Five for Friday~A Whole Lotta Random

Hi, Friends! How are ya? I’m dropping in to share a whole lotta randomness from this past week. I’ve got to blog quickly because my daughter is giving me the side eye for missing part of yet another Avengers movie! We’re watching Captain America and I think…..I think, now I can finally put all the pieces to all of the avengers back stories together….I think. I KNOW she can! Can you say obsessed?

One of the most exciting things about this week was releasing our butterflies! 5 of our 6 little friends made it safely from caterpillar to butterfly in our care. Unfortunately, we had to have a conversation about life and death because one of them did not make it. The kids handled it really well and celebrated by releasing the little ones that survived. As each one left the net, they squealed with excitement!

After releasing our new little painted ladies, it was time to begin a new round of station activities! {I’ll be back to share a little more about those later!} 

Do you use poetry journals in your classroom? One way, we use poetry throughout the year is by keeping a poetry journal at word work. We use lots of different poetry resources for sight words, phonics, and seasonal themes. Poems change about every 2 weeks-ish. How do I keep track of who has added a poem to their journal and who hasn’t? See the little number in the top corner? Those are students’ classroom numbers. Every time a new poem is put into stations, I number them. Students are only allowed to get the one with their number on it. Soooooooo, the numbers that are left…..{naughty, naughty} tell me exactly who has not added a new poem to their journal!

Most of my students enjoy working with their poetry journal because when they do, they also get to share it from the author’s chair as part of our transition for the next mini-lesson! Only 2 students are allowed at any 1 activity in stations so it doesn't take long at all.

Our first attempt at planting was an epic FAIL! We grew butterflies, like bosses….BUT bean plants….not so much! As we continued with non-standard measurement, we incorporated a little writing in math with our own versions of Jack and the Beanstalk. Students wrote to retell the story and make comparisons to different things that the beanstalk could grow to be bigger than. We squeezed in one more attempt at growing our own little beanstalks while students wrote their stories. Can you please bow your head now and say a quick word of prayer for our plants? We NEED all the help we can get! 

Whew! Thanks! =)

We also explored choosing appropriate units of measurement with a little measurement stations activity. This is what we doodled to use as our recording sheet. Yep! We doodle a lot! {LOVE!}  After listening and following directions to create our recording sheets, student groups were given 10 minutes at each station to choose a classroom item to measure and record the number of units used, the name of the unit and illustrate. 4 tables, 4 units of measurement, 4 windows on our foldable. Students ONLY opened the window for the specific station they were visiting in order to record their work. For example, while at Table 4, they measured using pencils as their unit and only flap 4 was open to write and draw inside of. 

Telling students how much time they have is a great motivator to keep it movin’ without a lot of lag time. Displaying the timer helps them to see the time winding down and monitor their own progress without hounding them too much. Self management…yep, I can get with that!

What’s that they're measuring, you say? Oh, just one of the best transition tools on the planet! That’s our rain stick. Not being one to actually measure much in real life, I ordered it thinking it would be much smaller. Boy was I surprised!! Care to guess how many unifix cubes it took to measure its length? Yeah, they could’ve used a bigger unit of measurement, but where would the fun in that be? Stay tuned….

….more measurement mania to come!