Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
What are you going to do with all of your Halloween candy!? Here are a few great ideas of low prep, high engagement activities!

Halloween is over, and now you have PILES of candy! Your kids have candy! You have candy left over at home! You have candy that you don't want to eat, so what are you going to do with all of it?! If you're anything like me you want to get rid of it as quickly as possible so you don't eat it all, right?!
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Cassandra

This week was a fun week, and I am excited to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to bring my highlights from the week!!



This week we worked on our religion unit about God's love!!  It made for some interesting conversations, talking about how we care called to love everyone, even those who may not always treat us kindly.  The kids had a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that we can LOVE everyone at first, but then it started to make more sense when we talked about what it meant to show people we LOVE them!



One of my favorite things to do with my kids is build relationships!  I had a sweet student ask me to play man on woodchips with them on Thursday during our afternoon recess.  This is a game kind of like tag, but the person who is it can only stay on the wood chips and everyone else is on the play structure.  If they climb up on the structure then they have to close their eyes to try and tag you.  It's a lot of fun to have this opportunity to PLAY with my kids and HAVE FUN!!  They love that I get up and play with them!  I am so thankful for these opportunities where I am able to do these sort of things, and we laugh and enjoy hanging out during their breaks!


We have started our newest science unit and I am so excited to get my kids engaged!  We are working on our final physical science unit, and this week we are talking all about HEAT!!  I created these awesome notebook note dividers to help students focus in on key details, and find the KEY information in the text!  We were able to get up, get engaged and HEAT up as we learned all about what heat is and how we can measure it.



This quote really spoke to me this week.  I am going to continue to hold my head high and not let things bring me down.  I know that God has a plan for my life, and everything that we go through will all be okay in the end.  This week was a trying week, with emails sent out to parents, and questions asked.  I know that things will get easier, I know answers will be found, but until then I seek God and pray.




I've had this song on repeat, and it's been a great way to get me through these times!  I am so thankful to have music like this in my life!



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Cassandra

I love science in my classroom.  I did not enjoy science when I was in school which is why I strive to make it exciting now!

A great way to keep students engaged in science lessons and help them remember the science vocabulary

You can check out my ideas on how I make science exciting over on Hello Sunshine Teachers today!
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Cassandra

Happy Friday!!  I am so glad that it is Friday!!  It has been a long week, and tomorrow is Halloween! I am sure that every teacher is happy that we have made it to Friday!!



Last Saturday I was so excited to spend some time with some of my AMAZING Arizona blogging friends!  These ladies are some of the best people I've met, and I'm so lucky to get to talk with them daily, and brainstorm and share ideas!!


We have been studying matter in science these past two weeks. On Wednesday we wanted to show the kids how the states of matter can change, so we did a fun hands on science lesson.  Can you guess what we made!?!  Leave me a comment with your guess, and I'll choose one winner Saturday afternoon to win my candy math, perfect for next week!!



This week I saw this awesome image from Mel and it spoke to my heart!!




My number four spot is now going to be dedicated to an awesome teacher!  I can't wait to share with you some of my amazing friends, bloggy besties, and amazing teachers I have found and met through TPT.  Today I want to shout to my amazing friend Tami!!

She is an amazing person that I met in Vegas this summer, and I am so glad that I was able to connect with her!  She teaches third grade at a private school in Ohio, and she is just the sweetest person ever!!  I LOVE her!!  This week she is having her kids work on some amazing projects!!  Check out their research!!




This past weekend my family and I were driving.  This song came on and my husband said this was my theme song right now.  It is so true.  I know that God is with me in everything that I am doing, and is with me with everything that is going on.

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Cassandra

I am so excited for these centers that I have prepped and ready to go for the week after Halloween!  I LOVE these activities because it keeps my kids engaged and they get to share their candy.  We have an annual trunk or treat event where our kids go and get candy.  This gets some of the candy out of their house, and keeps them focused during math for the week after Halloween.


I am putting this candy math and science pack on sale for the rest of the month!  This will help you keep your kids engaged and excited for math or science!!  I hope that you enjoy them!


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Cassandra

How can we be in our SIXTH FULL week of school already!?!  This year is flying by!!  I can't believe that we have standardized testing in TWO weeks, and fall break in THREE weeks!!  Bring on the cooler weather!

I am linking up with Dee Dee Wills to bring you a peek at my week!


I love working on my plans like this every week!  It helps me know what I am working on, as well as what centers I need!  You can download my lesson plans by clicking on them!  Then this will give you a PDF with CLICKABLE links to the products I'm using!


Friday we are going on our first field trip of the year, and it is a WHOLE SCHOOL field trip!  Our PE teacher teaches the whole school how to bowl during the month of August and September since it is too hot to go outside for PE.  The kids LOVE it because then we get to go to a bowling alley and they show off what they've learned!

