A Peek at My Last Week of School + Giveaway news!!

It's finally here! The last week of school! I'm (Kristen) linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings to share a peek at all the fun we have planned to wrap up the school year.

While everyone is at home, enjoying Memorial Day, we will launch our new-ish blog by kicking off my 1,000 TPT Follower giveaway! Check in tomorrow to meet my two new collaborating bloggers, see all the awesome prizes you can win, and to enter! Here's a peek at the awesome Teacher-Authors who have donated prizes:

We've been counting down the school year A to Z (freebie on TPT), and Tuesday is Water Fun Day! We are going to spend the afternoon outside playing water games. On our list are: the infamous water bucket relay (with holes in the buckets, of course!), a SpongeBob relay (where they use car wash sponges to fill a bucket), Elimination (soaked sponge style), a back-to-back water balloon race, and of course, a water balloon toss. It's going to be a blast! I can't wait!

Tuesday is also the day we will write letters to our favorite teachers. Since my fifth-graders are leaving our school "forever," we like to do this at the end of each year so they can thank a teacher who has been important to them. My favorite part is getting to pass the letters out to teachers when they finish. There's nothing like someone popping into your room unexpectedly to tell you that you are some child's favorite teacher!

Xtraordinary Awards Day means we will be making Deb Hanson's Together We Soared Awards. I can't wait to see what awards they come up with for each other! We've come a long way this year, from a class that seemed completely checked out in the first week of school to a group who will actually be able to come up with a nice award for whoever they draw.

Thursday is Year-End CleaningDay. One of the perks of teaching fifth grade is that they can definitely help with all of the year and pick up and clean up duties. Last year I used these free Cleaning the Classroom Stations from Wise Guys, and it went really well. I'll probably do this again, or some variation of it. They will also be taking all of their personal things home Thursday so that in case when someone forgets something, they will be here to get it Friday and I won't be throwing their things away have to save them and treasure them forever.

Friday is the big day! Z stands for Zip Into Summer, and we are surprising our kids with a barbecue outside. We have secretly planned the entire thing over the last couple of weeks, and have parents bringing in sides and desserts to go with the burgers and hot dogs the fifth-grade team will be bringing. Apparently, a couple of their parents have let slip that there is some sort of surprise on the last day of school, but so far as we know, no students know what the surprise is yet!

After the barbecue, we will do end of the year awards. We are using my End of the Year Student Awards to give out academic awards and some fun ones to make sure everyone gets an award. We've invited all the parents to come for the awards, and when that's over, we will do a parade through the hallways of the school with all of the "underclassmen" cheering on our fifth-graders. The parade leads out the front entrance of the school where we blow bubbles and send them off to middle school!

There'll probably be a movie and some Summertime Feud in there somewhere, too. That's it for this week packed full of fun! I'd love to hear how you are wrapping up the school year!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!!!

I'm linking up for a little bit different "Peek at my Week" with Jennifer at Mrs. Laffin's Laughings. I've been hinting for a week or two now that there were some exciting changes coming to my little blog, and I'm finally ready to share the news. So here's a peek at what's happening this week on my blog...

Two of my best teacher friends and I are starting a collaborative teaching blog! (You might remember Juliet from her Mother's Day craft guest post last week!) Over the next week or two, Chalk & Apples will gain two more authors, and will become the Teaching Trio!!! Our URL and name will be changing (teachingtrio.blogspot.com), and we will have a brand spankin' new blog design!

How does this change the blog?

It makes it better! I will still be writing about things that are happening in my class, and lessons that go well. My friends will also be posting about what they're doing in their rooms. This means we'll be able to post much more often, and you will get more great classroom ideas, that reach more grade levels!

What about Chalk & Apples on TPT?

The three of us will be maintaining separate TPT stores. So nothing will be changing there, although I did create a shiny new store button and banner yesterday!

What does this mean for you?

Over the next week to week and a half, you will notice some changes happening, the first of which will be the URL change (coming in a couple of days), followed by some layout and design changes.

If you already follow me on Google, you won't have to do a thing. The url of the blog is changing, but you will still be a follower!

If you're a Bloglovin' follower, you're good to go too! The fabulous tech support team will be transferring all of Chalk & Apples' followers over to the Teaching Trio. It is supposed to take a day or two, but you won't miss anything, because we'll wait to post until the new blog design is up and our followers have been transferred.

We will be working hard to correct any broken links here and on Pinterest, but in the meantime, you can follow the Teaching Trio on Pinterest for some awesome pins we've been collecting!

So hang tight, and bear with us as we work through all these changes! I promise, you'll love the new blog, probably more than this one! Plus, there'll be a fabulous giveaway coming as soon as all the dust has settled! Have a great week, everyone!

