Officially Kid Chefs

Two of my mom's friends and I sewed chef hats for each of my students. I officially crowned the children chefs today. They will wear their chef hats each time we cook. The first thing that all the students wanted to do was see themselves in the mirror. This student is "poofing" her hat. She was very serious about that "poof" too.

 

Once everyone had a turn looking at himself in the mirror. We got right to work writing.

 

 

Here the students are copying today's recipe for Acorn Donuts from the Smartboard.

 

All my little chefs posed for a picture. Sadly, I'm going to have to take the pictures over. There was a lot of reflection coming off the wall.

Today's recipe was Acorn Donuts. First, you frost the top of a donut hole with chocolate icing.

 

 

Next you dip the donut top into chocolate sprinkles.

 

Then you poke a pretzel stick stem into the top of the donut.

 

Take a moment to admire your creation...

 

Last make like a squirrel and gobble up your acorn, before someone else eats it for you!

 

 

We sang, "The Little Acorn," song while we cooked up acorns. Warning you may get motion sickness while watching this video. Sorry for the video quality, need to work on that.

You can find directions for How-To-Make a Chef Hat HERE.

Fire Safety

October is Fire Safety month. Fire Safety friends came to school to teach students about fire safety. Sparky the Dalmation and Smokey Bear were a huge hit.

The children learned that 9-1-1 is a tool not a toy. The students also learned that if they find matches, they should not touch them, but tell an adult. Did you know that if your clothes catch on fire that you should, "Stop, Drop and Roll?" The firemen told students that they should never go back in a burning building once they leave. Our Fire Safety friends even asked students to make a plan with their families, showing an escape route and meeting place, just in case their homes were ever to catch on fire.

Smokey the Bear took time to shake our hands.

 

A Desoto City Fireman dressed in his gear for us, to demonstrate there is just a man under all of that scary equipment.

The Forestry Department brought their bulldozer to share.

The firemen were trying to make us a rainbow, but the sun hid behind the clouds. They sprayed 500 gallons of water into the air for us. We could feel the mist from the spray on our faces. What an awesome ending for a morning filled with learning.

Squirrel Babies

 

On September 27th, two baby squirrels visited our class. They were found abandoned on a golf course. My daughter's friend adopted these tiny little furr balls. At the time their eyes were not opened yet.

 

Now here they are a week later, after being bottle fed puppy formula every four hours.

 

The baby squirrels are already avid climbers. They were able to climb up to the rim of this habitat and balance on the edge while scurrying along the circumference. They were so fast I could barely catch a clear shot of them.

They are cute, but I can't imagine trying to contain them, they are active little things. Before their visit today, we read the Big Book, Squirrels All Year Long and a book called, The Squirrel. We wrote squirrel stories and made squirrels with fluffy tails. We even learned a song called, "Little Acorn."

 

Quiz-Quiz-Trade

 

These students are quizzing each other on words from this week's spelling list. Quiz-Quiz-Trade is a Kagan structure used by teachers to increase student engagement. Instead of the old fashioned one student answers a question a time, this activity engages all learners and allows them to interact with their peers.

 

Each child has a spelling word card. The students walk around the room to music, when the music stops they put a hand in the air and partner up with a free student nearest to them. Once they partner up hands go down, this way it is easy to tell who does not yet have a partner. Partners stand toe-to-toe and look eye-to-eye, greet each other and begin the quizzing process. Before we begin I set a rule for who will go first, like "the person with the longest hair." Each student takes a turn being the teacher and asks his partner to spell the word written on his card, without revealing the word card. If the spelling partner struggles the student teacher may coach the spelling student to success. Once they each have a turn being the teacher and a turn spelling they give each other a supportive cheer. Then they trade spelling cards and begin to mix and partner again as the music plays.

 

You can tell by the expression on their faces they really love this way of learning. These boys are giving each other a High-Five cheer.

Fall is in the Air

Teachable moments are always welcomed in my classroom. This student took a road trip to New Hampshire and brought back apples and fall leaves to share with the class. She took our class mascot Twinkles the Owl with her too. She recorded the adventures of her trip in Twinkle's journal. As a class we looked New Hampshire up on the United States map. Then I read a story called, "Red Leaf Yellow Leaf.

 

I just happened to have fall leaf and tree die cut-outs on hand. I used my morning planning period to make this math worksheet to recap all the math strategies we have been practicing up to this point. We have math in the afternoon, so it worked out perfect. It made a great hands-on math lesson.

Later in science, I read a book about why leaves change color.  I pulled out some leaf cut-outs I bought on sale at Michaels a couple years ago. We colored the leaves with watercolor markers. Then we went outside and sprayed the leaves with water. The students watched in amazement as the colors ran and blended with each other creating beautiful fall leaves. We learned about writing poems in writing this week, so writing fall leaf poems will be on the agenda in the next couple of days.

The leaves turned out spectacular and each was unique, true to nature.

Our Class Pets

 

Each week one student is the designated Zookeeper. It's the Zookeeper's job to feed and water our class critters. This is Spike our Bearded Dragon Lizard.

 

 

This is Sunny our Leopard Gecko.

 

 

These are baby squirrels. They are just visiting.

A pet pig? No, it's just one of our silly boys. We did read a pretty silly story about a pig this week called, "Pig in a Wig." Now we just need a wig to go with the nose.

Johnny Appleseed

Mapping Johnny Appleseed's Travels. The students learned about legends, keys and compass roses.

 

These boys were digging my Pampered Chef, "Apple Peeler Corer Slicer!"

 

Making Apple Crisp

I love the aroma of hot baking apples!

 

Crispy Brown! Too hot to eat!

Appelicious!

Johnny Appleseed Biographies