My daughter recently became engaged to a wonderful southern gentleman. My own groom of 25 years and I are so excited for them. They've got me thinking about something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. As I reflect over the past year I can think of something from my classroom that fits into each category.
Alright the only things older than me in the classroom are these fossils! My students
loved uncovering bones and finding out which dinosaur they belonged to. I ordered small dinosaur dig kits from Oriental Trading Company. They lived up to their description!
I just made these bookmarks for students to keep track of their summer reading.
They're FREE for a limited time on Teacher Pay Teacher. You can always get them FREE HERE!
No Oreos were left uneaten at the end of this moon activity. The evening we worked
on this I went to a couple of students baseball games and we were able
to identify the moon's phase thanks to this activity I borrowed from Hilary Lewis.
After eating the oreo we used chalk to make a more permanent resource for home!
Our school bluebirds were back this year. In fact, there were two nesting pairs around
the playground. They fledged on the last day of school! I loved recess duty during the time
the mom and dad were coming and going feeding their young. I opened the box to check the chicks a couple
of times. I counted five little bluebirds! They'll nest again in this box this summer.
Welcome, May! No one loves May more than those of us who have lived through five months of snow and cold. Warmer temperatures and sunnier skies who doesn't like that? I'm linking up with Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade. Have you seen her packet for students on TPT? My students look forward to filling out and decorating their own Currently.
Can you tell that I am a total bird-brain?! Spring is the time of year that I have a hardest time going to school. I just want to go bird watching and catch the many migrating birds that fly through on their way north for the summer.
I just got this gorgeous book about bird nests.
The rhyme and rhythm of this book made it a delightful find for me and my students love learning the facts about different bird nests. I will never have enough bird books!
Surprise Tammy at Forever in First! You won a set of juggling chicks. I hope your students will enjoy tossing and catching these little guys as much as I enjoy making them. Tammy, I love your Saturday Sayings. They always give me great food for thought! Did you see the chicks? Click here to see them!
My real chicks are getting so big! They have been so much fun to watch grow.
When I'm not teaching...I'm usually planning for teaching! Not tonight. I took the 2014 Cold Water Challenge. When you have been challenged you can either pay $100 to your favorite charity OR go jump in a lake. When you live next to Lake Michigan, that was covered with ice just a few weeks ago, you jump in the lake AND make a donation to charity. I usually spend most of my time on the beach reading when I go to the lake. I'm quite content sticking a toe or two in on really hot days.
My charity of choice? Heifer International. Heifer International has been helping people help themselves out of poverty, hunger and despair for almost 70 years. In my classroom we are reading and feeding. With each AR quiz taken students count out change that matches the number of points earned from reading. We are trying to earn enough money to buy a flock of chickens...Of course. That is one of the cool things about Heifer. Their catalog is filled with amazing farm animals, and projects that you can choose from to help people help themselves and to share with their community. Their Read to Feed program is a great way to get students to read to make a difference in another person's life.
So, go jump in a lake, find a charity you are passionate about and make a difference!
What a fun week it has been. I can say that even though I spent an "extra" day at school this week. The Snow Days finally caught up with me and I had to put in some time. I should have been able to sleep in and spend the day with my Cranky Bear and chickens. I was happy to spend Good Friday making it meaningful and full of meaning!
My students loved making "Resurrection Gardens" I hope the grass grows for them before Sunday. One of my Lego maniacs snuck some pieces in to decorate their garden. It cracked me up when I checked and watered the gardens after school and found the Lego angel, soldier and bones scattered around the garden.
I went to THIS web-site for help on making this project!
Number 2 is my new found love for chickens! I had to bring two chicks home until they are big enough to live without a light. They are just about ready to go to their permanent home. Until they do I will enjoy every possible moment with them. My cat is totally fascinated with them. Can you think of a caption for this picture?
Number 3...Did I mention I love chick(en)s? Here are the ones I made to use in the classroom. We toss them back and forth to each other and skip count. They are great tools to use for brain breaks and I'm sure glad I saw Red Ted's tutorial to make these cute chicks!
Number 4! Did you know it was Palindrome week? Each day this week the date was the same forward as backwards. Yikes...How fun is that? Not quite as much fun as this book! It is full of palindromes and just a lot of fun! Number 5....This is my favorite! We made these beautiful stain glass windows to celebrate Good Friday. I had a hard time sending these home. They are beautiful.
Contact paper and a silhouette make for a beautiful project!
Happy or hoppy Easter! This year I have only one third of my children to celebrate with. For the first time ever we are going out for brunch instead of cooking our own fancy dinner. I can't wait to link up with Doodle Bugs for the first time in a loooong time to share my five for Friday!
