Last Minute April Fool's Day Prank

Looking for a simple idea to trick your students on this fun day?!?!

Grab a bunch of brown construction paper and die cut a batchful of upper and lowercase E's. Put them in a baking pan, cover with aluminum foil and...wah-lah!!  Freshly baked "brown E's"!! 

OK, you probably saw that one coming but, believe me, a classroom of little kiddos won't!!

Have kids of your own at home? 

Leave the pan on the counter so your own little sweeties can get in on the foolin', too!

Time for Report Cards!

How do you pass out report cards in your classroom? In the past few years, I have done everything from just puttting them on their desk right or in their mailbox before the bell rang to having an individual conference with each child. Simply putting the report cards in their mailbox did not provide enough feedback for the students. Having an individual conference with each child took too long and is not realistic for a class with 25 or more students. So...I finally came up with a more effective approach! 

Before I pass out their report cards I have the students fill out this self-reflection:

Student Self-Reflection

Click on the title to download the document

After the students fill out their self-reflection, I call them to the guided reading table to have a mini-conference. I call about 5-6 students at a time and give them the opportunity open the report card envelope, review their grades, and most importantly, ask any questions. We then discuss how I assessed their "characteristics that affect learning" and compare it with their own self-reflection. The students and I then talk about what can be done to improve and make a realistic goal for next quarter.

After they finish meeting with me they should have an understanding of why they earned the grades that they did. 

What is this you might ask???

It is Melissa's report card from fourth quarter of second grade!

Did your parents keep your old report cards? If so, bring them out at report card time! My kids got a kick out of listening to me share what my second grade teacher wrote about me when I was 7!!

"Melissa has worked very hard this quarter. With extra reinforcement of new skills, she is able to master concepts. Your help at home has been very beneficial to Melissa. You can be very proud of the progress she has made this year. :) Have a great summer!"

Thanks Mrs. Noreen! (Yes, I still remember how "sweet and pretty" she was!)

I also share what my teacher wrote for second quarter. "Melissa is a conscientious student. She needs to concentrate on learning her math facts as she is having difficulty on the timed tests. Practice her math flashcards as often as possible."

That sounded very similar to the comments I wrote on some of my own student's report cards!

How do you distribute report cards in your classroom?

Share your great ideas with us!

Some "Bunny" Knows About Tangrams!

Today we read this book to complement our geometry unit:

Three Pigs, One Wolf, and Seven Magic Shapes, written by Grace Maccarone

 Have you ever read this book with your students? It is a great story that uses the 7 "magic pieces" that make up a square, but change into different objects (like a sailboat) and animals (like a rabbit) in the story.

I have taught this lesson with first, second, and third graders! I love it because it gives students the opportunity manipulate shapes in a hands-on lesson. The students are always amazed by how many different objects and animals can be created with just the seven shapes. (So am I!)

Before the lesson, I had a parent helper cut out all seven shapes and put them into a baggie. I used foam so that it would be more sturdy than just paper. I also numbered the baggies so that each child would be responsible for all 7 shapes after the lesson!!! It never ceases to amaze me how some students have shapes that just "disappear!" :)

As I read, the students follow along and make the animals and objects that appear in the story. I pause and give them a few minutes to create each one.

You really can pick out your visual-spatial learners in this lesson! They can make the animals so quickly! I always try to strategically sit them next to a child who I know will need help.

We then extended the lesson by making the bunny that was in the story. Students traced the foam shapes and cut them out of the white construction paper.

They used construction paper to create the background, used "googly" eyes, and a cotton ball for the cottontail!

Look how cute they turned out!!!

Some "bunny" knows about tangrams!!!

Does some "bunny" want to make this with their students? Click below to download the file:

Some "bunny" Knows About Tangrams

Please let us know how it goes if you teach this lesson in your classroom!

Have a great night!!! :)

Our Very First Giveaway!

We are so excited to share our first giveaway with you! We found two blogging buddies, Rachelle and Natalie, over at What the Teacher Wants. Not only do they have an awesome blog, but they are such nice people!! We've teamed up to give away two $25.00 gift certificates for our site: http://www.lessonplansos.com/. Are you interested? Feeling lucky? Become a follower on our blog and then head over to What the Teacher Wants to make a comment! The winner will be announced on Friday!

Thanks for entering our giveaway!
Have a great day!!

Point of View Letter Writing: Lessons on Voice

We are wrapping up our unit on nutrition! A great way to incorporate writing with content area subjects is to give students the opportunity to write a letter from a different perspective.

For this lesson, students wrote letter to Junk Food, from the perspective of Healthy Food.

One passionate letter:

Dear Junk Food,

"I wish you were healthy.I will not eat you ever again. You make me sick. I wish you didn't exist. You are like garbage. I wish you didn't have sugar. I wish you were an orange.

Love, Healthy Food"

Another student writes:

"Hi, I'm healthy food. I am the best for your kid and you're not. So, I have a bone to pick with you! I make kids feel better! You rot their teeth. You taste good but I am better. You give people diabetes. Shame on you. Sincerely, Healthly Food."

Doesn't their voice come across LOUD AND CLEAR???

One way to help get them "into" their new character is by having them rewrite their name tag!!

In December, the students were Mrs. Clause and Santa, with new name tags to prove it!

Students had a great time writing from the perspective of Santa, versus the traditional way of having a child write a letter to Santa. 