Loving this Volume Lesson!

I am linking up with The Teacher Studio for her new Loved that Lesson linky to share a lesson I absolutely loved!

This week, I introduced volume with my class, and instead of  "teaching" them what it is and how to find it, I gave them time to explore. I started by giving them a basic definition of what volume is. Then we used a fabulous activity from A New Day of Learning's TPT Store, her Hands-On Math Center on Volume of a Rectangular Prism.

Inside are 26 cards with the dimensions of different rectangular prisms. (Ex: Build a prism that has these measurements: height of 3, width of 6, & length of 4) I gave each student a card and some unifix cubes, and sent them off to build their prism. Some of them had trouble even knowing how to get started (which is just one reason lessons like this are so important!), but with a little coaching, they all got to work building their prisms.

{By the way, it was "Outside Day" on our A to Z Countdown to Summer, so that's why we did this lesson outside...it was fun to get out of the classroom for a while!}

Once their prism is built, they are to determine the volume of the shape, initially, by counting the cubes used to build it. They recorded their answers on an answer sheet., so I could check them later, and switched in their card for a different one. Since there are 26 in all, there were enough for each student to work independently and get plenty of practice.

Before our 50 minute lesson was over, I had three students approach me and say "Mrs. Doyle,  I found a way to get the volume without building the shapes and counting them." They had all figured out that if they multiplied the three measurements, they could find the volume of the shape! Score one for the teacher!

We then had some great math conversations about how and why the formula works. I reminded these little smarties that they needed to check a few more shapes to be sure this will *always* work, which they did. Then they started secretly multiplying instead of building the shapes, and trying so hard not to let their friends know what they are doing.

Word leaked out that there's a "secret" way to get the answers faster, and everyone started looking closely at the numbers to try and figure it out. I decided to work on this lesson for three days, not telling the "secret" until the very last day. I ended up only having to teach the formula to a couple of students. Letting them construct the knowledge themselves means they will (hopefully) really understand this concept and why the formula works!

Things I heard kids saying during/at the end of this lesson that made me so proud:
"I think I found the secret, but I just want to check one more."
"This is so cool!"
"What about the cubes in the middle {of the prisms, the ones that aren't visible}...oh wait, if you multiply, it's counting all of them. Like if there's 12 in one layer, and you have 5 layers, it's 12x5."
and best of all... "Do we have to stop doing math?"

I am so excited to see them learning when I am not "teaching." Sometimes, with all of the content we have to cram in before testing, and the pressure to get it all covered, I think we rush straight past opportunities like this one. Next year, it is my goal to slow down, and give my students time to explore and build knowledge for themselves, rather than spoon-feeding it to them and speeding along through the curriculum.

PS - Check back Monday for a special blog announcement!!! I've been keeping a secret from you guys, and I can't wait to share it!

Not the same old Mother's Day gift

Allow me to introduce one of my favorite-amazing-third-grade-teacher-friends, Juliet. She is the brains behind a very new TPT store: The Tech Crazy Teacher. I asked her to guest post today to show you the fabulous Mother's Day gift idea that she had for this year, since I haven't gotten anything together yet. PS: You'll be seeing a lot more of her soon *wink*.

Here she is...

I really struggle to find the right projects on Mother’s Day.  I think it is because I am a mom, and it means so much to me.  I want to give my students’ moms something special--something they will treasure and that still has an impact 10 years from now when their kiddo is going off to college and is moving out.   Maybe this overwhelming need to make an extraordinary Mother’s Day project is because it happens to be my son’s senior year, and I just want to hang on to his little handprints from Kindergarten and cry. 

Last year I watched almost all the students in my school parade out on the Friday before Mother’s Day.  I would say a good 80% of them were carrying a planted flower in various types of containers.  I am not dissing the plants and flowers.  Okay.  Okay.  Maybe I am anti-flowers because their life span in my care seems to be about 2 weeks. 

So what is a teacher to do?  Pinterest search.  Check.  Teachers Pay Teachers.  Check.  Examine what I did in the past.  Check.  Blogs.  Check.  Ask teacher friends.  Check.  I am still not really inspired.  What is left to do?  Create a project that combines some of the best elements from the other hundreds of Mother’s Day gifts I viewed.

I brought my camera to school and took photographs of my students.  I focused on close-ups of their faces.  Any camera can do this and almost all phones will take great pictures.  Here are a few tips to take a great picture. 

