Veteran's Day Bubble Map

I have been so super busy these last couple of weeks, but I want to share a freebie I made for Veteran's Day! We are going to watch a video about veteran's and then complete this Veteran's Day Bubble Map!

Click to download!


Also, I am SOOO stoked that I am getting a blog makeover by the amazing Kristen over at Ladybug's Teacher Files, so don't be startled when you visit in the coming weeks and it's totally different! It's still me! =)

Enjoy the rest of your week and your Veteran's Day!! 

Making a Coke Float

This is definitely one of my favorite writing units we do in our grade level! We make coke floats and write directions on how to make them. 

Here is the video we use at the beginning!



I will be posting more on this later, but here is the graphic organizer to use after viewing the video! Just click the image to download! 


FYI: This graphic organizer is an adaptation of the "How to Blow a Bubble" graphic organizer from the girls at Lesson Plan SOS


I will post the finished unit sometime soon! Just check back!

Life Cycles and Text Features

This week at school, we learned about life cycles of plants and in honor of Halloween, we did the life cycle of a pumpkin on paper plates and they came out totally cute! Of course I saw it first on Pinterest, so I HAD to try it! 

Here are a couple of examples:



In other news, in reading this week, our mini-lessons have been focused on non-fiction text features. One of my colleagues came up with the idea of having the kids do a scavenger hunt in different non-fiction magazines (Weekly Reader, Scholastic News, Time for Kids, and National Geographic for kids) and glue examples into a lotus diagram. They came out awesome! They had to find a certain number of examples for each feature and glue it in the lotus. 

Here are a few: 



I have more examples but for some reason, they are not inserting correctly. 

Anyway, it was a fun way to review the different text features they learned this week and I am using it as a major project grade. 

More fun stuff to come later!

Pumpkin Fun and Red Ribbon Week!

I shared with you last week the Great Pumpkin Seed Mystery Lesson, and I wanted to share with you the photos of our pumpkin being planted.



And now....the seed is germinating!! My kids were sooo excited when they came in yesterday to check on their plants and there were several beginning to grow! 



Tomorrow, we will go back into our science notebooks and record our first observations! 

On another note, it is Red Ribbon Week and I wanted to share our class door decoration because.....well...it's just freakin' cute!

My theme was "Make No Bones About It! We will be drug free!


The kids made chalk skeletons and wrote how they would stay drug free on the print out. 

Here is a close up: 


And because I love sharing stuff, here is the printable in case you want to use it in your classrooms next year! There are two files. One is the skeleton head cut outs and the other is the actual paper where they wrote their drug free responses. I am attaching the word versions so you can change it if you need to.



What are some themes you guys use for Red Ribbon Week?


The door judging will take place tomorrow so I will let you know if we win! =) 

I have also done, "Don't Get Caught in the Web of Drugs," with spider webs stretched across the door and students stuck their drug free responses and little plastic spiders in the web. 

My neighbor this year used, "Drugs are Corny," and had students use a response sheet like mine. The kids decorated a cartoon candy corn to add to the door. It was super cute!

I will have more coming about the life cycle of a pumpkin this weekend so stay tuned!

Thanksgiving Newsletter

Several of you have been requesting my a Thanksgiving themed newsletter, so here it is! I just used clipart from Microsoft Word.

Click the image below for the editable version!

I have more to share later, but I'm taking a night off from doing school work and going to play music trivia with friends!