A Garden for the Classroom
We pulled weeds, rotated the soil and planted seeds for radishes and zucchini this year. I love teaching my students how to grow your own food. This is also a great science lesson, the cycle of the plants, the parts of the plants and how the plants grow. We had a great time and harvested hundreds of radishes. I have 22 students and every student harvested 3 to 4 radishes each, not to mention, the garden already yielded enough for a few teachers before we harvested. The students loved it, as you can see in the picture. We had a great time. I will be preparing for next years class by buying the appropriate seeds or seedlings for the beginning of the year and we will plant them the first week. I believe this also encourages team building and working together for one common goal.
Note Taking Skills
I encourage my students to take notes in any subject. I teach 4th grade math, history and science in a charter/public school (it's complicated), all of which include note taking skills. Last year I handed out sticky notes, index cards and each student had their own spiral for note taking. I talked about the importance of taking notes while the teacher was talking and practiced with the class. After a few days of practice, I didn't mention taking notes again and noticed many students using the methods that best fit them. Here are a few pictures showing the different styles of note taking.
In the picture above, the student used sticky notes to take notes. We then stapled them together like a book and placed the booklet in the pocket of her spiral.
In the picture above, the student chose the more traditional note taking skills.
My point in doing all this is to prepare the students for lectures in upper level grades. Learning to pick out critical information and writing it down is crucial in education, especially when the teacher has repeated the same information more than once. That is important to know, because usually that means the information repeated will need to be known.
I love teaching students more than just curriculum. There is so much more to teach than just a subject.
Veteran's Day November 11, 2015
I've created an 8 page PowerPoint for Veterans Day. It includes questions that ask the students what Veterans Day is, the branches of the military and how to thank a Veteran. It also includes answers to the questions asked and asks the questions again. This gives the teacher a chance to talk about the questions before discussing the details of the answers, then question the students after discussions and see how their answers have changed. God Bless America.
Climb Into The Classics Day
What an amazing day at school today. We had a Climb Into the Classics day, when everyone, including the staff dressed up as a character from classic books. It was so much fun to hear the stories behind the costumes.
I, of course chose The Cat in the Hat!
Classroom Newsletter
This year parents want to be in the know of what's going on in the classroom. So, I created a classroom newsletter, in zebra of course, to help manage this situation. I decided to create several more in different themes and share them with you. Each template is created and can be edited in Power Point. You can find these in my teacherspayteachers.com store. I hope this is as useful for you as it is for me.
Featured Teacher of the Month
I have met some very interesting, smart, creative teachers who love what they do. I wanted to begin featuring one each month in my blog. After all, they deserve the recognition for all they do. Let's get together and encourage Kelsey for all her hard work.
Meet Kiddie Kreations By Kelsey
I am happy to feature her in my blog this month.
In August she will be starting her third year of teaching. Her first year was spent teaching Enrichment and then she transferred to 2nd grade. Her best selling product is her Contractions Anchor Charts. She has many products to choose from. Check out the links below.
Product Description: Use these anchor charts to help guide a lesson on contractions. Great to help differentiate between what words are used in each contraction.
Product Description: I used this product as a station for our school-wide Literacy Night. This activity is a great activity for a variety of ages. Rhyming clues, lead the students on a scavenger hunt to find the book character that is being described. After all of the characters have been found, the students solve the secret message.
Let's all take the time to "Thank" a teacher. She has amazing products in her store. Thank you Kelsey for all you do!
TeachersPayTeachers Store Wide SALE February 25-26 PLUS I've added 10% off my items!
TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) is having a store wide sale February 25th-26th. I have added an additional 10% off my items. Load up your baskets! Get in while the sale is going on.
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