Ah the joys of testing! Achievement testing is actually one of my favorite times of the year. I love walking around the room noticing how smart my Owlets are. I get so excited when they get to answer questions that cover something that we recently worked on in class and see that light bulb of "I know this one" light up. I do have a couple of students who don't like testing at all and get pretty stressed out about it, so I try to make the moments in between testing as fun and stress-free as possible.
Because I teach a first/second split I have to vary who is being tested and who is being absolutely quiet. As you may know I'm in my second week of raising chicks. Four have found their permanent home. I made up a quick coloring page for my students to use when they weren't testing. I gave them no directions. I casually laid them on the table for students to use if they wanted. Every second grader picked one up and came up with some pretty amazing ideas. A couple wrote a narrative on how to hatch and take care of chickens. The rest wrote stories about their chicks. I must admit this is my favorite...
I could have told students to turn the chicken into their favorite book character, but what makes this chicken even better is that the kid came up with this idea on his own. "I wanted to make the robe scarlett," reports class famous reader, "but you said I couldn't get out of my seat during testing. I just used the tools I had available." I think this chicken is bound to catch the Golden Snitch and win the tournament for Chickendor!
Wanna see something really cute? I must first make this disclaimer...No animals were hurt during this photo shoot. My daughter wanted to introduce her cat to my chicks. On Sunday when I was in my classroom working, my daughter shows up at the door with the cat...
What caption would you add to these pictures?
Click HERE to get a copy of your own chicken to disguise!
Can it really have been a month since I last posted? Yikes! Stomach flu, visiting children, and winter doldrums have left me with little motivation to do anything but get through each day. I refuse to complain about the long winter...It will only make spring that more wonderful when it finally gets here. Maybe summer will get here first. She's welcome too!
We set our alarm clock for 12:57 on March 20th. That is when spring arrived on the calendar. Our school had a mob flash dance as soon as the alarm went off. We sang and danced to this Happy song...
Then it was back to work. The work of watching chicks!
Whenever I have had the chance to go to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, I spend most of my time looking at the chicks hatching. It is my favorite part of the whole museum. I'm always disappointed that I have to move out of the way for people who are shorter than I am.
After years of dreaming about hatching my own chicks I finally did it. Since we studied life cycles in science, it fit into the curriculum perfectly! It has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Hearing a chick make peeping noises before it even shows signs of hatching is just the most delightful thing in the world.
There are some important things to keep in mind before trying this yourself! Find someone who is willing to take the chicks once they are too big to stay in your classroom. Make sure that people are will to take roosters and hens! I was lucky to have three people tell me they are willing to take any or all of our chicks.
Once you place the eggs in the incubator DO NOT open the incubator. Whoops! I didn't know that. Luckily, my eggs made it anyway. The temperature and humidity needs to be fairly consistent and opening and closing the incubator can kill young chicks. Imagine the excitement in our classroom when students were actually able to see four eggs hatch.
Chicks poop. They poop a lot! Changing the bedding material frequently is important as is proper hand washing after handling the chicks. We handle our chicks a lot! We read to them and I had one little guy telling them how to regroup before subtracting! It will be a sad day when they fly the coop!
Finally, you will become attached. You will hear chicks peeping even when they aren't anywhere near. You will find yourself having to go back to school to check on them every night after supper and staying for several hours holding and talking to them about your day. You will marvel at their growth and worry about their development.
I have been putting Sparty, Clover, Martin, Cutie, Boxer, Wilbur, and their siblings out in the hall for the rest of the school to enjoy. If I see anyone near the box, I watch carefully. I make sure that no one harms MY babies. I couldn't help but think of how much more God loves and watches over me. He bought me with His Son Jesus Christ and now He cares for and protects me. "...how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings..." Luke 13:34
Of course you can check out these books about chicks on Amazon...
Igloo building is hard work! We've been building one inside and outside. I'll share pictures of our outdoor igloo if there is anything left of it after our too brief thaw! Our indoor igloo is complete and ready for use. Of course it is a magic igloo. As soon as anyone crawls inside they feel an overwhelming urge to read. Because we think reading is cool, we read ALL day on Friday. As soon as one person read a book and crawled out there was someone ready to crawl right in. By alphabetical order they were crawling in and out all day long without ever causing a disturbance to the rest of the class. Only one child needed me to haul him out after he had been in there over half an hour. Of course it was my owlet who is most likely to get lost in a book!
I can't tell you how many milk jugs we used. My counters have not completed that part of the project yet. They WILL read a book for each jug and then we'll make little igloos to take home out of marshmallows. I had some help from a youtube video...HERE! There igloo is much "neater" than mine. I had students help in the construction as much as possible and towards the end I just somehow got it finished! Looking at this picture makes me really excited to get back to school and see my owlets falling in love with reading! Stay warm!
