End of the Year ABC Book

A few weeks ago I was browsing blogs and found an awesome idea on ClassroomTested Resources!  The post was written by Beth from Adventures of a Schoolmarm and describes a collaborative ABC Memory book that she does with her students.  Since I have exactly 26 kids this year, I thought I would give it a try, and I’m super glad I did!

I introduced the project to the kids by telling them that we would be brainstorming ideas of things that we’ve done this year or things that deal with our class or school.  I gave the kids a graphic organizer and ten minutes to brainstorm on their own.  You can get the organizer for free here.

After they brainstormed on their own, we shared ideas.  They came up with SO many ideas!  We filled our whiteboard with their brainstorming.  Then we narrowed it down to one idea per letter that best summed up our year, but didn’t repeat ideas.  

After narrowing the ideas, it was time to assign letters.  A few things were student specific, so they got those automatically.  For the rest of the kids, I drew numbers and they got to pick a topic.  Then, it was time to write.  

Each student wrote a paragraph about their topic.  Beth’s product (which is available here) has a page for each letter that gives the kids about half a page of lines for writing.  After they wrote, I collected the pages and copied an entire book for each child.

They started illustrating on Friday and they are adorable so far!  This is definitely a project I want to repeat in the future!

If you want to keep reading, The following is a list of our ABC topics:

A – Amazing Race (our states and capitals “competition”)

B – Book Talks (a monthly requirement)

C – Camp SOLE (read about it here)

D – Miss Davis

E – Eating at the middle school (on our orientation visit)

F – Flags (the fifth graders have a competition to design a school flag)

G – Going to Marengo Cave (read about it here)

H – Homework Club (our incentive for turning in homework)

I – ISTEP (yes, they wanted to write about the state test)

J – JA BizTown (read about it here)

K – Kindergarten Buddies

L – Lock Down Drills (they think barricading the door is fun)

M – Making Rockets (we make rockets out of 2-liter bottles and launch them in the Spring)

N – Nicknames (we have a “Duck” and a “Llama” in our room)

O – Otter Trot (our school’s walk-a-thon)

P – Prosthetics (we build prosthetic legs in Science)

Q – Quizzes (Q was kind of a hard one)

R – Recycling (my class is in charge of the school’s recycling program)

S – Stealing Kids (The three fifth grade teachers sometimes borrow kids from the other 5^th grade classes. It’s harmless, but fun for the kids.)

T – Tornado Drill (We had a real tornado warning this year…while we were on a field trip)

U – The Unicorn Song (long story!  But here’s a link)

V – Video Rewards (We watched funny animal videos and the Evolution of Music as rewards)

W – We the People (read about it at the end of this post)

X – eXoskeletons (we had observations with insects in the fall, and X was hard!)

Y – Yummy Treats (I may spoil my kids…especially during state testing)

Z – Zern Zingers (our principal’s daily jokes)

Sunday Scoop - April 26, 2015

This week, I’m linking up with The Teaching Trio again for The Sunday Scoop. 

3 things I have to do:

Finish grading papers – I worked on this yesterday, but I still have some Science and some writing left to go.

Finish planning for the week – I had all of my lessons written for the week, but found out Friday afternoon that we are changing our testing schedule for the state test….so instead of testing on Monday, I need to figure out what I’ll be teaching.

Brush Nellie – My golden retriever needs brushing ALL THE TIME!  But today should be nice enough to do it outside (which helps the cleanliness of my house!)

2 things I hope to do:

Mow the grass – I use “hope” very loosely here… I need to mow, but it rained all day yesterday, so it may be too wet to get this done today.

Organize my school bag – My school bag has become incredibly heavy lately.  I need to work through it and see if I can take anything out.

1 thing I’m happy to do:

Read my students’ latest stories – My kids worked on animal migration stories this week.  They were fictional stories, but had to show an animal migrating.  They had a lot of fun planning and writing, so I’m excited to read the final products!

Caving…5th grade style

The Wednesday before Spring Break means one thing in my school…the 5^th grade caving trip!  Last week, we took 71 kids and 37 parents caving in Southern Indiana.  The trip takes a ton of planning, but is SO worthwhile!  

Before we go on our trip, we spend about three weeks learning about how caves form, different formations (speleothems) that the kids will see, and different types of cave life that they might witness.   

The cave we visit is four and a half hours away, so the day begins with a report time of 4:40.  Everyone was on time, so we were able to leave a little before 5.  Our bus got lost on the way there, so we ended up getting there half an hour late (around 10).  Then it was time to split into five groups and go exploring!

My group toured the two commercial caves first.  They are absolutely beautiful, and even though it’s my sixth time going, I see something new each time.  We were lucky enough to see several bats this time.  They are still hibernating, so they are super tiny, and just hanging from the rocks.  The kids are always amazed by the formations they see.  We’ve learned about all of the different speleothems, but actually seeing them is an exciting experience.

After the commercial caves, it was time to explore the “wild cave.”  A wild cave is just a cave that is still forming.  This one has a stream running through it that you have to walk through for about 90% of the tour.  You also climb over rocks, crawl through a rather tight passage, and have the opportunity to walk through the “bathtub” (a waist deep area of the stream).  The kids come out of the cave wet and muddy, but they love it!  They even love the process of being hosed down to get rid of the mud!

After a long day at the cave, we loaded up the buses and headed home.  We got home around 9, and everyone was picked up by 9:15!  It is a long and exhausting day, but worth every minute!

March Currently

This month, I am excited to be linking up with Farley at Oh’ Boy 4thGrade for March Currently. 

 

Listening: Muse is one of my favorite bands, and lately I can’t get enough.  My current playlist on iTunes is very eclectic, but there’s a lot of Muse.

Loving: My kids ROCKED their persuasive paragraph assignment over the weekend!  On Friday, we read I Wanna Iguana and the kids were asked to write their parents a letter explaining something extravagant that they would like.  The final results were awesome!  They asked for everything from cars to bagpipes to dragons.  I am hoping to post some of their finished paragraphs this week.

Thinking: I am a list maker, but lately, it seems that the lists are getting longer and longer (and harder and harder to accomplish!).  I am hoping to tackle some things today to decrease the stress load.

Wanting: Spring Break cannot come soon enough.  I love teaching and I love coaching, but the combination is exhausting!  I am ready for a week with no requirements!

Needing: This week is the first round of our state testing, and perhaps the only time I am adamantly opposed to school delays and closings.  We just need to get there with nothing out of the ordinary so the kids can do their best on this test!

Spring Break Plans: I have nothing planned for Spring Break except relaxing.  Ok, I’ll probably be tackling some things on the never-ending-list, but I also hope to read and relax a bit, too!