Native American Art Project

Well, we are almost four weeks into school and we have been integrating the arts into our daily curriculum as much as possible.  I wanted to share one of the projects that we completed just this past week.

To complete this project we integrated social studies, reading, writing, and the visual arts all into one lesson (multiple days).  In social studies, we have been studying Native Americans.  I found some great leveled texts about Native Americans on TPT.  I loved that they had different Lexile levels to differentiate the text and I liked that there was an article for each region.  In reading, we have been working on explicit information and main idea.  These articles worked really well for these skills.  

I assigned each partner group a different region/tribe and they spent the first week determining the main idea of each section of their article.  After they completed this, students had a set of explicit questions to answer about their region/tribe.  You can purchase these questions in my TPT store.  

When my students finished answering the questions/collecting research about their region/tribe, I explained to them that they would be creating an art piece that would be a "buffalo hide" to display symbols that represent their tribe.  I created the "hides" by tearing some tan colored bulletin board paper. Students had to use their research to brain storm 11 symbols they would include on their hide.

I modeled some possible symbols to get their brains thinking.  As soon as they started working, I knew that these were going to turn out awesome!  They were so creative with their symbols. I also told my students that they had to use multiple mediums of art: colored pencils, water color paints, and construction paper.

I allowed my students to use our laptops to look up pictures if needed for some inspiration.  The art portion of this project took us about two ninety minute sessions.  

As students were finishing their art pieces, I explained the writing portion of this assignment.  Students had to go back to their list of symbols they had brainstormed and circle five of them.  Students had to write one paragraph about each symbol explaining its importance to the tribe.  

I was really impressed at how well my students did with this integrated activity.  Here are some photos of them working and their finished projects displayed in the hall.

I am really looking forward to all the creating we will be doing throughout the year.  I have created a Donors Choose Project--Creating Artists One Paint Brush at a Time, to help us get some art materials that we need in our classroom for some upcoming projects. Check it out!

Happy School Year!

Well, summer came and went for me!  We are back at school, since we are year round, and we are off to a fantastic start!

During the last school year, my school was chosen to become a part of the A+ Schools Program and we are so very excited about this!  We will be fully integrating the arts into all of our content areas and the kids are going to love it.  We just recently hired a drama teacher and should hopefully get a dance teacher and an orchestra teacher too.  

We attended a week long training, in Raleigh, the week before school started back and it was very informational and inspiring.  We were given lots of great ideas and time to plan (always nice!).  I can't wait to see how this program influences our children, school, and community!

After training all week, I couldn't wait to get back in my classroom and get it ready for my new students.  This is a picture of my beginning of the year bulletin board. I made the banner and found some cute little owls to write my kid's names on at Walmart. 

Here is how my classroom looked after three work days. 

I was really thrilled about how my room turned out and it was ready just in time for open house.  I loved meeting all my new kiddos and their families.  

We spent the first two days of school reviewing rules, practicing procedures, and getting to know one another.  As of now, I ONLY have 14 kids in my class. It is like a dream, but I should knock on wood.  I am used to have between 20-26 students, so I don't even know what to do with myself!  I am looking forward to welcoming my kids back tomorrow for a full week of fun and learning.  I have a feeling this is going to be an awesome year!

Monday Made It! 6/22

Hey y'all! I  am loving summer break and having time to create, cook new recipes, and workout.  Here is a few of my made its from this week! 

 

While browsing through Pinterest I came across these super cute classroom rule posters.  The rules were perfect and they matched my classroom so well, so I just had to purchase them on TPT.

After I downloaded these, I went and printed them at Office Depot.  I didn't want to use all our black ink at home.  I set out to find some 8x10 frames, so naturally I headed to the dollar store.  I found some black frames that would be perfect (and of course I found some other goodies at the dollar store too...you can never have too many storage containers).

I cut the posters to fit the frames with my paper cutter.

I put the posters in the frames and  I love the way they look!  I like having just a few big rules that encompass so many things. I can't wait to hang these up in my classroom and use them as references throughout the year.

 

Like I said, I have been trying some new recipes.  I found this recipe for Chicken Stir Fry on Pinterest and let me just tell you it is delicious and so easy! Click here to enjoy this recipe!

This year we are not purchasing planners, so I decided to create something that my students could write on each week to keep track of what we are studying, homework assignments, and any upcoming events.  I got this idea from this Pin.

