a decent amount of time noticing things about the autumn scenes, the artwork came out much better than on others that we didn't talk about. Also, they love being able to have their work out there as a grade level. It makes every one feel good. :) 

 Thanks for stopping by!

*Steph*

Art Tuesday: Leaf Rubbings

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my 4th graders made calendars with pieces of art based on Alaska. I saw that Mel at Frog Spot has an art link up. I thought it would be fun to show a few of the calendar pieces we do. I will share one today and another on a different Tuesday! (I need to have something to blog about throughout the summer!) 

September here in Alaska is way different from the lower 48! I remember growing up in Eastern Oregon and then spending time in Cache Valley, Utah for college. The fall was lit up in color! Here in AK, we mainly get yellow/green in the fall. It is also very quick! Once the leaves turn, it is only a week or two before they fall. My school is named after a creek, which is named after a common tree up here, cottonwoods. We try to get all the kids to do a rubbing of a cottonwood tree for the calendar, but it doesn't always happen. This is usually the first calendar page we do. 

We take the kids out and let them find a few leaves from the ground. After they all have their leaves,  they practice leaf rubbings on a blank paper before they do it on their classifying worksheet. Once they have their rubbings, they identify the shape, the vein pattern, and the type of edge. After all of that, they are usually able to get a great rubbing for their calendar! They also get creative and start mixing colors. 

To do a leaf rubbing there are a few key steps. 

First, have a fresh leaf. If the leaf is old, the veins aren't as plump and won't show up in the rubbing as well. 

Second, use a crayon that doesn't have any paper on it and hold it horizontal. 

Three, hold the paper with the non-crayon hand so that it doesn't slip around. If it slips, your rubbing will become all smudged and not as clear.

Four, if needed, lift the crayon and carefully push away from you on areas that are not being cooperative. 

Practice makes perfect!

How do you integrate art and/or science into your day?

*Steph*