faulker099

Hello Everyone!! Yes! The 100th Day of School is almost here! For us it will take place on Thursday!!!  The kids always look forward to our 100th day!!  We count up to it and down from it from our first day of school.  100 is such a landmark number, we put a lot of time and effort into exploring all we can about it.  We work in our classrooms and as an entire school. I have posted before about our balloon launch with tags attached as a way of tracking geographically.  Such an amazing thing for the kids to experience. I am posting my 100th day of School unit again because I've added a couple of things to it. If you downloaded it last year or the the year before, please do it again!  The unit includes a week's worth of number exploration, literature, creative arts, and so much more! There is a fun math activity based on the book "100 Snowmen" that my kids were amazed with last year!  I can't wait to do it again!!  The unit is now almost 70 pages of ...

Hello Everyone! I have a few minutes while waiting for some yummy veggie pizza to bake in the oven, so I thought I'd share a bit about what we've been doing in science.  We finished our unit on living and nonliving, and jumped right into a closely related topic, Interdependency.  The kids have had fun just learning how to say that word...and of course relating it to living things.We learned the def.- the relationship between two or more things- where each one benefits from the other. Last week we learned what plants need to survive and what we and other living things get from plants, so of course we had to make our terrarium!!  So much fun.  We are in the process of watching what happens and recording our observations. Want to try it? Click HERE for the unit! It's free! This week we concentrated on a wonderful book which shows great examples of interdependency. Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson.  You have to get this book if you want kids to be amazed at how thi...

Hello Everyone! I hope your week is going well! We have had an awesome week so far!! A ton of "hand to head to heart" activities!  One that I know will stick with the kids is our "Word Surgery" opportunity.  I could have chosen to introduce contractions with a worksheet, a matching activity, just telling my little learners about them, or showing them some contractions in a story, but I knew that the engagement wouldn't be the same.  I have posted about this surgery activity the last five+ years, and every year I watch kids absolutely embrace their new roles as doctors. As we got started, we practiced reading the two words chosen to "be the patient" (become a contraction) and then really listened to the shorter way to say those two words. (the contraction).  We listened for the letters we no longer heard in the  new word and "performed surgery" (cut them out). Then we stitched the new word together. (created the contraction)(bandaids!) Of cour...

Hello Everyone! I hope you are staying warm during this chilly weekend! Some of you are having downright COLD weather.  Brrr!  And my thoughts and prayers are going out to families affected by tornadoes in one of my old stomping grounds...Florida!  This has already been a crazy year weather-wise. Stay safe and check in on each other!! In school this week, we had some fun with fractions.  I always like to start off a unit on fractions with some lessons on symmetry and equal parts.  The magical look of paint and folded paper always amazes the kids and creates wonderful symmetry. Then teaching the kids how to fold a coffee filter into equal parts and creating beautiful snowflakes! Then showing them how to build symmetry in another way! Then finally getting into the vocabulary and authentic use of  edible fractions using graham crackers ! We will continue with fractions next week.  I will add a little bit about determining fractions of a set.  Our fir...