So, I created this:

 

I will just copy of a bunch of these at the beginning of the month and cut them in half, so we will be good to go for the month.  I think this will be great for my kids and parents.  I think that having this half sheet of paper right in their homework folder will be a lot more likely to seen. I am excited to see how this works!  Feel free to download this for free from my TPT store.

Hopefully I will have some more to add next week! Happy Monday!

Spelling Homework

I have been working on updating my spelling homework and this is what I came up with.  I give my students the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory spelling assessment at the beginning of the year, and the reassess them on the same assessment throughout the year.  This assessment decides which spelling list my students will be given. 

I have a total of three lists.  Each one is a different color and students know their color and write down their words on Monday.  Once we get back to school I will post a picture of how I display the lists.

This Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe I made can be used with any spelling list. I assign my students 10 words each week based on their spelling levels. They are given the words on Monday and have to complete three of the the tic-tac-toe tasks by Friday. Completing three tasks each week gives them one night to just study them. On Friday, they take their spelling test and turn in the tasks they have completed. 

My students will keep this tic-tac-toe sheet in a sheet protector in their notebook, so that I don't have to copy it each week. On Monday, I just give my students a sheet of paper to write their spelling words down and then they staple their list to their completed tasks on Friday.

In the download, I have included the page for them to write their words down.  There are three per page, so just print and then cut them to save on paper. I included examples on the spelling tic-tac-toe, so that my lower students will have access to them.

I get my spelling words from this website: http://barton.mpls.k12.mn.us/words_their_way.  They have great leveled lists to pull words from each week. You can purchase this Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe from the TPT store. Let me know how you implement spelling homework in your classroom!

Back at Blogging

Well, it has been almost two years since I have posted.  A great deal has happened in those two years.  I got married, learned a new grade level, and bought a new home with my husband.  Things seem to have settled down a bit, so I am going to give blogging another try!

This was a great year in fifth grade!  We learned a lot, gained new friends, and had a ton of fun.  I especially loved the last few weeks of school.  We practiced our graduation ceremony (which went great!), enjoyed a picnic, and completed several STEM activities.  My students loved these activities.  It was awesome to see them apply all of the skills we had been working on all year.

We did the Egg Drop Parachute Challenge, Spaghetti Tower Challenge, Boat Design Challenge, and Catapult Design Challenge. My students surprised me with all their awesome ideas.  They thought of ideas I would have never thought of.  When we completed the Egg Drop Parachute Challenge, most of the groups were successful, which was awesome!  However, my class wanted to see some eggs crack! We decided to remove the parachutes from their designs and see how their eggs would fare.  There were broken eggs everywhere!  This was definitely their favorite part.

These activities were an awesome way to end a fun year. I purchased most of these activities on TPT.  Just search STEM activities and a ton of choices will be available for you.

This is a picture of one of the towers from our Spaghetti Tower Challenge. The goal was to build the tallest tower with the available supplies, but the trick was that they had to balance a large marshmallow at the top. My students came up with some great solutions and of course we had to eat some marshmallows too! :)

What a week!

School starts on Monday and I am so excited! We had open house on Thursday night and it was so great to see all of my kids from last year who are my students now. We had a great turn out.  It is going to be such a great year.  I found out on Wednesday that I am now teaching only 5th grade, so I was kind of relieved.  I was starting to stress a little about teaching a combo class and getting married, my fiance asked me if he would ever see me during the school year? :(

I have been so busy and I haven't taken many photos of my room, so I will try and do that next week and post them. I am so excited with the way everything turned out.  My kids also seemed to love it at open house.

This will be my first year teaching all subjects.  I was a little overwhelmed on Friday, but I sat down today and looked at the standards for 5th grade and units that have been made by our district and I am feeling much better. 

I know that most of you don't go back to school for a while, but if there is anyone else out there going back on Monday I hope you have a great school year!  : )

Getting Started

I was finally able to go into school yesterday! I was able to get the layout of my room set up for the most part, but haven't gotten any of my bulletin boards up yet. 

I had made curtains for my window and storage area. This is how they turned out. I didn't sew any of it. I simply cut it and used Velcro to keep them up. 

Before 

After

Before 

After

I love the way they look. I also got my new reading nook set up. 

My handy dandy dad made the large bookcase for me last year and I love it. I have my chapter books organized by lexile levels in the plastic bins. The smaller bookcase is organized by genre. The back of the small bookcase was falling apart, so I threw some paper and border on it. Looks like new!  I think I am going to let that be our Books We Love poster. 

Our workdays are all next week, so I will post more pics as things get finished!