Five for Friday

This is my first time linking up for Doodle Bug's Five for Friday and I am so happy I did! I usually am so dead tired by Friday that I can't even think about blogging... by I'm sure Saturday morning isn't too late to join :)

http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com/2013/03/five-for-friday-linky-party-march-8th.html

This week we began growing our own flowers in our mini "greenhouses". We talked about how a greenhouse is usually a glass building where plants are grown and the windows/walls protect them from weather conditions. Being clear, the windows allow sunlight to get through to still help the plants grow. In our greenhouses, I haven't yet poked holes in the top for the plants to breathe. This will allow the water we initially sprayed in the cups to evaporate to the top of the cup, forming droplets, and then we will tap the top of the cups to make it "rain" for our seeds. This activity is plant life cycle and water cycle all in one :)

 

 At this point our seeds have not yet sprouted, but I will post more pictures as soon as they do. All you need for this activity are two clear plastic cups per child, enough soil to fill one of the cups, three seeds (we used sunflower seeds) and a spray bottle filled with water. 

Towards the end of the week we returned from music class to find that a leprechaun had wreaked havoc in our room! Chairs were flipped upside down, carpet squares all over the place, our table buckets had materials taken out and thrown all over! We were very upset that we had to clean up after the leprechaun's mess so we decided to write our fourth grade friends to help us make traps for them this week. We were so caught up in the craziness that I forgot to take a picture of our super sweet note. Oh well, next year!

Another thing that we have been doing in class lately is our "Chat and Chew" which is a one-on-one lunch with the teacher to discuss your favorite book and why you love it so much. One of my little girls brought in this book this week and I thought it would make the sweetest gift for someone with a little girl!! It is a personalized book written about whichever girl you choose.They spell out the letters of the girl's name using positive adjectives to describe her (ex: K is for kindness, i is for intelligent, etc).

 And finally... on Friday we all got to go to a professional development at one of the largest schools in our diocese and meet in some of the classrooms for our small group sessions. While roaming up and down the halls I saw this adorable little craft they made for Dr. Seuss day that I saw all over Pinterest and now I am so sad we didn't make it :( I guess we will have to do that next year as well!

 

That's all I have for this week. Stop by Doodle Bug's Teaching and link up with Five for Friday!!

More Colors!

Today we worked a little bit more on our Colors Unit. We did our experiment with mixing different colors of food coloring to see what the end result would be. My kiddos LOVED this and did a surprisingly good job filling out their "data sheets". Here is a pic of one of their completed sheets:

We also finished our "Color Word Graphs" today. Here they are:

 

You can see these activities, the ones from yesterday, and more in my unit on Tpt. Here is a better look at some of what is included:

Have a good night!!

Science and Social Studies Units

Good morning ya'll! One of the many things I am trying to accomplish this summer before school and grad school start back up is to tweak all of my science and social studies units. I teach science and social studies through a lot of integration and they are our main focus for a few weeks at a time. I am just curious what ya'll teach as your units?!


My favorite that I teach in social studies is without a doubt my unit on mail/post office. It is SO much fun and we are very lucky to have a post office right around the corner to visit for a field trip! We write several letters to our parents and the students LOVE when their parents write back to them at school!! 


My favorite science unit is hands down zoo animals because I just adore everything about animals. I get very excited about this unit and my enthusiasm definitely transfers to my kiddos. 


So I am just curious, what are your favorite science or social studies units that you teach?? I would LOVE to stop by your blogs and check out some pictures of them! 


Also, if you haven't already seen these adorable science journals from Mrs. Bell at A Place Called Kindergarten, you have to check them out. She is fabulous! 


I love so much that all of your blogs keep me excited to go back to school in the fall!!