End of the Year

This year I decided to eliminate the whole "bring your favorite board game to school" day. I always hate it and its stressful SO this year I did MINUTE TO WIN IT CHALLENGES! So much fun, my kids were working as a team, AND there was NO STRESS! I will definitely be doing them again next year. Here is the list of Minute to Win it games that I did but you can alter them to fit what you have in your classroom... that is what I did. :)

1. Feather Flop: Who can keep the feather in the air for one minute by blowing it with their mouth?
2. Marshmallow Stack: Who can stack 5 marshmallows tall and keep them there for one minute?
3. Paper Fish: Who can move the fish from one end of the carpet to the other using a paper plate to push it in one minute?
4. Cup Tower: Who can stack the tallest plastic cup tower in one minute? (measuring with a meter stick)
5. Face Pop: Who can roll a piece of pop corn from their forehead to their mouth in one minute?
6. There She Blows: Who can blow a pompom from one end of the room to the other using a straw in one minute?
7. Chop Sticks: Who can move 10 pompoms from one plate to the other using chop sticks (pencils) in one minute?
8. Leaning tower: Who can blow two plastic cups from one end of the table and back in one minute?
9. Balloon Bop: Who can keep a balloon in the air using one a paper plate for one minute?
10. Cheerio Stack: Who can stack the most cheerios high in one minute?

Name Change

So I am getting married in a month !!!!! (AHHH) and I will no longer be Ms. Rose but the soon to be Mrs. Stallings (hence the blog name). I am starting to renovate my classroom from being "Ms. Rose" everything to represent my new name. Here is my first completed project!

Teacher Funnies

 

Pretty sure this is funnier to me because it has my name in it but still... 2 more days and then it's SUMMER!!!!!

 

More Body System Activities

Well we finished up our Body Systems Unit this past week! The kids really enjoy the activities and my amazing parents have been so awesome with donations this year so we were able to do so much more! :)

 
Boneless Hand: Why do we need bones? What do you notice about the hand? This was so much fun and a great "inquiry" lesson.

 

Spinal Cord: They used cheerios for the bones and gummy life savers for the squishy membrane.  I think I will use string Twislers next year so that it is all edible.

 More of our body systems book and a completed "spinal cord".

Body Systems

We started our new IB planner on Human Body Systems. I am doing an activity with each body system and then the students are adding that body system to their BODY BOOK.

 

First, we did the Circulatory System. We discussed the different parts. Then, we made blood! LOL

Water Bottle = Vein
Vegetable Oil = Plasma
Red Hot Candies = Red Blood Cells
Marshmallows = White Blood Cells
Sprinkles = Platelets

 

 

Next, we did the Digestive System. We discussed the different parts. Then, we made a stomach!

Plastic Baggie = Stomach
Soda = Acid
Saltine Cracker = Food

 

 

Then, we did the Respiratory System. We discussed the different parts. Then, we made lungs!

Plastic bottle with balloon inside and on the bottom (lung and diaphragm).
Straw = Trachea

Next week we will finish the body systems and I'll post some more pictures! :)

Compare and Contrast Writing

Hey Ya'll!!! I feel like I haven't updated my blog in forever. I spent all last weekend planning for my July Wedding. We got CJ and my dad their suits, we paid off the caterer, we bought and semi decorated our wedding arch, and we sent out our invitations! I am a huge stress ball and this past weekend definitely helped relieve some of that stress! So with that said. I'm back and ready to share some of the teaching ideas we have done in the past two weeks. :)

For writing this week our skill was "Compare and Contrast Writing".  Our story was "Cowboys" and of course cowboys vs. Indians pops in my head. This is how I did it!

I read my kids a book about what it would be like to live like an Indian. It explained the clothes, food, houses, government, traditions, etc. It was an awesome book! Our other skill was "graphic organizers" so I showed the kids 4 different examples that they could pick from to write their information. Most picked a T-Chart (similarities and differences) but some chose a Ven-Diagram too.

After we read about Indians, we listened to the story Cowboys and they did another graphic organizer. This one they compared and contrasted themselves to a cowboy.

The next day, I discussed the compare and contrast writing steps: Intro, Paragraph 1 (similarities), Paragraph 2 (differences), Closure. I had the students decide if they had more similarities and differences with the Indian or with the Cowboy and that was the one they would choose.

I only had 4 cowboys and the rest were Indians.

There writing has really improved over the past few months and I am so proud of their similarities and differences. They really noticed odd things like their bed wasn't built into the wall like the Indians beds were. LOL I guess 2nd graders really think about that kind of stuff. :)

For the craft part of the writing activity, I had the students use water color paint and a coffee filter to make "tie-dye" looking bandanas or feathers. We thought they turned out awesome!

Summer