Five Senses

Last week's theme was Five Senses.  Surprisingly enough, this might have been my favorite theme so far!  We had so much fun!  The best thing I did was purchase My 5 Senses Centers and Circle Time for Preschoolers by Jamie White from Play to Learn Preschool.  She had some great activities which went well with some of the things I had!

 

 

 

Every day we sang a song, watched a video, and did a sort.  We also had a special activity planned for each sense.  Check out my other blog posts to see what we did each day!

Landform Flipbook

Oh, did we have fun with this one!  Even this year's class, who are not know for their love of coloring, enjoyed this activity!  I sent them home with all the pieces and they had "tv homework" which is where they GET to do their homework while watching tv!  They love those assignments!  I can't really justify taking the time to color in class at this age, so I sent it home, and then they brought it back and we put it together as an end of unit activity.  It then went in their science notebook.  They came out so great...the pictures do NOT do them justice!  I found this activity through Pinterest.  You can find it at Ginger Snaps Treats for Teachers' blog.

The Lorax Bulletin Board

Words cannot express how much I love walking out my classroom door and seeing all of the truffula trees hanging from the ceiling!  This is what I see when I walk out the door!

This is the view looking toward my classroom .

Looking at the board straight on...

 

Here's the sign that's on the top left of the board...

 

 

I had intended to make more of the big truffula trees with the grey/yellow stems, but...1-I didn't love the way they turned out, 2-I made them and not the kids, and 3-the kids' Loraxes took up more of the board than I had originally visualized.  All that said....I love it!  It just shouts spring, which I think most of us can agree we all need right about now!

 

So, my students made all of the truffula trees (flowers) themselves and they came out looking amazing!  Then we incorporated Read Across America with science with the tiny Loraxes.  Students wrote something they thought the Lorax would tell us about conserving our natural resources on the Lorax's belly and they wrote something THEY could do to help conserve our natural resources. 

 

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Tabbed Book

I don't know why, but I love teaching this concept!  Maybe it's because it's so hands-on and fun!  I like to let my students explore WED using hands-on activities with sand.  I put sand in shallow containers (like 9 X 13 baking pans) and then they can explore weathering, erosion, and deposition with a straw (wind), water in a spray bottle (precipitation), and ice cubes (ice).  I also put sand in a paint tray with water in the bottom to represent waves.  After they explore these ideas we put together a tabbed book I made.

This is what the book looks like. It's available on TeachersPayTeachers if you are interested in using this in your classroom! There are two versions of the text (one more simple than the other) and there are options to include or omit the clipart.  My students like it, and I like having something simple for them to refer back to at home!  We read more complex text, but this is to the point, which I think is important, too!

 

 

 

New Products on TeachersPayTeachers

Ok, so here's what I've decided...being a full time mother and teacher leaves very little time for blogging during the school year!  I have the biggest class I've had in the last few years.  I only have 23 kiddos, but last year I had 13 so this is a BIG difference.  Last year's class also had 5/13 students in the Gifted and Talented program, so academically it was a very strong class!  I've also been working really hard to get more products up on TeachersPayTeachers.  There's just something about knowing I've helped another teacher reach their students that really warms my heart!

Here are some of the projects I've completed since school has started...

Properties of Addition and Multiplication Foldable Graphic Organizer

Social Studies Explorers of the New World Foldable Graphic Organizer

States of Matter Foldable Graphic Organizer

Odds and Evens Addition Game

Science Tools Foldable Graphic Organizers

I just put my latest Foldable Graphic Organizer up on Teachers Pay Teachers....except this product is actually FOUR foldable graphic organizers because there are so many science tools (including safety tools) I want students to put into their notebooks!  Here's the first FGO.  I have students mount them on colored paper so that it can easily be put into their notebooks.

 

We'll do an activity for each tool before completing it on the graphic organizer.  For example, for the gloves and safety goggles students will be given a coloring page and asked to make their child into a safe scientist, labeling everything they add.  During this time I'll be walking around noting which students include gloves and goggles.  I'll also be looking for aprons, and other safety items during this time.  In addition, , I'll be engaging students in conversation about why they picked the items they did.  If a student includes the goggles and gloves at this point, I'll check the student off of my list.  However, for those students who didn't include the goggles and gloves, after we learn about safety in the science classroom, they'll get another chance to add to their drawing.  I've even had students make note of the particular type of shoes the scientist were wearing!

 



Boys are given the one on the left, girls the one on the right.



For most of the other items, like the prisms, magnets, microscopes, graduated cylinders, etc., after giving a mini lesson on each item, I'll set up centers so students get a chance to get comfortable with how to use all of it.  Not only do they get more comfortable with using the tools, but I've found that this exploration time helps minimize the "playing" with the equipment at other, inappropriate times.  

 

Here are the other 3 organizers.  There are 21 tools in all.

 

To purchase these Foldable Graphic Organizers for TPT, click here: Science Tools Foldable Graphic Organizers.

 

And by the way, the adorable boy and girl graphics, as well as many of the
graphics in the foldable graphic organizer, come from:

 

There are a ton of wonderful graphics available on this site with no licensing

fee because Laura respects us as teachers!  How awesome is she?!

 

Fifth Grade Science TEKS

Check out my new product on TeachersPayTeachers! I cut and pasted all of the science Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (objectives) into a document that I use in two different ways. The first way is to create lesson plans. The second way is to track assessment of these skills.

Many educators find lessons they want to do in the classroom and then try to find corresponding TEKS. However, when I try to lesson plan like that I find I have a lot of holes! Therefore, I like to select a TEKS (or two) and then go looking for activities that will support those TEKS. When I find something I like, I write the idea on the appropriate page(s) and then I can easily see what objectives I still need to find activities for. Of course I really love being able to touch on more than one TEKS with a single activity!

To use this for tracking assessment, I simply print the objective I’ll be assessing, print a sheet of labels with students’ names prewritten on them (I use Avery 5160 and a template in Microsoft Word), and then as I determine an objective has been met by a student, I pull the label off my sheet and stick it on the objective page. These are 3-hole punched and put into a binder. This way I can easily tell which students need more work on any given objective. See the next page for an example of what this looks like!

 

If you don't want to use labels every time (I know, those can get expensive!) then you can print class lists on the bottom of each page.  An easy way to do this is to print lists and then put the paper back in your printer and print the TEKS on each page.

 

 

 

Forms of Energy Foldable Graphic Organizer

Can I just say how much I am LOVING creating these Foldable Graphic Organizers....and as much as I'm loving creating them - I can't begin to explain how excited I am when I see one of my students open their notebooks (without me telling them to!) to use one of these! 

So here's my latest one....Forms of Energy...I've included 7 forms of energy (mechanical, chemical, solar, light, heat, sound, and electrical).  I've also included graphics, which lend themselves very well to using this FGO as an assessment if one wants to do that!

Here it is mounted and ready to go into their notebooks: 

 

Here's what the inside looks like, all completed.  The product on TpT has it four different ways (complete, just clipart, just definitions, and blank):

 

Here it is with just a couple of tabs open:

 

Here's the page at the end with just the clipart so students can cut and paste them if you don't want them to have to draw their examples:

Yep....I'm pretty happy with how this turned out!  And it's on sale TODAY in my TpT Store in honor of Sunday Super Special!  Hope you find it ELECTRIFYING!!