Five for Friday

Here I am, and I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week for Five For Friday!  

Gallery Walks

I'm loving a good gallery walk this year!

The one above is a culminating activity from our Immigration unit. It's in the second grade CCLS ELA domains.

Each child had Post Its and went through the pictures. They wrote down facts that they remembered from our unit and their thoughts on the pictures. (I did have the Smart Board on with a cheat sheet of helpful vocabulary words for my little second graders!)

Next up, I think that I will try this as an INTRODUCTION for an upcoming unit. Activate a little schema and get the kiddos thinking and EXCITED about what's coming next!

SocksBean

I ordered some fun new necklaces from SocksBean.com!

I'll be giving a couple away to my sisters for birthday gifts, but I'm thinking that I'll keep that last one for myself! 

SUPER CUTE!

And I used a sweet 20% off code from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd!

(And yes, those are Lucy's feet in the picture. She loves being a part of a blog photo.)

Modern Family.

I've just been really into this show recently. :)

NEW FLAIR PENS!!!

This is an exciting day.

I like to use Flair pens when I'm writing greeting cards for my kiddos. I try to write each child a personalized greeting card and put it in their mailbox a few times a month, and Flair pens are perfect for that!

Plus, they are great for writing little desk top reminders on Post Its for my second grade cuties.

Lucy is always a fun way to end a Five for Friday!

Frolicking outside in her pajamas.

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week for Five For Friday! 

FLASHLIGHT FRIDAY

I still love it.

And so do my kiddos.

We spend 15 minutes every Friday reading in the dark, with flashlights, all around the classroom. It's so popular that one little girl came into my room on the first day of school and brought in her own flashlight because she had heard about it from one of my former students and was excited!

It's definitely a lot of fun!

And even kiddos who don't always choose to read during Daily 5 are pretty engaged during Flashlight Friday!

STICK PUPPETS!

Yep, we used stick puppets earlier this year to retell our Greek myths. It was tons of fun, and some kids STILL pull them out, months later, to retell Greek myths that they really enjoyed. 

GONOODLE.COM

Still love me some GoNoodle. Last year I used it as an incentive to pack up quickly so we could watch a video before the end of the day announcements came on. This year I have a special the last half hour of the day, so my kiddos are dismissed right from special! They don't even come back to the room! So, I throw this up during indoor recess and it's always a big hit. They love taking turns choosing videos to watch.

I even have a few girls who talk Irish Step Dancing classes. They throw up Call Me Maybe and do their class dance! They're teaching the other girls, too!

GoNoodle.

Keeping kiddos occupied during indoor recess all year!

Does anyone else love Trivia Crack?
I do.

It's addictive.

I have the app on my phone and play whenever I get the chance. Play against your friends and get competitive answering silly trivia questions about everything and anything!

And a little Lucy for the road!

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week for Five For Friday! 

We celebrated the winter solstice on December 21 with an indoor campout! I set up a real life tent. I also used bulletin board paper to make some lean to's. I also brought in some real wood and set it up around a touch light for a camp fire in our meeting area. We even had smores! Well, graham crackers, chocolate bars, and fluff! :)

Before winter vacation I downloaded Hope King's science experiments file from TPT. We had been learning about matter, but the kiddos were struggling. I had a few days before winter break, and instead of starting a new unit, I stayed with matter a bit and tried out some experiments and hands on activities. Obviously, they loved it!

We don't actually have science built into our schedule in my school. (I know, crazy.) Especially for me, someone coming from teaching fourth grade for five years and knowing that there is a state science test, well, I can't NOT teach science. So, I squeeze it in whenever I can. Plus, science experiments are SUPER engaging and fun for kiddos!

The experiment above is neat. We put pop rocks into the balloon, attached it to the soda top, and flipped the balloons at the same time. The pop rocks fell into the soda, created gas, and inflated our balloons. The kiddos went nuts!!! I think it was one of their favorite experiments. 

We also made ice cream, made root beer floats, dressed up in clear garbage bags and added balloons to represent molecules for solids, liquids, and gases, AND A LOT MORE!

We finished up our life cycles unit, so I took ten minutes in a day for some fun! We each had a partner and wrapped each other up in a chrysalis! And then we EMERGED! It was a hoot.

Each child had a black chenille pipe cleaner wrapped onto their fingers to look like antennae and butterfly feet. We then dug through the Cheetohs (pollen) for the candy (nectar). When the victor emerged from the bag with the candy, their pipe cleaner was covered in Cheetohs dust. We made some great connections to our life cycles unit as we finished it up!

You may not be able to see, but my friend had the polka dot dog mat embroidered with Lucy's name! My entire classroom is black and white polka dots with splashes of yellow, so it is very fitting and I love it. :)