Fun Friday: Colonial Crafternoon

My class needed some motivation last year to make sure they had all their work done and behaved well during the week.  After a schedule change in March, we had a 30 minute block at the end of the day on Friday that was too short for a lesson, but too long to not do something productive.  We called it “Finish Up Friday.” Students with everything finished were rewarded with a fun project related to our 5^th grade standards.  Click on the tag “Fun Fridays” to see other ideas you might want to try. 

Colonial Crafternoon

We did an extra long Fun Friday on the last day before the winter break.  It needed to be related to our standards, but fun.  Since we study the 13 Colonies in our Social Studies curriculum, the 5th grade team decided to have a Colonial Crafternoon. We made craft projects, ate snacks, and played games all in the ways that children in the Colonies might have done.  

Above, you can see an example of the Quilling craft project.  Students just wrapped a skinny strip of paper (get the true Quilling strips if you can -- they're thick, sturdy, and cut straight) around a toothpick.  They each got to make a flower using whichever colors they wanted for the petals and center.

We also did faux tin punching.  Here's an example of the old fashioned tin punching that colonists would have done to turn tin cans into lanterns for candles:

By OttawaAC (Own work)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

We simplified this quite a bit by using aluminum foil and construction paper frames.  Students used a toothpick to poke holes through the foil with a Styrofoam plate underneath.  I was surprised by how much fun my class had making these and how surprised they were at the affect of holding them to the light!  Several students asked for more materials to make extras.

We played a few games like the colonists would've played:

Jacks and marbles were a lot of fun for the kids to play.  I continued to use these for the rest of the year as indoor recess options on rainy or too-cold days.  

We had lots of treats that were colonial style.  We made our own butter by shaking cream in a jar. That's one of my favorite things to do with the class.  Freshly made butter is SO delicious! Just shake heavy cream in a jar until it looks like this:

Pour off the liquid, add a little salt, and spread on rolls!  Yummy!

Here's the rest of our menu:

Rolls (to try our butter)

Apple sauce 

Gingerbread cookies

Dried fruits (cranberries, raisins, apricots, apples, pears)

Popcorn

Great links for Colonial Crafternoon ideas:

from Germantown Academy: Colonial Day Activities

from Education Possible:  Colonial Games for Children

from Kid Activities:  Colonial Theme for Kids

from DLTK:  Pioneer and Colonial Crafts

Monday Meet Up

Hi!  I decided to stop lurking on everyone's blogs and introduce myself.

This week's theme is "three things we are thankful for today."  

I'd love to hear from you!  I've been reading lots of your Monday Meet Up Posts.  Glad you came to check out mine!  :)

I can't believe they survived!

The flowers are still alive!  I can't believe that!  They've been in a crate in the garage for 22 days.  No water.  Little light.  Hot, humid temperatures.  And my green black thumb.

I got this plant on the first day of school.  My uber-sweet Dean (the first one - I had 3 last year) gave these to me as a "good-luck-on-your-first-day" gift.  I couldn't believe they survived the school year, much less 22 days in my garage. Every time I looked at them all year, I thought about this wonderful woman and how much I missed her guidance after she left our school in October.  (This was a rough year all around and many people left our school, some mid-year.)  She and I have had several different roles at this school in the last few years and worked so well together. Things just weren't the same after she left.

My husband helped me bring a bunch of my school stuff home this year.  They're painting my classroom, so I needed to bring lots home to get it out of the way.  (Didn't want it all lost/broken/covered in paint.)  We dumped it on my side of the garage and I park in the driveway now.  I went out to look for something else last night and was so shocked to see these flowers sitting in a crate full of stuff. They're a little dry, but still alive.  Some of the flowers are even blooming!!!  I think there's magic dust in the soil...

Just had to share this minor miracle on my blog.  In case you want flowers for your classroom like this, the tag says they're called Kalanchoe.  They bloom even in the winter and are available in lots of colors.  It's a nice pop of color and an easy-to-care-fore plant.  :)

Do you have other great plants that last through the school year easily?  I could use some more ideas for next year!  Please share a comment below.

Fun Friday: Owl Pellets

My class needed some motivation last year to make sure they had all their work done and behaved well during  the week.  After a schedule change in March, we had a 30 minute block at the end of the day on Friday that was too short for a lesson, but too long to not do something productive.  We called it “Finish Up Friday.” Students with everything finished were rewarded with a fun project related to our 5^th grade standards.  Click on the tag “Fun Fridays” to see other ideas you might want to try.

