Friday, November 22, 2013

I Am thankful for My Students


 
Missed my photo op.
Only caught two of my students in their Thanksgiving luncheon attire. Families were invited to school Tuesday for a Thanksgiving lunch.
 
 
Friday Cooking

 
Making Turkey Cookies






 
The cookies turned out pretty cute!

 
Just had to share this picture. Whenever our birdfeeders are empty the carnes come to the window to let us know they are hungry. Or is there a chance they are eaves dropping and want to learn too? They are quite entertaining

 
This week's classroom zookeeper.

Friday, November 15, 2013

A "Horn of Plenty" : A Harvest of Work

We began the week celebrating Veteran's with a school program. On Tuesday, we had an opportunity to go off campus to see a play called, "Freckleface Strawberry." Which was totally awesome, the kids loved it! Interestingly enough our Basal story in our reading book this week was about a class of children working together to write a play called, "The Farmer in the Hat." That was a total coincidence and was great for background building for understanding the story. The rest of the week the students continued to work on their animal diorama projects. Today we squeezed in a little Thanksgiving with some cornucopia activities. Oh yes, and a visit from a corn snake that I found while watering plants at home. Our fluency story this week was called, "Our Pet Snake." So many connections, so little time...

 
Making cards for Veteran's



 
Cracker Trail Elementary's Veteran's Day Program

 
Several of our students had special parts in the ceremony.
 
 
Our very own George Washington

 
Pledging the flag

 
One student dressed for the occasion 

 
Honoring Veterans



Field Trip

 
After our field trip to see the play, "Freckleface Strawberry," we made our own Freckleface Strawberry characters and wrote about a time we felt like Freckleface Strawberry. You see, Freckleface Strawberry was a little red-headed girl who everyone made fun of because her body was covered in freckles. Her feelings become hurt. She tried everything she could think of to get rid of her freckles and when that didn't work she covered them up. Eventually, she learns her freckles make her special and her friends embrace her for who she is. It was a heartwarming story.

 
 


Friday Cooking
 
(Oops, forgot to put on our chef hats today!) Probably a good thing since we were doing art at the same time. There was paint and glue everywhere.

 
We made mini cornucopias by wrapping Pillsbury breadstick dough around a sugar cone.





 
Before you put the cornucopias in the oven you sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar. Next you bake them at 375 degrees for 14 minutes. Then you remove them from the oven and allow the cornucopias to cool. While they cool you mix up Chex mix, M&M's, and candy corn to fill the cornucopias.




 
Last you serve the cornucopias up to your friends and enjoy!



A MASTERPIECE!
 


I read the class a chapter from this book called, "Tiger." It's a story about a little girl who makes a mosaic tiger out of bean seeds. I adapted the idea to Thanksgiving.

 
While the students waited for the cornucopias to bake they made cornucopia mosaics out of beans and popcorn.

 




Definitely a two day project...


In between seed gluing, there was animal painting. (See our animal project post for more pictures and the complete story.)



 
Friday Finale!


 
...as if baking cornucopias, making mosaic cornucopias and painting clay animals wasn't enough to cram into a two hour block, there was snake petting in the science center. Don't worry, we already devoured our cornucopias. This event took place right before we went home.

 
 
 

 

 

Friday, November 8, 2013

Who Let the Critters Out?

Instead of cooking today my class started working on clay animal projects. We are using Crayola Model Magic. My students each chose an animal he/she wanted to learn more about. during the last week they used a KWL chart (a 3 column chart: Know, Want to know, Learn) to map out their learning. Then they got busy reading about their animal. Next week they will make animal habitats and write a composition about their animals.