Tag: Art

Hot Mess Alert

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Well it’s been a hot minute guys. I apologize for being a little behind on posts but life has been crazy busy. It’s crazy to think that I was going to share on Valentine’s Day about our party, and now here we are 2 weeks later and there has been nothing. Today’s post is going to be a hodge podge of a few things I wanted to share with you so, bare with me.

First things first, I know Valentine’s Day was 2 weeks ago but I wanted to still share with you my absolute FAVORITE boxes made this year by my students! I for sure have a very creative group and it shows in their boxes. (Yes, I am aware that these ideas came from Pinterest but they’re still cute!)

Plus this amazingly adorable Harry Potter Valentine!

IMG_1450

As many of you know, February is “I Love to Read Month” so I like to do a few special activities to get my students in the spirit. My favorite art project to do with them is actually pretty simple. Students pick their favorite book and they recreate the book cover to share in the hallway. I mentioned us starting this in my last post but I finally have the final product read! I did this a few years ago and didn’t get the best result. My kids this year did PHENOMENAL! They loved this activity and most of them took their time!

The main reason I’ve been so behind on posting is because gymnastics season was coming to a close. We had our section tournament followed by the state tournament, so it was a whirlwind couple of weeks. I’m going to take a moment to brag because our team is so amazing! Our girls placed 2nd in the section (only the 1st place team advances to the state meet) and then we had 3 individual gymnasts to advance in the bars competition and in the all around. It was a pretty special and fun time getting to be there for the girls and bond with them in a way you normally don’t get to when the whole team is there. I LOVE gymnastics and I love this team, but I am so glad the season is over! I am exhausted!!

Another fun thing that happened this week was that our books FINALLY CAME IN THE MAIL!!! My kids were so excited to see the final product of the book they created! Last year my class made a book using something called Studentreasures Publishing. Students get a chance to create their own book. As a teacher, you go and order a kit to be sent to your school that includes everything you need to make your book. Once students are done writing and illustrating, you send the book back to the company and they publish the book for you! As a teacher, you get a FREE copy, which is such a cool keepsake. Families LOVE this and get the chance to order a book for themselves. My students have been on pins and needles waiting for our books to finally come back (we sent in our final product at the end of January) and were ecstatic when they did. I have to say, I am pretty proud of the finished product!

Finally, I would like to share something near and dear to my heart. This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Last year, I shared with you a post that explains the importance this week has on my heart. My sister has struggled with an eating disorder for almost 8 years now. I wanted to attach the link to that post for you in case you didn’t see it last year, or you wanted to reread about how nasty this disease can be and how to see the warning signs in your self or your loved ones. The post was called NEDA Awareness Week 2019. Go take a look if you’re interested. I will always be passionate about healthy lifestyles and loving yourself. This post, explains why.

NEDAW2020_STD_Instagram

I know that was a hot mess of information but I feel super behind and had to share whatever I could that I have missed. I will definitely be back on my posting game now that life is somewhat back to normal! (Fingers crossed!!)

 

For more day to day action and activities, go follow my Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!

Screen Shot 2020-02-27 at 6.27.33 PM

Turkey Trouble

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Today and yesterday we did one of my FAVORITE activities of the year (and my favorite Thanksgiving activity!)

Yesterday, I read the book Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano. The book is about a turkey who doesn’t want to be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner so he dresses up in different animal disguises to hide the fact that he’s a turkey. When I finished reading the story I asked them to think of what they would disguise their turkey as so it wouldn’t be eaten for dinner.

.jpg

They then took those ideas and wrote a short story about what their turkey dressed up as so they wouldn’t be eaten. They were SUPER creative! I told them they had to write at least a 5 sentence paragraph and I had kids writing 5-8 page stories! We have spent so much time working on our writing skills so it was nice to see that they were able to put our lessons to good use.

Today, we did part 2 of the project (AKA the part that I LOVE!) I gave each student a picture of a turkey on a white piece of card stock and told them to disguise their turkey just like they did in their stories. I put out construction paper, glue, and scissors and set them to work. I didn’t give any direction because I wanted to see their most creative work. They did amazing and the turkeys turned out so cute!!

