Reading Detectives!

Do you have trouble getting your students to look closely at text? My students often want to rush through reading a text and then answer the questions as fast as possible without looking back at the passage to support their answers. This week I told my students that they were going to be reading detectives to find answers/support for opinions in text. We put on our pretend trench coats and pulled our detective hats low over our eyes. Our detective tools included the text, questions, clipboards, highlighters, and one of these handy dandy super spy special pens: 

My dad is an accountant and he always loves pens with extra gadgets ☺. For Christmas every year he sends out cards with these special Christmas pens. He had some extras that I was able to snag last year and let me tell you, the kids absolutely loved them! The pens have a little flashlight on the end that the kids could click on and off. 

We turned off all the lights in the room and the students got to work! My students were so focused on finding answers with the lights that they truly studied the passage (not to mention they were crazy quiet! #teacherwin) Here's a few pics of my Reading Detectives in action: 

Sister Sister STEAM camp

My sister and I have been talking for a while about wanting to do a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) camp. We decided to take a chance and create free mini morning STEAM camp on a day we had off from school for K-5 students to come make ballon cars. We were able to incorporate lots of different standards into our lesson. Here are just a few that fit with our project:

Mathematics

MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

MP5: Use appropriate tools strategically.

Literacy

CCSS.ELA-RL.2.3: Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

Engineering

K-2-ETSI-1: Ask questions, make observations, gather information and problem solve with development of an improved object or tool.

Science

K-PS2-1 Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions: Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of different strengths of motion on an object.


Students really needed to persevere to make their cars... We talked about how it's okay if the balloon car doesn't work right away or even by the end of the camp. Students were able to try their cars out and make changes as they designed. We want to instill growth mindsets in our students so that they keep working when engaging with challenging tasks!




Here's a few videos of the finished projects in action: 

Some of them worked...

And some did not...

The important thing is we that kept trying!☺☺☺

Insect museum 2017

We had a lot of fun learning with our insect museum this year. Mrs.Wall, our high school science teacher, (and my AMAZING sister!) helped us out with fancy tubes for our critters so we were able to look at them easily under the microscope. Mr. Watkins, our tech and science teacher, helped us out with some awesome iPad gadgets to further explore. The kids were so fascinated! 



Here are a few pics from our museum where students were able to share what they learned with other classes, teachers and parents: 

Bug Juice for Sale!

A few weeks ago a gal I grew up with posted a link to Sun, Sand and Second Grade's "Adopt a Texas Classroom" initiative to help classrooms affected by Hurricane Harvey. I signed up my 2nd graders and we were matched with a 1st grade bilingual classroom in Texas. As a class we began brainstorming ideas of how to raise money for these 1st graders who had lost so much. We decided to sell "Bug Juice" as our version of a lemonade stand at recess to raise money. We took a week to create student teams to sell juice, decide on a recipe, create prices and posters to advertise. In this time I realized I would need to very quickly plug in some money lessons to help us with this project. (I usually do money toward the end of 2nd grade, but knew we would need to change that this year!) We began our journey with a trip to the bank! I happen to be married to one of the loan officers in town, so I sweet talked him into scheduling us for a tour and a money lesson! The kids loved it!   

To begin our juice creations I took a trip to the Dollar Store to buy supplies to get us started and my student's parents went above and beyond to supply cups, Kool-aid packets, Sprite, whatever we needed to make our juice! I am so grateful for their support! One day during our sale week I realized we were going to run out of supplies. I quickly used SignupGenius to create a parent sign-up for supplies and I had parents bringing juice and cups by the end of that school day! I cannot say enough about how much I appreciate their support with this project. 

One of the most amazing things to me is that we sold juice Monday-Friday last week during recess and during that time we made $595 to purchase supplies for our Texas friends. Our little Kansas town with around 950 people was able to support our project and truly make it a success. I am so thankful to our school building leaders, teachers, students parents and community members for supporting us with this awesome endeavor. This activity has taught my students and myself so much and I know we won't forget it! THANK YOU!

Below I have a few pictures to document our "Bug Juice" adventure:

We counted quarters everyday and one student was so pumped when he found a Texas one! 

My husband gave us a change drawer to use and I taped coins in the drawer to help kids organize while selling the juice. 

My favorite "Bug Juice pic". I wish you could see their smiling faces, because they are just so darn cute! 

Here you can see the "Bug Juice" creation in action!

At the last minute we decided to add gummy worms to our recipe and they were a huge hit! 

We started our goal at $150 dollars and graphed our progress every day.

We kept adding and adding sections...

Until soon it was too big to hang up! 

We have begun writing as a class to our first grade friends and hope to be pen pals this year. (We are trying out some new Spanish phrases to connect with our friends, We've been working on "ama a tus amigos" which we hope means "Love your friend" to sign our letter)

Happy notes are ready to send off! 

STEAM Bins

Here's a quick pic of my STEAM Bins that I use with my second graders. The ask, imagine, plan, create and improve posters were a freebie from http://wildaboutfirsties.blogspot.com. I ordered the STEAM bin packet with the title, bin covers and task cards from Brooke Brown at Teach Outside the Box on TPT, click this link to find her store: Teach Outside the Box. I was initially thinking I'd put all the bins on a shelf, but found this rolling cart in storage at our school. Two wheels were off, but with some rubber bands and hot glue, I was able to slip them back on in no time! #teacherskills My kiddos absolutely love them! Right now I use them for early finishers and if we have a few minutes in transitions or after math journals. I am so thrilled that I finally found something hands-on that students can do after they finish an assignment. I have two very simple rules for the kids: 1.) No talking or the bin must be put away. 2.) All material must be picked up when finished. Otherwise, I let the kids' creativity fly! Below are a couple links to videos of my kids using the STEAM bins if you'd like to see them in action! (Sorry in advance for the views of my feet as I move from desk to desk in the videos, but it was so peaceful walking around just listening to materials moving as I knew brains were working...)  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx9pPDpF9DQZMWNzSWlWV0RNalE/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx9pPDpF9DQZbExyYzhWZlBWc28/view?usp=sharing