Animal Research Note Sheet

We are starting animal research reports this week and the kids are so stinkin' excited! We decided this year to partner kids up based on their interests and since I have such a low class this year, I thought this would work out really well! 

Anyway, last week, they met with their partner and brainstormed some things they already knew about their animals and then wrote down questions they had. 

Starting tomorrow and all of next week, we will be doing our actual research! We ask that students gather information based on these four main areas: Interesting Facts, Life Cycle, Habitat, and Adpatations and Defenses. These four areas align perfectly with our SC science standards so it's always a five paragraph research paper when we are all done! 

Here is the note sheet we are using next week! Feel free to download! Just click on the image!

Happy MLK Day everyone! 

I certainly enjoyed my day off! Got to have lunch and then a pedicure with a friend! 

Units of Length Scavenger Hunts

Two days in a row...this has to be a miracle!!! I promised you a freebie, and here I am delivering! 

We started a new unit on measurement yesterday and I must say I HATE this unit every year!!! It is always our districts lowest scoring area in 3rd grade and so I get a little intimidated. We decided to take more of an individual discovery approach this year in hopes that it would help the ideas stick a bit more. 

Yesterday I introduced the customary units of length with the story "King Inch and the Kingdom of Measure." The story introduces the customary units in a fun and relatable manner. (I have no idea where this story came from because I've scoured the internet to make sure I wasn't violating any copyright laws and couldn't find it, but it was on our schools resource drive and so I made it into a flipchart. If you happen to know where it came from, please let me know!) You can download it by clicking the image below.

** The file below is a flipchart file and you must have Activ Inspire Promethean software for you to be able to download it! **

After we read the story, I drew lines on the white board showing how long each unit really is and then gave an example of something that is about the same length as each unit. After I did this, I turned the kids loose with their scavenger hunt sheets to search for other items in the room that were about the same length. I have to say, I was SUPER impressed with the things they found! 

I repeated the same process for metric units today with the scavenger hunt and again, I was impressed with what they came up with! (Sidenote: We obviously did not do the hunt when it came to miles or kilometers. At the end of the lesson, we brainstormed things that could be measured in both units since they are so large.) It was definitely the hardest one!

Click the picture below to download the sheets I used for today and yesterday!

And because I'm feeling all SHARE-Y, I even took a video of them during the Metric Scavenger hunt today! 

To wrap up both days of customary and metric units of length, we put our charts side by side and discussed the similarities between things they found. According to South Carolina math standards, students have to know that 1 yard and 1 meter are about the same and 1 kilometer is about half of 1 mile. Soooo, we took the similarities from the charts and came to the conclusion that some of the things we found for meters and yards were the same! It was so exciting that they came to this all on their own!

YAY for measurement! HAHA

But, tomorrow is last day of the week with kids and I'm pretty excited about our four day weekend! I'm taking Friday (the teacher workday) as an exchange day, which means I don't have to go!!! WHOO HOO!  

Happy Friday tomorrow to me!

Superlative Snowmen

So last week we were learning about comparative and superlative adjectives and so naturally I was perusing Pinterest for cute Wintery ideas and found this...(which had no link back to blog or site, so if you know who this idea belongs to...please feel free to share so I can give credit!)

And since it isn't St. Patrick's day, I had the idea to use the concept for snowmen! 

Thus, the Superlative Snowman was born!!

Aren't they cute!!?? I turned it into a fabulous winter door display!

We spent one day on comparative adjectives and one day on superlative adjectives. At the end of each day, we created a wordle of examples and those are what you see at the top of the door display. At the end of both days, we created the snowmen!

I will be back tomorrow with some fun measurement ideas from today! It was awesome but I left the files to share at school so you'll just have to wait... =) 

And since my milk box joke was such a hit during Five for Friday, I thought I'd share another. 

BUT this time, the first person to give a correct answer will win an item of their choice from my blog! Please leave your email in the comment with your answer!

Q: Why don't fish play basketball?

Happy joking! And no GOOGLING! That's cheating! 

Food Chain and Consumers Foldable

Hola bloggeritos! I totally just sounded like Kimmy Gibbler from Full House, didn't I?? 

Anyway, I'm back to share a fun food chain and kinds of consumers freebie for your students science notebooks. 

Click HERE to download!

I also wanted to share an old unit that I have posted in both of my shops! There is another fun food chain activity with lots of other plant and animal activities included! 

You can get it by clicking either of my shop buttons below.

Five for Friday

I have nothing great to share today other than to share five random things about my day! I am linking  up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to participate in her fun Five for Friday linky!

1. I had one of the most awesomely fantastic laughs today with my students. Check it...We're doing a lesson on division and one of my sweet little resource students came up to the board to sort the bananas into groups and was having technical difficulties with the promethean board to which she yells, "This board doesn't like me!" The peanut gallery responded with, "That's an idiom!" Yes my friends...that happened and we all had a good laugh! Totally made my week.

2. We learned today about the perspectives of women, African Americans, and Native Americans during the American Revolution and made tableaus (frozen pictures) depicting each group. I overheard students say, "This is so much fun! I wish we could do this everday!" Just go ahead and melt my heart why don'tcha!?

3. Joke from the milkbox at lunch...."What does an astronaut eat for lunch?" A: Launch Meat. Student looks at me and says, I don't get it. What's a launch? lol I'm like, ummmm you know when the rocket launches??? OOOOHHHHH!! HAHAHA

4. So I had a little mishap with an old newsletter with a typo stating the wrong back to school date on an OLD newsletter. Two students don't show up for the first day back after Christmas break and made a big fuss even though they were looking at the WRONG newsletter. Anyway, one of those students didn't even show up to school today. Hmmmm....

5.  I'm gonna bring it down here and say that I had to make a phone call to a parent of a student I don't usually have trouble with after school regarding poor behavior. =( Boooo!

Go link up! I hope your Friday was as awesome as mine!

Resolutions and the Revolutionary War

We've been up to a few different things this week.

We wrote some New Years Resolutions and we've been learning about the Revolutionary War. 

I made a little New Year's Resolution sheet for students to write out their thoughts and you can display them on your bulletin board! Just click to download!

In Social Studies, we have been learning about the perspectives of the different colonists during the Revolutionary War. After learning about the Patriots and Loyalists point of view, I asked students to brainstorm different things each group might say.

I took some of the better answer and asked those students to share their perspectives as a Patriot or Loyalist. Here is a video of that!

And here is a little graphic organizer you can use for the end of the lesson or as a project! Just click to download! 

Happy Thursday! One more day til the weekend!!