These are all awesome but here are some of my favorites!

Harry Potter
A Clock
Stefon Diggs
Thing 1
Remi from Ratatouille
An iPad
Mario

These were all super fun but my top 3 favorites were Groot, a grandma, and me! Ha, yep one of my students disguised their turkey as me!! It was hilarious!

It was a fun couple days! I love this project so much because they always turn out so adorable and it puts everyone in the Thanksgiving mood. The only down side to the past few days has been the smell of my students…..my boys have begun to think that it’s fun to have farting contests throughout the day. I had to have a fun talk with them about bodily functions and self control. Oh 10 year old boys can be fun.

 

For more day to day action and lessons, go follow my teacher instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!! You won’t regret it!

Screen Shot 2019-11-19 at 7.08.17 PM.png

BINGO, Kickball, and Officially Published

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Happy Friday friends!!! More like FINALLY FRIDAY!! Holy cow this last month of school is a marathon and we’re ALL feeling it.

teacher_meme_end_of_year_manage

Today we had an early release for students so we could have a professional development afternoon. Because of that, we all tried to make today a fun day. We started the day with school wide BINGO. We’ve had a school wide goal since the beginning of the school year to read 25,000 books by the end of the year. We reached that back in February so we bumped the goal to 50,000. We have benchmark prizes throughout and BINGO was the prize for reaching 44,000. [[Super fun right!? Well it was at first….

Every Friday we have some “Friday free choice” time right away in the morning for about 20ish minutes to start the day. Because BINGO started right at the start of the day, we didn’t get time to do our free choice time. My kids were upset about this and didn’t understand why they couldn’t have both. Really?

When we started to play BINGO my class was the first 3rd grade class to get a BINGO so we won a class prize from the principals. Sometime in the next few weeks they’ll be taking my class outside to play some kickball. When my students found out this was the prize, half of my class threw a fit because they don’t like kickball. Who doesn’t want to get out of class on a nice spring day to play kickball!? Honestly it blew my mind. I was livid with how they were reacting. Oh my goodness, seriously.

After BINGO we finished a math test and then we watched Because of Winn-Dixie because we finished the book. A few of my highly emotional students (who work with our school social workers multiple times a day) were crying because they didn’t feel like watching a movie today. Ummmmmmmm what!? What 8 year old doesn’t want to watch a movie in school!? Oh my goodness I almost lost it.

WHOA_WHAT_THE_WHAT_1513180193c32d2e0e95b442a2

Majority of my class was super awesome during BINGO and during the movie but it’s those handful of 3-4 that ruin my mood because there has to be a problem with everything. I can’t win with them.

A super positive side about today though was that we finally got our published books in the mail. A few weeks ago my class created our own book. A friend of mine told me about this awesome company called Student Treasures. What the company does is it sends a teacher a book making kit for their class. In the kit there is a full list of instructions and order forms to send home. You come up with an idea on what you want to write about and go from there. One teacher I know made a class cookbook and another made their own “I survived” story. The site also has a ton of ideas and examples of different class books that have been made. Once the whole process is completed on the teachers end, the whole kit gets sent back and the company does all of the publishing! A few weeks later the books arrive and they are amazing!

Screen Shot 2019-05-17 at 6.20.03 PM.png

My class recently read the Wayside School series by Louis Sacher. We decided to base our book off of that series by making our own wacky and crazy stories. Each student wrote a chapter about themselves. They got to come up with a silly story about what they might do in our class and illustrate a picture to go with it. Today the books came!

The title of our book was Upside Down Stories From Becker Intermediate School. They turned out so cute and the kiddos were so excited. The book comes with a dedication page and a “meet the authors” page. My kids were adorable on their dedication. We talked together as a class and came up with two different dedications. The first was they wanted to dedicate our book to another 3rd grade teacher, the one who originally gave me the idea because she did it with her class. The second dedication was “to all of the sick.” They wanted to bring some cheer to anyone who isn’t feeling that great. They want anyone out there to have a good laugh because that makes everyone feel better. I was so proud when they decided on their two dedications. I had nothing to do with what they wanted.

