Moving Movies and other fun!

This week was crazy,  I don't know about you but I find it incredibly hard to get in everything that we have in our plans.   Our district started using c-scope last year for math and science and added social studies this year.     We have found the pace to be fast and furious but I am enjoying it for the most part.

This week, one of our science objectives was to understand the ways that things move.   My incredibly creative teammate Mariel, suggested we have the kids make movies of each type of movement.   We focused on rolling, spinning and sliding.   We assigned a movement to groups of 7 or 8 kids and had them come up with skit to explain their type of movement.  We went out to the playground and had them perform an investigation and write out a plan.  Then each group performed their skit and we recorded it on our Flipcams and showed them to our classes.   They were in love.  We have taught this objective eleventy million times over the years,  but this year was completely different,  the kids loved it and we loved it.  I know we will be using movie making a lot in the near future!  I wish I could share the video!

We also did the fantastic Pop-Rocks writing project that you can find all over Pinterest.  We used this awesome packet we purchased from Teachers Pay Teachers
 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pop-Rockin-Descriptive-Writing-Activities .  I loved the thinking maps that were included and the adorable project,  but I was not really in the mood to do a complete project,  we were limited on time and this year I have some incredible artists... but they take FOR-EVA,  so I decided to change it up a little and just quickly took a picture of each kiddo with their tongue sticking out, and had them cut them out and add some glitter to their to tongues as the Pop-Rocks.   I loved the "floating head" effect and it literally just took a few minutes to print them all out.  (I took their pictures as they worked on bellwork).

 

 

 

Since I have named this page In That Room,  I thought I would add a few pictures of my classroom this year.  Our aquarium was purchased through a grant from PetSmart.    Several of the teachers at my school have received this grant.  It literally takes about 3 minutes to complete and as far as I know everyone receives it... you pretty much just have to promise not to eat or torture your pet. They will send you coupons for the pet itself and all the supplies that go with it.  My class has absolutely loved having a fishtank this year, and so have I.   My teammies have received funds for a turtle,  a hamster and a guinea pig!  Try it out!

http://www.petsintheclassroom.org/

 

My Wordwall (and our Me on the Map project)

 

Our reading area - under the "tree" and in several areas around the room I have added wall quotes from Dr. Seuss.  I purchased them from Amazon.com for about $6 and love them.  They will pull off the wall if I ever need to move rooms (but are not reuseable).   I LOVE them!

 

Working on our netbooks - and the tremendous amount of clutter on my back wall.

Our fishtank

 

 

We had a Donors Choose grant fully funded this week!  Hooray!  So we will be adding this carpet from ABC School Supply to our room in the next few weeks..



 



 

I am really excited about it! 

 

Hope you all had an amazing week as well!