Funny Moment on the First Day

I don't know how I can look 21 and 56 at the same time.  Most of the guesses yesterday had me in my thirties (which I am 36), but these two are throwing me off.  I did cover up my grays last week, so maybe I do look younger than I am - but an additional 20 years older?  I love these new kiddos!

This paper came from the Welcome to 4th Grade packet by Katie Texas.  LOVE this pack, grabbed it last summer.  I don't give the kids the entire pack at one time.  Yesterday they filled out the all about me page, and then this one where they had to make guesses about me & ask me questions.  Those questions I answer during the next few days.  

The other activity pages are in another little packet that they will be working on the rest of this week when we have a free moment. 

Linking this up with Holly's Tried It Tuesday.  

Writing Journal Scoot Game

We have 1 week until the district writing test... only 1 week...  

I'm really not nervous.  Next week we will focus on more writing, but I really feel that my students are prepared.  Last week I decided to have fun during one of our many writing activities.  

I play with task cards on a daily basis, but my writing journals have been a different story.  Not every kid uses them every single day.  They finish their assigned work, and have an option to write or read in them.  With the district test coming up, I have had them do a lot of structured writing every day.  

*Summaries

*Reading Response

*Opinions

*Persuasive

*Narrative

You get the picture...

Throughout everything we are working on our conventions.  Something I wanted them to work on this past week was focusing on a single topic in a limited amount of time.  (I know our district test will be untimed, but I wanted to push them to do their best in a short amount of time.)  I put random journals on everyone's desk during silent reading time.  I also had them on our work table, and the empty desks around the room.  I had one on my front cart and at my own desk.  Then I told them that they could choose any desk they wished to sit at for 5 minutes to write about that single topic.  

They hopped to it and got to work.  We started this at exactly 1:35pm, and every 5 minutes on the dot I asked them to switch desks to a different journal and topic.  We finished at 2:10pm.  In the front cover of each journal I have my classroom numbers, so they circled their number when they had written in them.  They had to write at least 1 paragraph on the topic, complete with tons of details and put their name on the top of their page.  If they finished early they could read the other students' work.  

It was absolutely silent during this task - and I didn't have to remind them at all.  Let me also mention that it was a rainy day and we had been trapped together (no outside recess) ALL DAY LONG.  

Just a fun activity that I was so happy to use this past week.  Fun and motivating.  Linking up with Holly to share!  :)  

Rose Windows Art Project

In my haste to exit the classroom on that Friday before break, I forgot to take pictures of one of our latest art projects.  I love art projects in the classroom, I love how I can see students function away from paper and pencil, and have to follow different type of directions…. how they interpret steps 1 - 6…  It always amazes me how different the results can be depending on a child's mood, or scissor ability.  :)  

On that Wednesday before break, I was blessed to have a visit from our art docent.  My school has this awesome program that they invite parents to come in and create art with the kids.  The teacher is there as a helper, but the main instruction comes from the parent.  They connect the students with the greats, and then the kids interpret the designs into their own creation.  So my class made Rose Windows.  

My art mom presented this powerpoint.  It's below too.  Just a simple look at the beauty of stained glass windows.  

She spoke about how the windows in many historic buildings show the creative works of stained glass windows.  (The kids were in awe of the buildings themselves.)

 Then she took a deeper look at the construction of the window itself.  How it had an intricate design and the colors behind it.  She spoke of the symmetry...

Then it was time for the students to create their own rose windows.  Each student received a coffee filter and a black piece of construction paper.  They first had to trace the coffee filter onto the black construction paper (so they could have the right size later on).  Then the students had to color the entire filter with washable markers.  The ENTIRE thing had to be colored.  When they were done with that step they stepped over to the art mom and she sprayed the coffee filter with water (using a regular spray bottle).  It made the colors run together.  

At this step they put their filters down on their desks with a paper towel underneath, and started creating a snowflake on the black paper.  The black construction paper circle was first cut out, and then the folding, and intricate designs were cut out.  After the coffee filter dried, they put glue on the black paper snowflake, and laid their coffee filter on top to dry.  The final products are amazing!  

  

Hope this helps someone.  I personally think it's a great winter project since it involves a different look at snowflake art.  Linking up with Holly's Tried it Tuesday!

Apostrophes, Quotations, and Commas - Oh MY!

We've been having fun in my classroom.  :)  A lot of wet glue has been used - so messy, so worth it!  

This week in our mentor sentences we have been focusing on apostrophes, quotations, and commas.  I use Jivey's Mentor Sentence unit... this week our story has been Stellaluna.  Such a good story!  

Anyhow, after we read it, picked it apart - I wanted them to have more practice working with the different punctuation before we created our own sentences.  So I used Where the Wild Things Learn's task card pack.

I ended up just printing the entire thing off and with the 24 of each type of card, I formed 6 groups.  

Imagine this - 6 groups, 12 cards total (no groups had matching cards).  The kids cut the cards a part, glued it onto large construction paper (they fit on two 12x18 sheets stapled). 

They first glued down the task cards to the paper, to make sure they all fit, then they moved onto the macaroni part - adding commas, quotation marks, and apostrophes.  

That was yesterday...  so today we took it to a new level.  Instead of groups, they had to find a sentence in our read aloud - Charlotte's Web that showed all 3 types of punctuation and had to write it in their mentor sentence notebook as a good example.  Then they showed me for approval, chose a colored sentence strip, and wrote it in marker - adding macaroni over the punctuation as they went. 

These are now hanging up on the wall as a display of great sentences - of course I forgot to take a picture of that.  

I hope you had a great day! Linking up with Holly's Tuesday Tried It!