 

At the beginning of our book I wrote a little introduction with the chapters for each student but the rest is all them! I am including examples from the different chapters in our book because I find them super cute and innocent.

 

It was a super fun process to build our class relationship. We decided on commonalities for our fake class like a common class discipline system and the name of the school principal. A lot of them decided to include other classmates in their stories (I told them as long as it was appropriate and they got permission from the other student, they could include whatever they wanted.) Overall, it was such a fun process. I HIGHLY recommend looking into Student Treasures next school year. It’s probably a little too late at this point of the year because it takes some time for the books to get back to you, but I think it is something every class should participate in.

Oh man, the end of the year cannot come soon enough. I love my class but MY GOODNESS they are losing their minds! Here’s to all of you teachers out there who understand the May feels.

WeAreTeachers_Gif_One-Glass-Wine_JS-min.gif

For more day to day activities and projects, go follow my class instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!

14 School Days and Counting!

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

We’re almost there!! One of my coworkers has a countdown on her door and, as of today, we are down to 14 (school) days. Today in Minnesota, it is a beautiful 80 degree sunny day! It’s days like this that make me want summer even more. Beautifully warm days like today can be rare here, especially in May and June, so it’s nice to enjoy it while it lasts.

With the summer feelings sinking in, I wanted to do a summer craftivity with my kiddos today to get us in the mood. What I decided to do was decorate flip flops that show what our favorite activities to do in the summer are. At the beginning of the year, we made jerseys to put on everyone’s locker. The jerseys had to somehow represent them. The flip flops were a similar project but centered around summer likes rather than their everyday likes.

I found this activity in a summer activity pack I bought on TPT last year for my fourth graders. The pack is called End of the Year Activities and Printables. It was from TheHappyTeacher‘s shop and was $4.25. It is TOTALLY worth the price because it comes with a ton of fun end of the year activities (and time fillers.) I’ll be sharing different activities we’ll be doing from the pack over the next few weeks.

Screen Shot 2019-05-16 at 1.46.04 PM.png

In the pack, it has a “design a flip flop challenge” coloring page. The page says to make it a contest to see who can make the best flip flop in the class. I added the part about making it about themselves so they would put more effort into them. I put my own example on the board and set them loose.

They all turned out super cute and definitely matched their personal styles. We hung them in the hall to add some “summer flare” to the school.

I am SO ready for warm summer days lounging on the beach reading a good book but I have to remind myself that we still have 3 full weeks of school left to get through before those wonderful days are here.

 

For more day to day activities (especially as the year is winding down and more fun things are to come) go follow me on instagram @lifeoftherookieteacher!!

 

Field Trips, Animals, and Inheritance

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Happy Wednesday my fellow blog friends. This has been a crazy week already and we still have 2 more days to go until the beautiful weekend is upon us.

This week started with a bang on Monday because it was our glorious field trip day. Remember when field trips used to be the best day of the year and you looked forward to sitting on the bus with your best friends and getting to be in a small group with one of your friend’s mom because they were your chaperone? Remember how fun and exciting it was being off of campus for the day and getting to experience new things you never would have gotten to experience if you were at a different school? Yeah, field trips used to be the life. Too bad it doesn’t stay that fun and exciting when you have to play the teacher role.

For our field trip we had 2 different activities planned for the kids. The first part of our trip was taking the kiddos to a giant park where they could run and get their energy out. They would get to run, scream, and play to their heart’s content. We then had a picnic planned before our second stop. My coworkers told me that this was going to be everyone’s favorite part of the day because the park is so big and different. As soon as we arrived, however the issues began.

In a previous post a few months back I mentioned a student who should be receiving services for EBD but has never been evaluated for it. I’ve mentioned my concerns and gave examples of some of the choices she makes on a daily basis. I worked side by side with her social worker to get the process started. As of today, she is officially in the process of being evaluated. Well this little girl was not having the park whatsoever. She told me she thought the whole thing was stupid and a waste of time. She then got mad when I told her to put her lunch at the same picnic table as the rest of her group before she went off to play. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because she took off.

