This Year's Cinco de Mayo

This year I did things a little different on May 5th.  I brought in chips and salsa/cheese sauce for kids to snack on during silent reading time.  

They did such a good job making sure to keep things clean.

We also used my Fiesta centers in class during workshop time.  It's a mix of ELA and Math Review, so it was the perfect time of year to use them.  

How do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?  

Random Classroom Photos

End of the year craziness has hit, and once again the photos have been sitting in my camera and haven't made it to the blog.  Wanted to show you some fun things that I have been up to:

Our Donor's Choose Boogie Boards were funded!  Yes!  We have 5 of them now in our classroom and it's made it extra fun to use during workshop time.

My Amazon order of glue sticks and Expo markers showed up tonight for next year.  I'll be keeping these at home over the summer - things don't tend to dry out as fast... These 12 packs of Expo markers were only a little over $4 each, they were as an add on price.  

We have been studying Greek Mythology in class this week (and will continue next).  It's the first year that Mythology has been in our standards, so I'm trying to make it fun.  I have the Year Long Weekly Reading Homework from Forkin4th and she has numerous Greek Mythology comprehension passages and questions included.  Since I have no curriculum it has been a life saver.  Today was Pandora's box, and after studying it, we tied in math and created boxes/nets from scratch.  Students had to fold, use the ruler to measure, cut it out, and fold it all together.  So much fun!

In all this craziness, I started taking down the stuff on my bulletin boards and saw a bunch of huge stains on my main student work fabric.  EWW!  So after years of using my beautiful blue fabric I had to go out and buy new stuff... and then decided to put it up pronto.  Now it has a lighter color backing  with a nice design that will make me happy.  In August I'll add my student squares and be done.    

I love using fabric!  It's so easy!  How I tackle a huge board like this (it's 9 feet by 10 feet), is taking the fabric, cutting it in half and use push pins to hold it in place on the top and sides until I get everything the way I want.  Then it's a quick staple on top of the edges, add a thick border to just the top and sides, cut the bottom, and add my thick wide ribbon to seal it up. I'm not even really worried about the bottom edge because the trashcans, ball bucket, lunch bin, and sweeper bucket all fit in that space.    

It's that time of year!  Have a Kool Summer!  Winco carried the packets for only 15 cents each... so much cheaper for a full class set.  This year I am giving the kids a package of Kool Aid, a copy of Homework Machine (only $1 from Scholastic - we don't have time to read it during the year so I already had it handy), and a "Have a Good Summer" bracelet from Scholastic's bonus points.  It all goes inside a paper lunch bag with a topper on top.  

Hope you had a great day!

Open House 2015

I wanted to share some pictures from Open House last Thursday - warning, there was a food theme going on:

California Pillows - smaller version than in past years.  I just used 12 x 18 white construction paper folded in half and drew the basic outline for the kiddos.  They filled in the main topics on the front of CA, and there's a summary on the back.  

My students created a Book Buffet for their book reports (project from The Peanut Gallery) - I have no counters in the classroom though, so we had them all over the place.  In the back I had our Synonym Rolls and on the math wall they created Math Clocks with 12 topics we studied this year (the hands are pointing to their 2 favorites).  

Here's an up close view of the Synonym Rolls with my "cookie sheets".

We created Smores Inferences from Deb Hanson.  They were the perfect size to put on our pocket chart.  

Once again - here's my Earth Day board.  They kids still LOVE to show off their Agamographs by Jenny K.

On the back wall you can see those cupcakes - those were our Mini Biography Books.  Then we had our Self Portraits with our Braille names underneath.  Hanging were our Rainbow Goals for 3rd trimester, and our Theme Kites.  The kids separated out a square into 8 triangles, each triangle had a different theme we have learned about this year, complete with a definition and picture.  They are glued onto colored card stock with a crepe paper tail.  

We also had a board with Me Books, but since the kids' pictures are on the front I can't post it.  :)  Each Me Book was created out of 2 pages folded off center to create a flip book.  The kids had to write an Opinion paragraph, an Informative, and a Narrative - all about them! Super fun to read their writing.  

Under the board was our Best Part of the Year Ice Cream Sundaes.  The kids wrote their favorite thing they learned in each of the subjects.  

Hope you like it!  I had many kids stop by (not all from my class either).  Isn't it great to get those past students that just needed to stop by for a hug?!  :)  That made my night!  Also met some 3rd graders that were eager to check out what 4th graders do.

Do you love Open House?  Hate it?  

(Click the picture to visit my store.)  Have a great night!