Owl Pellets

The class had a great time opening up the owl pellets and trying to figure out which animal the bones belonged.  The kit I purchased at Amazon.com (click here to see it) came with the bone chart you see in this picture.

In case you aren't familiar with owl pellets, it's what the owl regurgitates after it digests all the usable parts of an animal.  An owl cannot digest bones or fur, so those can easily be found in the pellets.  Most purchased pellets have been treated to cut down on bacteria, but I did have my students use plastic gloves just as a precaution.  Plus, some of my students were a little grossed out at the idea of touching owl vomit with their bare hands.  

We were able to use these owl pellets to discuss two of our science objectives:  digestive system and animal adaptations.  The whole class had read a text about owl pellets prior to this activity, but only those students who had finished all their work were going to get to actually try it themselves.  I didn't have a single missing assignment this week!  Everyone wanted to be part of this!

New TPT resource posted

My Equivalent Fractions Poke Cards are up and ready for purchase!  Discount price available for a limited time only!  :)

Prepare the cards by circling the answer on the back lightly in pencil. I've marked the correct answer for you, but it will disappear when you use your hole punch.  Punch out all 3 holes.  Students solve the problem and poke the tip of a pencil (or other object) through the hole and then flip it over to check.  My students love these!  

Whew! That was quite the year!

After several years as an ESL teacher, I went back to the classroom this fall.  I taught 5th grade at a school where I went through 2 new principals and 3 vice principals.  I'm sure you can all understand that keeping up with my blog and my TeachersPayTeachers store was more than I could manage with all that change.

But the school year ended and I'm ready to do LOTS more this summer to be ready for next fall.  I've got a huge list of products I wished I had made for this year.  I've got tons of great resources I want to pass along to you.  I've figured out some of the "tricks" to managing a blog during the school year that I hope will help this time.

To celebrate the start of my summer, I'm putting everything in my store on sale for a week.  Hopefully I'll also be adding several items, but I've been selected for the jury pool as well.  Here's hoping that for once in my life I don't get chosen.  This is my 6th summons in 16 years. I've served on 3 juries.  I'm really lucky that way.

To kick off the summer, I also have a NEW product in my TPT store!



Check out my Identifying Fractions Poke Cards.  On sale at TeachersPayTeachers for $1 for the next two weeks!  :)  After that, it goes to the regular price of $4.  Enjoy!

Common Core? There's an app for that...

Seems like there's an app for everything these days.  I heard about these apps at a recent conference I attended.  It's common core on your mobile device.  My first thought was, "Why would I ever need that on my smart phone?"  I don't have a tablet.  In fact, when it comes to writing lesson plans, I'm a bit "old school" and prefer a printed version of the CCSS.

So, while I could see some people who use tablets or iPads in their classrooms may find this app helpful, I was a bit skeptical.  And then the network went down at school.  And I had left my printed copy of the standards at home.  I couldn't even access my documents on our school server where I had saved a copy of the standards.  Just as I was about to growl in frustration over not being able to plan during my planning period, I realized I had one more option:  the APP!  I downloaded it quickly for free and was able to easily continue my planning session, no problem.

If you're like me, though, you're thinking that it's hardly worth the bother to download this app for the rare occurrence of a total network shutdown.  You may be thinking that you'd never need this on your phone.  I get it.  I was with you.  And then I was in Hobby Lobby buying some crafting stuff and saw a pile of cool educational games and activities.  Since CCSS is new to our state this year, plus I'm back in the classroom after several years in the ESL room, I haven't yet memorized all the CCSS for each grade level.  I wanted to buy a math game that my students could play, but didn't know which ones would hit the standards for my grade level.  Out came the phone and that handy little app.

I'm sure there are other great reasons to have this app.  I'll maybe encounter them this year.  If you have any experiences where this app has been helpful, I'd love to hear about it here!

(I don't work for either app company, but just wanted to share how helpful they could be.  Please go to your usual app store and search for Common Core.  The Mastery Connect app and the Education Electric app are the two pictured above.  These are the only two I am aware of that are free apps fir CCSS.  You'll need to read their details and requirements in order to determine whether these are right for you.)