When I say took off, she literally ran away from me around this giant park. It took some time of following her before she finally made her way to the gated in playground with all of the other students. Instead of enjoying the nice warm weather at the park, I spent most of my time watching and worrying that she would run off again.

The second part of our field trip was to a local Nature Center. We had been learning about adaptations in science, so at the Nature Center they focused on animal adaptations in nature. The first thing we did was go on a nature hike. Again, this activity should have been super fun and relaxing but my little girl did not want to go for a walk in the woods. She first refused to go with the group and then, once I finally got her to join us, she got upset again and ran off into the woods away from our group. This terrified me because I had no idea where she went. Luckily, the path wasn’t that long and I found her not too far from us but I couldn’t trust her to be without full on supervision for the rest of the trip.

On top of my runner, I had a nice little injury incident between the park and the Nature Center. Right after lunch, as we were getting onto the bus, three of my students were playing with sticks. I asked them to put the down and head to the bus. Well I guess I should have been more specific about putting them down because one of my students chucked the stick off to the side and hit another one of my students right in the face. She had a gash right on her eyebrow. The cut wasn’t that big but it was bleeding A LOT. (Just an FYI as well, the girl who got the cut who was bleeding is also my biggest hypochondriac and her mom is a very opinionated mom who shares everything and anything on Facebook. It was perfect.) I got to be a mini doctor on the bus to the Nature Center cleaning up her bloody face.

Needless to say, I was very happy when the day was over. Man do I miss those fun field trip days when I was the student and not the teacher. Besides all of my little incidences, however it was a very fun field trip for the students so it was worth it.

The fun part of the week so far has been a science project we worked on today in class. Along with adaptations, we have also been covering genetics. (With 3rd graders, this is super generic and basic.) We’ve done a lot of talking about how we inherit traits from our parents. We’ve learned the difference between inherited characteristics and acquired characteristics. In order for my students to get the full effect of this (as 8/9 year olds) I found this super fun activity on TPT that has students make a monster based on the traits of 2 monster parents. (I’m sure you’ve done a version of this activity at some point during your schooling but I personally think this one was pretty great.)

The activity is called HEREDITY Creature Features – Inherited and Environmental Traits. I found this on iTeachSTEM‘s shop. The activity was made for 5th-7th graders but I was able to “dumb it down” enough for my 3rd graders.

Screen Shot 2019-05-15 at 1.17.36 PM

The first thing students do is flip a coin (we rolled a die) to decide if a child would receive a trait from the mom monster or the dad monster. I did an example on the board and then they took off to do their own.

Once they were finished rolling their dice to pick the traits of their monster, they got to draw them out for the class to see.

Tomorrow my plan is to have us go through all of them and talk about how our monsters are all related because they got their traits from the same parents but non are exactly alike. I honestly think they turned out super cute!!! They loved doing it and understood the difference between inherited and acquired traits.

 

For more day to day activities, go follow our class on instagram @lifeoftherookieteacher!

Mother’s Day Presents

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I am so proud of myself for writing two days in a row after not writing for a handful of weeks. I had to share the fun Mother’s Day presents we did today. I got these ideas from Pinterest (obviously) and my fellow coworkers.

The first thing we made was a book mark for everyone’s mom. I found this amazingly cute idea off of someone’s blog off of Pinterest. I took pictures of my students last week pretending to hold on to a balloon or kite. I then got them printed out, cut them out, and laminated (what teacher doesn’t love to laminate??) them so my students could add the finishing touch with some ribbons. It was SO SIMPLE and they turned out so adorable. With the idea I found these adorable “Mom, can I hang with you while you read?” cards. I found them on the same blog that I got the idea from. (I’m kicking myself for not remembering whose blog I found this idea on.) Seriously, I find these SUPER ADORABLE!!!

The second thing we made were our Mother’s Day cards. I got this idea from the coworkers on my team. They based it off of a poem about an author liking giraffes and all of the reason why that author likes giraffes. They showed me how they turned that poem into all of the reasons the students love their moms.