One student writes:

"Dear Children, Christmas is almost here. I hope you've been good this year. It makes me happy when you be nice to your siblings. But it makes me sad when you say I don't exist. I hope you believe in me and Mrs. Clause too because she is nice. And my favorite part of my job is that I get to wrap up gifts for all the nice boys and girls. I like it when you give me really big smiles. The  month of December is fun because I get to go to alot of homes."

This student does an awesome job of really writing from Santa's perspective!

Dear Humans, Love Mother Earth is another writing lesson on voice that we do on Earth Day in April. Students act as if they are Mother Earth and write a letter to humans. Students get very passionate during this writing activity and write about how sad they are about how humans are disrespectful by polluting and being wasteful.

Here is a fun end of the year idea for your principal! Students put themselves in their principal's shoes as they write a letter from their perspective. Our principal got a big laugh when he read these letters!  :)

Such simple lessons...yet so effective when teaching point of view with writing!!!

If you are interested in these lessons, click here:

Dear Humans, Love Mother Earth

Dear Children, Love Santa

Principal's Perspective

Have a great night!!! :)

Introducing Division, Computational Strategies

How do you introduce division to your students? Check out these three ideas!

Have extra Halloween candy left over? Have some stuffed animals or action figures in your classroom? Are your students bringing American Girl Dolls to school, like our friend Amanda's students are, over on One Extra Degree?

Use them for a concrete example of division! I gave my students sample problems to model. For example, this group had 30 pieces of candy. Students equally divided up the candy and figured out that Arthur, D.W. and Francine each got 10 pieces of candy.

Most of my students grasped this concept quickly, so they worked together to make up their own division word problems. They quickly learned the connection with multiplication and division!

Another way that I introduce division to my students is to use white boards and base ten blocks or other manipulatives.  25 units in base ten blocks to create the dividend and  5 rubber bands to create the divisor. Students can "see" that they can put 5 units equally into each group. You can also use this method to teach remainders with division problems!

One last idea! Do you have hula hoops, pattern blocks or another manipulatives? Students can  demonstrate their understanding of division by making number sentences with these materials. For example, 24 hexagons divided by 2 hula hoops equals 12 hexagons per hoop!

After introducing division in a few hands-on lessons, students were then ready to practice by completing a worksheet. Click here to download these worksheets to use with your students!

Are your kiddos not ready for division yet? We still have something for you! Click here to find worksheets we created for our students to use as an end of the quarter assessment!

Do you have any fun, hands-on ways to introduce division or multiplication??

Have a great day!

Sugar Shock!!!

Remember when we did our Fat Test a couple of weeks ago? Well, one student in particular  thought that his snack got the green light during our Fat Test. "Look! My M& M's have no fat in them!" Well, sorry kiddo! Maybe no fat, but let's have a lesson about sugar!!

I began by passing out the true/false "sugar" sentences to the students. Each child also had a true and false sign that they cut out.

One at a time, a student read the sentence to the class.

The student read each sentence two times so that the other students would have enough time to think.

After carefully listening to the sentences, the students held up the true card if they thought the statement was true and the false card if they thought the sentence was false.

This was a great way to keep all the students actively engaged and focused throughout the entire lesson. At the same time, it provides a great informal assessment for the teacher.

They were doing good...until this cutie read her sentence:

The average American child eats 116 POUNDS of sugar every year. Quick! What do you think??

It's TRUE!!!

They didn't believe me!!

I knew they wouldn't, which is why I had this proof:

Source: Family Fun

Here is a picture of all of the sugar sentences in the correct category!

For homework, I told the students to bring in a food that they wanted to give the "sugar test" to. Meanwhile, I went to Target to buy a 5 pound bag of pure sugar!

Kids brought in yogurt, almonds, "fruit" roll-ups, Skittles, Snickers, cookies....sugar galore!

We learned that one teaspoon is equivalent to 4 grams of sugar. Students used a teaspoon to measure how many grams of sugar their food contained.

Yikes!!! Look at all the sugar that the Snickers bar contains!? The "wow" and "yuck" factor were really magnified by the tall vials that I chose to use for this experiment!

We then lined up all the snacks and the amount of sugar in each snack, in order from the least amount of sugar to the greatest amount of sugar.

The almonds had the least amount of sugar: 1 gram!

The Skittles on the other hand....37 grams of sugar! (I actually really like Skittles, too!!)

Perhaps the teacher learned a lesson during this lesson! While finding more information about sugar, I learned some unfortunate news about one of my new breakfast foods.

You know how McDonald's just recently introduced their "healthy" oatmeal? Well, turns out that it has 21 ingredients and the same amount of sugar as a Snickers bar. :(

Read the whole article here: McDonald's "Wholesome" Oatmeal: Same Calories as a Snickers Bar?

Interested in the entire lesson? Click here to view the entire sugar shock lesson!

Have a great weekend!! :)

Bubble Blowing Blast!

Here's a lesson on super duper, gum chomping word choice! After seeing a few posts for this "How to Blow a Bubble" writing activity on Pro Teacher I knew my students HAD to do it! Not only did they absolutely love chewing bubble gum at school, they were also able to show off some great word choice!

We started the activity by completing the graphic organizer while chewing the bubble gum. Then, they added some super duper adjectives to a "bubble" sheet (see below). Next, they took their original "boring" sentences and added the adjectives to make their writing more detailed and exciting. We "popped" it off with an adorable art project. Print the entire 6 page file by clicking here:  bubble blowing blast - Enjoy!

The teacher next door had a bubble blowing contest with her students! Lucky kiddos!

Hmmmm...since this picture was taken our balloons have mysteriously started to deflate! Is it the temperature in the building? Some pesky fingers tapping on the balloons?

This just might be the start of an investigation!!