Five for Friday

{On a Saturday}

 

 

I'm linking up with Kacey for another round of Five for Friday!

Enjoy!

 

Eco-nom-nom-nom-ics

 

We are learning about Economics in Social Studies, and I just discovered the book Striker Jones. 

  

 

It's an excellent chapter book that helps teach students basic economic principles.  It has a Teacher's Companion that lays out every lesson for you with objectives, questions, and activities.  We are part way through the book and loving it!  They get so excited to hear the next chapter.  The first chapter/lesson was all about trading.  One of the activities was to give each child one piece of candy, so they each get something different.  Then, they spent a few minutes trading.  At the end, we had a lot of great discussion on the pros and cons of trading.  Some children ended up happy, but there were still a few unhappy with their trades.  It was an awesome activity!

 

 

Jigsaw

 

This week we did a little Jigsaw Activity with our Science Unit.  We are learning all about the states of matter, so each group was assigned a few pages from our science book.  They had questions to answer in order to become experts on their section.  Then, they shared what they learned with the class.  They loved it and learned a lot more about matter!  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Oobleck

 

To go along with our solids, liquids, and gases unit, we read the book by Dr. Seuss, Bartholomew and the Oobleck and then we made our own Oobleck!  This was such a cool activity for them to discover the properties of solids and liquids.  It was even cooler to find out that Oobleck is actually both a solid AND a liquid.  They couldn't get enough of the stuff! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used the basic recipe of two parts cornstarch, one part flour.  I ended up putting about 1/4 cup of cornstarch, 2 tablespoons of water, and one drop of green food coloring in their cups.  They mixed and played for quite a while.  We discussed the properties Oobleck had, filled out a quick observation sheet, and then I passed out a writing activity.  They had to write about what would happen in Oobleck started coming down in our classroom! 

 

 My classroom aide/friend got a little handsy with the corn starch... 

Click here to get this writing freebie.
 

 

Thanksgiving Skit

 

 The Second Grade performed a skit at our Student of the Month Assembly yesterday.  Being so close to Thanksgiving, we decided to stick to that theme.  We had a few children give some history of Thanksgiving, recited a poem, and sang this awesome song. 

 

*Warning:  This song will get stuck in your head until the end of time.  Listen at your own risk.  :)

 

We found awesome little boy pilgrim hats in the Target Dollar Spot and ended up making some bonnets for the girls.  They looked darling!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet little pilgrim children...

 

Silly faces!

Gobble, Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

Mockingjay Part 1

 

On a non-teaching related note...

 

 

On Wednesday, I was lucky enough to go to an early screening of the new Hunger Games movie.  It was awesome!  Definitely worth staying up WAY past my bedtime on a school night...  If you're a fan of the books/movies, go see it and let me know what you think! 

 

Have a great weekend!  :)

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Thanksgiving Fun!

We had the BEST TIME this week learning all about Thanksgiving!  I discovered this AMAZING Thanksgiving Unit by Stephanie from Falling Into First.  It is FULL of information, nonfiction text, comprehension questions, and fun activities!  We didn't get to finish it all this week, so we will do some quick catching up on Monday.  :)  

Here's a few pictures of some of our activities.  

We made suitcases and wrote about what we would bring with us aboard the Mayflower. 

 

We wrote all the problems the Pilgrims had on their journey, and posted them on Plymouth Rock. 

Then we wrote a solution to some of their problems. 

*She may have mixed up Massachusetts and England*  

We read all about Squanto and made "Squanto's Snack"!

It was a blast!  I already can't wait for next year to do it again.  :)

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Take Me Back Tuesday!

I'm linking up with Hope King for a little bit of:

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I thought I would share one of my favorite Thanksgiving math games.  I used it with basic addition with my firsties, but can see it modified to upper grades as well (double digit addition/subtraction, multiplication, place value...)

Original post from November 25, 2011!  

(Holy smokes!  That's a looooong time ago!!!)

I found this little gem via pinterest.  

I thought it would be a fun, yet educational, game to play right before Thanksgiving.   

And we had a G.R.E.A.T time!  

They roll two dice.  Whatever the answer is, that is what they add to their "turkey".  I used a cookie for the body, m&ms for the feathers, chocolate chips for the eyes, and pretzels for the feet.  Once they got the eyes, feet, and three of each color, they won!  

Turkey Roll

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