We started with a template for our version of the poem where they listed all of the reasons they loved their moms. (We put MANY examples on the board ahead of time, so they all had ideas and wouldn’t have to ask me 100 times how to spell certain words.)

IMG_4783

They then transferred their poem to an “accordion” like card where their moms would have to open up to see the reasons why their children love them. I cut out flowers and butterflies for them to put on the cover of their cards but the rest was all up to them. They all turned out adorable. The theme of their poems were “Mom, I love you. Ask me why…” and I LOVE the things they came up with.

These were both incredibly easy and adorable. Last year my old team members told me about a gift that cost me too much money and spent too much time at school. This project, took me the total of 1 morning at school. (It was the perfect Friday morning activity!) I highly recommend doing something this simple and this easy.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend and an amazing Mother’s Day! This is my favorite week/weekend of the year. (Partly because it’s Mother’s Day but also because my birthday happens to fall on this wonderful weekend.)

 

For more day to day activities follow me on instagram @lifeoftherookieteacher!!

Lorax Day

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

IMG_4629

Oh my goodness you guys, yesterday was such a fun day and one of my favorites so far this year!!! We got to read one of my favorite books, do one of my favorite projects, and watch one of my favorite movies. The best part was we could spend the day celebrating and talking about Earth Day, which my class was super mature about.

We started the day by reading The Lorax. Oh my goodness, I love that story so much! I told my class that while I read, their job was to find different comparisons Dr. Seuss was trying to make with the characters and situations in the story to the real world. Once I was done reading, we had a 25 minute conversation all about what happens in the story and how they are seeing it portrayed today on Earth. They talked about different ways to help our planet, which was incredible because these are 3rd graders and they had such a deep conversation going on with so many great ideas. It was refreshing to hear them talk about and question why people still don’t take care of our planet. They couldn’t see how others don’t want to protect mother Earth and how they aren’t noticing the consequences of our actions so far.

This lead into our project. I found a mix of this idea on Pinterest and on Teachers Pay Teachers. There was a free writing prompt on a truffula tuft on TPT that said, “If I had the last truffula tree I would….” I found this FREE item on Valerie Garrison‘s shop.

Screen Shot 2019-04-19 at 5.38.07 PM

The first step was they had to answer the prompt. I made copies of these on multiple colored pieces of paper so they would be multicolored like actual truffula trees.

Once they had finished their writing, they used it to make the project. I found the project idea on Pinterest (and I think on TPT but that item was like $6.99 so I made my own free version.)

 

 

 

They made their own Lorax to hold the tuft. They each got an orange piece of construction paper to outline their own Lorax head and Lorax hands so each one looked the same but different at the same time. I made copies of the classic Lorax mustache that they colored to finish off the look.

 

 

We worked on the project while enjoying the 2012 version of The Lorax. Seriously, I love that movie (and having Taylor Swift in it is definitely and added plus!) It was such a relaxing and fun day. We had some extra time at the end of the day so, to continue the theme, we went on YouTube to the Art for Kids Hub channel (which is AMAZING and my kids love and is a PERFECT time filler on a Friday afternoon) and did a step by step drawing on The Lorax.

Screen Shot 2019-04-19 at 5.48.25 PM

It was such a fun day. My favorite part was how serious my kiddos were when we talked about Earth Day and why we celebrate it. They have so many ideas and it makes me have faith that our future will be better and our Earth has a chance to be saved.

For more day to day live action in our classroom, go follow me on instagram @lifeoftherookieteacher!

(PS…Sorry about the dark pictures, I used movie time wisely so the light was pretty minimal!)

Spring is in the Air

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

This week I got to do one of my favorite projects of the year. I needed a fun bright springy project to help lift the mood in my room. I also needed a personal reminder that it is actually spring even if we had a snow day only a week ago. We have officially completed testing (YESSSSSS) so I wanted to have some fun. I found this amazing and fun project on TPT.

The project is called, “Spring is in the Air.” I got the templates from Creatively Teaching First‘s account. I did this project last year with my 4th graders, they loved it so I knew my 3rd grade kiddos would love it even more!