1.  If you are in the sunlight, use a flash.  This will get rid of shadows.  Find the shade if you can. 

2.  Get close.  A picture becomes more personal the closer you are. 

3.  Take more pictures than you need.  I delete more than I save. 

4.  Crop and resize pictures.  Most sites will let you upload a picture and then crop them for free. 

5.  Try making the pictures black and white.  Black and white pictures are timeless. 

Here is a good list of tips from Kodak on taking excellent pictures.

Top 10 Tips for Great Pictures

I then chose 2 of the pictures of each student to print out.  Cropped, turned black and white, and then sent off to my local photo shop.  (I used Walgreens.)

At Hobby Lobby (any framing shop), I bought some matting board.  They had about 20 12x12 boards in a package for less than $10.  I then added white acrylic paint, double stick tape, and ribbon to my cart.

I painted each student’s hands with the paint and had them make a heart with their fingers.  (See picture).  Then we placed their handprints on the matting board upside down so the heart would be right side up.

  

I added the pictures and had the students write, “I love you!” the date and their names on the mat.  Attach the ribbon and you are finished.

I LOVE the outcome of this project.  As a mom, I would so hang this up and keep it forever.  That is exactly what I was looking for.  It’s different.  It’s meaningful.  It’s personal, and I think it’s extraordinary. 

~Juliet

Six for Saturday

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching to share 5...make that 6...things from my week. I wanted to wait until after school on Friday so I could post some Friday pics, and we all know how Friday afternoons go :) So now it's Saturday, and here I am!

Our Tournament of Books has ended! All of our fifth graders created cereal box book reports for their favorite book they had read this year. We then chose 16 to be in our Tournament of Books. (You can find the AWESOME product by Hedrich's Hive that we used to create this display here.) The kids were SO excited on voting day to cast their ballots and to see who made it to the next round! It really got our students talking about the books they've read and recommending them to their friends. (YAY!!) Even the other grade levels in our hall were excitedly watching our display. And the winner is...

I Survived the Japanese Tsunami! I was so excited to see this book win, because I love the series! I actually haven't read this particular one, so it's on my summer reading list. (I seriously doubt it will be available before then, because all of my students who haven't read it are waiting in line now!)

  

We are wrapping up Area & Perimeter this week with a fun partner project! Students are designing their own Zoo! I am using a fabulous TPT find: Zoo Design by Digital Divide and Conquer. They are having so much fun creating their zoos and deciding which animals to include, all while practicing their area and perimeter skills and doing a little animal research! 

We are just getting started with a writing tie-in. We were starting a research unit anyway, so students will be writing a mini-research paper on one of the animals in their zoos! I just love when I can so easily integrate multiple subjects without it being a forced correlation!

I am officially a cool teacher! One of my girls asked me to fill out a page in her friend book yesterday! Ahh, fifth grade...I love these kids!

   

Many things are different when you teach on an Army post. It's not always easy, but this week has really highlighted some of the more fun differences. Wednesday, the unit attached to our school came over for an afternoon of fun and demonstrations. We did some of their PT exercises, learned how to use their radios and night vision goggles, and played "how many fifth graders can fit in a Humvee" at every stop along the way!

   

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably already seen this one. Career Day was extra fun this year! Soldiers from an EOD unit brought over two of their tactical robots. Our kids absolutely loved watching the soldiers operate them to climb hills, pick up trash and pinecones, and throw them away. They even got to operate the controls a little. If you ask my class, most of them would say it's the coolest thing we've ever gotten to do with our soldiers!

Friendly reminder...just because Scholastic sells it in their book fair doesn't mean it's appropriate for our little ones. This is a page from a book I picked up at our book fair this week. The book is US Presidents: The Oval Office All-Stars, by Dan Green, published by Basher History. It was in the reference section, and it looked kind of cool until I flipped to the most recent presidents. 

First of all, there's this lovely reminder of Bill Clinton's indiscretions - why we need to give that much information to elementary students is beyond me. And how exactly is a teacher supposed to explain to our kiddos what sultry means without being inappropriate?

     

Then, there's the extremely obvious political bias. Regardless of your political persuasion, shouldn't we be trying to present facts to our students in a non-biased way so that they can make up their own minds? With only two paragraphs per president, the author's choice to push a political agenda, throw out insults, and play up scandals really bothered me. Even the pictures show bias...

Needless to say, this book will not be appearing on my classroom's bookshelves. I'll choose to go with factual reference materials that show the proper respect to our highest political office and avoid bias, thankyouverymuch.

And number SIX...

I found out Monday that I have a JOB next year! Thanks so much to everyone who extended well wishes and said prayers! There's still some uncertainty as to what school, and even what grade I will be in, but everyone at my school will still be employed by our district next year. The sigh of relief was audible when the announcement was made! I am so thankful for a God who cares enough to get involved and take care of these things.