Food Chain and Freebies

We learned about the food chain in science this week.  Every student got to make an interactive model (based on nesting dolls) which illustrated the concept perfectly!

The students LOVED making the animals "eat" the next animal (or grass) in the chain. It comes with lids to keep all the pieces together once it is nested. You can order your own set from Nature Watch.

My freebie today is more seasonal making words sheets. I haven't introduced these yet but I have some smarties than I know are capable. 

Jack o' Lantern Making Words

Scarecrow Making Words

I need more time!

First off I want to say thank you to Kim from Starbucks, Standards, and Sharpies, Amanda from the First Grade Garden, Claire from Miss Toffee's Class, and  Barbara from Grade ONEderful for awarding me the Versatile Blogger Award and Jennifer at Herding Cats in Kindergarten (I LOVE that name) for the I Heart Your Blog award!  I'd love to share 7 things about me and 15 new blogs but the truth is my life is CRAZY and I am barely making time to post at all! I wish I could stop time, everyone would be frozen so I could scurry around and catch up on things while not getting anything NEW on my list!! So, I am making the executive decision that you'd rather see teaching ideas than random facts about me....

Any HM users out there? We read The Rope Tug last week and worked on story structure. The Rope Tug shows students acting out a play. In lieu of costumes I made name tags for each of the characters to wear as they performed the reader's theater.

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The narrator was not happy he didn't have a name tag, I should have known...

We made a story structure tree map together.

For the problem and solution I asked a student to explain it verbally and then draw a picture for our chart. They did a great job! I love the the solution picture of the rope wound between the trees. :-)
I shared the story structure and Rope Tug files if you can use them.

I  am trying a new Daily 5 Choice Chart this year.

 As they make their choice the card is turned over. That way they can not repeat a choice until they have done them all. I have a young group with attention problems this year so they seem to really need this visual. I also shared these Daily 5 choice cards if you'd like them.

Since I have 30 students I have to use both sides of the pocket chart stand. :-( I also have my reading groups and their book shopping day (1st rotation and then they read to self) displayed for easy reference.

Okay friends, I have to get to bed so I have patience with my darlings tomorrow. I need every ounce of patience I can get this year!!

Oak Galls

 Do you have a life science standard similar to this?

2c. Students know animals eat plants or other animals for food and may also use plants or even other animals for shelter and nesting.

One of the units we do is a study of oak galls. Do you have oak trees near you? We have  Valley Oak and Coast Live Oak trees in our outdoor classroom. First, we learned to tell the difference between them.

We went on an observation walk and did bark rubbings.

An oak apple gall.

We learned that galls are a swelling of plant tissue that provides food and shelter around a wasp larva growing inside.

This tiny wasp is only about a mm.

 

 I turned the photo in my iphoto but it still uploaded this way. Grrr...anyone know a trick for turning photos in blogger? I modeled how to draw as we talked through the life cycle.

We looked at some samples and identified and collected data on the many different types of galls: oak apple, candy kiss, jumping balls, saucer, caterpillar, spined turban.

Did you know the Declaration of Independence was written in oak apple gall ink?
Each student got a chance to write with a feather and real oak apple gall ink.

 

We brainstormed what we had learned on a circle map.

Ignore the messy handwriting. If I slow down to make it neat I lose my kids.

This was our first step-up to writing paragraph. I asked for the students input but clearly this was heavily led by me.

Hope you enjoyed learning about oak galls!

Happy Fall, Y'all

Happy Fall, Y'all! 

(Okay, I gave in to my secret desire to use y'all but I just don't think a California girl like me can really pull it off. Maybe I'll come back as a cute little Texan in my next life. )

Have you noticed your class is seriously lacking in fine motor skills? Do they hold the scissors upside down or move the scissors around instead of the paper? The only answer is to provide instruction on proper technique and opportunities to practice.

I teach art every Tuesday and many of those weeks we use directed art projects from TLC Lessons. I give step-by-step directions the students must follow like, "Pick up the largest brown rectangle. Hold it vertically. Cut off a triangle on the top two corners." This reinforces shape and positional vocabulary and I use my observations of how well they follow directions as a listening grade.

Last week we did a tearing project for fall although I changed the colors from the original TLC directions.

 The students decided how many leaves to put on and where.

WOW! Talk about F-A-L-L!

This one looks like it is nearing winter. :-)

I would not be able to manage this if it wasn't for my terrific parents. I have one mom who cuts all the paper at home and sends the project in all ready to pass out. I have other parent volunteers attend so they can walk around and remind children to hold their scissors correctly or get a new brown rectangle if the student had a hard time with a certain step (always have a few extras!) Especially in the beginning of the year there is some frustration and tears. It helps to have these parents to put out multiple fires.

I do admit I do need to manage the parents a little. I caution parents about helping their own child. I've found the parents are either overly tough on their child OR the child becomes a baby with the attention of their mother and the mom wants to coddle them. One boy started bawling last week and I told the mom point blank that I thought it was because she was there and as soon as she moved to the other side of the room and I talked to him he stopped crying and got to work. Unbelievably, I have also had to say, "Parents, please don't pick up the glue and do it FOR them. " But once I have the parents trained :-) it is all good.

If you are worried about your kids getting upset about how their artwork turns out, my advice is to read the book Ish.

I  posted about this before but it works wonders. When we tore the trees some of the kids were a little sad that their tree had a bigger chunk out of it than my sample. I said, "Does it look tree-ish?" and the other kids jumped right on. "Yea, it is tree-ish. Maybe that is where a squirrel lives!"

I also wanted to share some blog designs that we finished. I hope you don't mind me sharing these occasionally. Maybe you will find a new blog to follow? Click on the photo to go visit.

 

Finally, I fixed a long overdue problem on my blog. I now have all the teaching blogs I follow listed on my sidebar! I hadn't updated that gadget in forever and was feeling badly about not having some of my new favorites on there. They are listed by the most recently updated so everyone will get fair billing. Only 10 show at a time but you can expand the list if you are interested.  I so appreciate all the wonderful ideas you ALL share! I'd love it if you would add me to your sidebar, too.

Blurting Brainstorm

Anyone else ready for bed at 9 PM? My class is seriously wearing me out!

This came up when I googled exhausted. LOL! Umm...I wish I looked that good when I WASN'T exhausted!

I mentioned before that I have many students that were from a kinder class that a rough year. Things are getting much better but there are still a few darlings having a hard time with calling out every thought in their head OR making weird sounds??

Ready for my magic solution?

I start the timer running. If someone calls out I stop it (it makes a nice beep) and say something like, "Oh, calling out stops our timer" and write the time the class earned on the board. Then I start it over again and they try to go longer without calling out to beat their time. Time earned gets them out early to the next recess or lunch.  After a little while, I didn't need to say anything about the calling out anymore I just stopped the timer and the beep was enough. The offender usually clamps their hands over their mouth!

Here is the super secret teacher trick: I never show them the actual timer because I LIE. Yes, think what you will but I lie to my children. There is no way I am letting them get out TOO early so I make up the times so they improve if they should but not by so much that they get out earlier than I am comfortable with.

Hope my occasional idea is helpful to someone else!