Screen Shot 2019-04-18 at 7.41.32 AM

Last year I had my students write a short little paragraph on their favorite thing about spring. I wanted this year’s writing to be easier but also have some meaning behind it. We have started talking a little about poetry and different types of poems they can come across. I thought it would be fun to write a short cinquain poem about spring.

We started with a mini lesson on what cinquain poems are. We did a few examples together as a class (one of which they had to describe me…..it wasn’t as bad as I expected haha) and then we brainstormed ideas we could use for our adjectives and verbs to describe spring. Once we had a whole list on the board they each went back and made their own rough draft poem.

I went around and checked them off. Once they got my approval I gave them the writing mason jar paper (this project has 3 different parts to it, 2 of which are mason jar pages, one to write on and one to be the cover) to write their final copy on. I had strict instructions about neat handwriting, correct spelling, and making the poem look bright and decorated.

Once they showed me that they wrote their poem and decorated that mason jar, they were able to decorate the cover mason jar which said “spring is in the air” (there are other options that come with the project) and add the flowers to it.

I think they turned out SO CUTE!!!! They hung them up on our “rocking work” wall so now the back of my class is full of bright springy flowers!

This was such an easy project to do and was a nice easy project for them to work on to get their minds out of testing mode. They worked so hard the last few weeks that I wanted to do something fun (but also educational) as their reward.

Today we are going to do one of my other favorite projects!!! We are going to be celebrating Earth Day a few days early because of Good Friday and Easter (we also have Monday off.) We will be using The Lorax to help us think about our beautiful planet and how we can protect her. I can not wait to share with you our Lorax themed day! I am so pumped just thinking about it!!

 

To see all of our day to day activities and lessons go follow me on instagram @lifeoftherookieteacher!!

Goodbye Break, Hello 3rd Trimester

Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I don’t know about you but I am ready for spring! We just came back from our spring break and I am now pumped for sunshine, flowers, and warm weather! I’m also feeling the effects of the final trimester feels at school.

This week started our 3rd trimester for the year, which means we are officially 2/3 of the way to the end! That’s crazy to me because this time of the year is jammed packed with so many things and I don’t know if I’m ready for all of it!

We came back slow and easy this week to start the last 1/3 of the year off right. Monday was a professional development day so for the kiddos, it was only a 4 day week. At my school, 3rd graders receive swimming lessons as part of their phy ed curriculum. On Tuesday and Thursday this week, they walked over to our high school (which is right across the street) and had an hour of lessons in the morning. This was during my reading and math blocks. The afternoons were filled with their other specials (art, media, and music) and intervention pull outs, which meant that I really didn’t get to work with my class at all those days. Today, we had our “swimming celebration” at our local community center for half of the day and a movie party in the afternoon.

This meant that Wednesday was my only main day to teach. Because I wasn’t on a regular unit for the week, I decided to dedicate my reading block to letter writing (since writing gets pushed back in my curriculum, we don’t have much extra time to fit writing in.) I wanted a fun and light project to do since we were really just getting back in the swing of things.

I found a letter writing activity using the model text, The Day the Crayons Came Home on Pinterest that was exactly what I wanted. I read the story to my class and then we talked about features of a letter. (We have pen pals this year, so they have some experience with it but not a lot.) They then got to pick their favorite colored crayon and think about what their journey would’ve been like if they were a lost crayon wanting to come home.

IMG_4464

I modeled on the board an example of a letter they would need to write. We talked about including what color they are, why they left in the first place, what happened while they were away, and why they want to come back. They were super creative with their writings and really used their imagination!

 

This has been another crazy week. Starting next week we have to really jump into preparing for our state standardized tests that come up in April. I’ll be sharing different reviews that I use and activities we do in order to prepare for these. My kiddos are in 3rd grade and in the state of Minnesota, 3rd grade is the year they begin their standardized testing. Over the next month, I’m going to have to really dig into test taking strategies and test taking rules they will need to use and follow when the big day comes. Wish me luck!

 

For more day to day fun and live activities, go follow my instagram account @lifeoftherookieteacher!