Mother’s Day Recipe for Mom

My students celebrated their moms by making this flower pot recipe holder craft.

They attached a "Recipe for Mom" card.

The craft came from Oriental Trading, but the exact craft is no longer available on their site.

I had leftovers from years ago when I purchased it. I hope they'll bring it back because I've done this same project every year.  Happy Mother's Day!

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Edible Landforms Activity and Landforms Definitions Lesson

Have food = Will Learn

My class does this edible model of landforms every year.

We start with a graham cracker base.

Cover 3/4 with brown icing and 1/4 with blue icing.

Use various food items to represent landforms:

Brown M&M for an island

Blue M&M for a lake

SnowCap candies for mountains

Fudge Graham cookies split into pieces to form a canyon. Then use blue sprinkles to show a river between the canyon

Wafter type cookie for a plateau

Coconut colored green with food coloring for showing the plains

We also complete a Landforms Definition Booklet. Students learn five facts about hills, mountains, canyons, valleys, plateaus, plains, cliffs, islands, volcanoes, and deserts and then illustrate a picture of each geographical feature.

I also mix in some landform videos and songs I've found online

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I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Surprise Wake Up

I had an exciting wake up call early this morning.

 At 2:45 AM I heard my doorbell ring twice and Harley started barking.
I look out front and see police cars, an ambulance and firetruck.
Not so good to wake up to.
 I answer the door to a police officer that tells me they need to search my backyard for a suspect that might be hiding. From what information I was given, officers were responding to an unrelated call in my neighborhood. The responding police car was hit by a suspect driving in a darkened, unlit car who then fled on foot into a closeby neighbor's yard.

So, their first search was by a handful of police with night vision in my yard for the suspect.
No spotting of the suspect though.
I have a north bank hill full of very thick shrubs (perfect for hiding, I might say) and police inform me they would be returning to search it with a dog.

Fast forward to another knock on my door to more officers that prepare to search with the trained german shepard. They wanted to be sure no people or pets were in the backyard as they proceeded.

Wow, it was a sight to see 13 armed officers and the police dog surveying my yard.

They clearly announced one last warning to anyone hiding before they brought in the dog.

They fanned out in the yard and screened it a second time and I could hear the dog make his barking calls here and there. No luck in finding anything though and the police proceeded to search my nearest neighbor's yards too.  This is for sure NOT an everyday, typical event in my area, so it made for a very surprising start to my weekend. I can't remember the last time I was still awake at 5:00 AM!

Since I slept in today (I have an good excuse) I'm a little late announcing that I'm having a Spring Sale in my TPT store.

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Spending Money on Spring Break

I spent money on Spring Break, and not in the way I wanted.

If I've not shared before, I have a beautiful yard, but it is a 1/2 acre.

1/2 acre = lots of my time maintaining it over Spring Break.

Good thing I have my good buddy, Harley, along to keep me company.

He gets to lounge in the cool mondo grass while I sweat it out with weeding
The start of spending money was on replacing 2 sprinkler valves plus broken sprinkler repair.

Sidenote Harley story:  My parents dogsit Harley at their house while I work when they are in town.
My dad took him on a walk the other day, and 2 loose dogs came charging up to Harley.
Harley gave them a back off warning growl, and that's when the dogfight started.
The 2 boxers had the advantage because Harley was leashed up. My dad was hollering, and went into the middle of the street with the 2 dogs following. A car stopped and tried to help by honking repeatedly to get the dogs away but it continued. Harley came out of the tag team fight with no injuries, but my dad was upset that numerous parents walking their kids to the nearby school did not even mention to him as they passed by that these 2 dogs were laying loose up the way in a driveway.
It would have given him the chance to change paths or avoid the confrontation.

**********************

This pretty group of flowers sprouted up as a surprise.
Squirrels must have spread them to my yard.
Not quite sure what kind of flower it is though.

A big chunk of my unexpected Spring Break spending went to cutting down these 3 Queen Palms.

I wouldn't have cut them down except their roots were eventually going to destroy my brick planter. In order to save the planter, they had to go.

Cutting down in process

If yard work weren't enough add in some home maintenance.

My dishwasher has a leaking valve and needs to be repaired. 

Don't you love waiting for repairmen? I have a window of between 12pm and 3pm for it to be fixed.

Who has bets it is at 3 pm?

Hope your break will be more cost effective than mine or at least spent on something more FUN!

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Get Your Draw On

Top o' the morning on this St. Pat's Day

I wanted to share the neatest art site, Art for Kids, which is authored by Rob, a dad of 3 who shares his love of art with them. The site includes guided step by step videos plus printable "How to" sheets for each design. In shamrock spirit, here's the link to drawing a leprechaun.

Have fun exploring more "Draw It" designs from Rob {HERE}

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Zoo Fieldtrip

To kick off a unit on Living Things my class went to the zoo.

What a fun day!

Here's a simple zoo song to review many animals we saw today

And a cute habitat song

And after a long field trip day, I'm off tomorrow for a furlough day.

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Down the Classroom Drain...What's that?

My week ended with a plugged classroom sink.

The sitting water wouldn't drain and I was stumped because nothing ever goes down it except water, or my leftover coffee or tea. My assumptions were way off though.

A work order was put in and the district maintenance guy came to take a look....during the middle of my classroom instruction. He plunged, plunged, plunged...on and on while I tried to teach.

I stopped to ask him if I needed to clear out under the sink and he stated, "No, not unless I need to get the snake."  Great thing to say with a class full of kiddos. I could see many of them trying to figure out why he would need a snake to fix the sink. I clarified. "Boys and girls, a snake is a tool to unplug a drain, not a real snake."  On went the lesson, until finally after more plunging and  yes, using the "snake", 3 watercolor brushes were found. I was shocked. First, I never rinse watercolor brushes. I have the kids put them back in the container and air dry. Second, my class has not water colored this year at all. Third, how did 3 of them get down the sink? I could see maybe one as an accident but not 3.

I guess I'll never know. I can only assume this problem was started with my last year's class, since that is when I last remember water coloring.

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Test Prep Activities

Randy Sauer has written a testing theme song called Rock This Test.
So has Dallas Thompson's 5th graders. Links are below for both songs.
I'm adding them to my bag of testing tricks.

Standardized testing in my district will be in April. It's creeping up quickly.
I reinforce testing skills from week one of the school year though as part of my regular teaching.

Catchy rhymes and hints stick with my students when I use my Test Tip Posters.

Also, the week prior to testing I send home a healthy snack donation letter to parents so I can pass out brain friendly treats in between testing sessions.

On the first day of testing week I also give this Smart Cookie motivational note to each student

Click picture to grab this FREEBIE

 

Another staple for test prep in my class is this "Grade the Teacher" activity.

It is so versatile and engaging and can be used for any subject. Students get to "grade" the teacher's work, which is purposely filled with errors for them to find. It's great for an exit ticket and error analysis. Plus, students don't even realize they are doing ALL the work by correcting and reteaching the teacher! 

You might want to revisit an older post of mine with a cute read aloud idea:
The Biggest Test in the Universe

How do you prepare for standardized testing?
Share your wisdom

Click picture to view poster set

 

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A Field Trip to California Science Center

My class is learning about the solar system and we recently went to the California Science Center to view the Space Shuttle Endeavour exhibit.

What an amazing experience.

Click picture for Panoramic viewing of exhibit

Source: LA Times

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Learning from History Lincoln and Washington

I'm using this virtual tour of the Lincoln Memorial to bring history to life.

For Washington this interactive timeline is a treasure.

And combine both presidents in this catchy song

On another note, I shared a neat resource for a thesaurus study over at All Things Upper Grade.

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