We have our chapel presentation next week, so we are working hard on our chapel skit and presentation this week!  We are presenting Noah's Ark, so it will be a lot of fun!  I can't wait to share pictures with you!!

I am LOVING having different task cards for my students to work on to help them practice skills we are working on.  I am also loving that we are using our notebooks to dive deeper into skills we are mastering, such as our clock unit!  We are almost done with Angie's amazing unit!!

We are almost done with our science unit, and thanks to this amazing fossil unit by The Blessed Teacher my kids are going to have a GREAT time working on making their own fossils this week!!

I pray that you have a great week!!
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Cassandra

I love Sundays for many reasons, and one of them is that I get to link up with some amazing people to share my plans for the week!!



First, I want to share my lesson plans for the week!


I am so excited for our final week of our religion unit!!  We started talking about creation a few weeks ago, and our ending our unit this week discussing the fall!

In math I am excited to start bringing out some of our fall units, even though it doesn't feel anything like fall here!  We are patently waiting for Halloween, that is when it finally starts to cool down!!

Finally, in science we are rocking in our earth science unit!!  These science units by The Creative Classroom and The Blessed Teacher are AMAZING!!  They both have multiple units that have made planning this unit so much fun!!

I am also excited for my goals for the week!!  I have a fun week ahead of me, and can't wait for Wednesday night when we head to the Crowder concert!!


You can check out Teaching Trio to see what they are up to this week too!!



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Cassandra

I am a day late to link up with Hello Sunshine Teachers for chapter 8 of Mindsets in the Classroom, but I took the weekend off to spend with my sweet babies, and then my hubby for Father's Day!

This morning I am bringing you my insight on chapter 8!  I LOVED this chapter, and I know I've said that often, but I cannot tell you how awesome this book is and I cannot encourage you enough to go grab it and read it before you head back to the classroom this fall!


This chapter was all about how we can teach our students about the difference between growth and fixed mindsets.  It was also about introducing them into the ways that our brains work, and how the brain can grow!  There were so many great ideas in this chapter, I just kept marking them as lesson ideas!  My friend Ashley, Adventures in a First Grade Jungle, and I were texting last night, and she already has her first week of science planned thanks to this chapter!!

One of the first games that I am going to play with my class is the guessing game!  I am going to have an object in a box or a bag, that they cannot see!  Then we will take turns asking yes or no questions to figure out what is in the box.  I will have to come up with an easy way to record the questions so they can see them, and write them quick enough so that way we are not wasting too much time.  This game will be a great way for them to get thinking, and to be thinking critically as they try to figure out what is in the box!

I loved that we would take it a step further later in the week, and put a sponge in the box!!  What a great way to have them guess again, and then talk about how a sponge is like our brains!!  LOVE!!

There were many recommendations for read alouds to talk about how we need to keep trying, work hard, and never give up!!  I am putting these on my amazon must purchase list this month!!


I'm excited to continue to share with my kids that it is okay to make mistakes, it is okay to fail, and that we are going to be working together to reach our best!  I don't want my students to try once and then give up!  I want them to know that I am going to be there with them every step of the way, pushing them to reach their full potential!

In case I haven't said it enough, I strongly encourage you to go purchase this book!!  You can even get the kindle edition from Amazon and it is only $10.99!!  That is the price of two Starbucks drinks!!  If you are disappointed you let me know, and I will send you a Starbucks or Amazon gift card!  I promise though, tou won't be disappointed!  

Check out what my friends at Hello Sunshine Teachers thought about this chapter too!

Hello Sunshine!
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Cassandra

Last week we finished our first science unit, and we were preparing for our test on Friday.  We had done a lot of different things in our interactive notebooks as we were reading, and learning about plants, ecosystems, adaptations, and life cycles.

To help them prepare for the test we started the week making flash cards with our vocabulary words.  We started doing this little by little in the beginning of the week so that way they could start working on them a bit each night.  I didn't want them to go home with all twenty words in one night and their parents to be overwhelmed with how many words they had to know.  The students knew most of these words already, and could tell me what they meant as we were making our flash cards.

On Wednesday we played a Scoot game to help us study for our test!


This was our first time playing a scoot game, and they thought it was so much fun!  They loved that I drew arrows on the desks to show them which ways they should move around the classroom.



They loved that around the rooms I had desks that had cards that kids didn't normally sit at.  Then, there were desks without cards, but I made them move only one desk every scoot.  There were certain spots where they were able to just stop, and take  a breath!


If you are looking for a fun life science review that covers parts of plants, ecosystems, adaptations and food chains/webs then feel free to take a closer look!


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Cassandra

I am so thankful that it is Friday!!  That means it is time for Easter break!!

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for their weekly happiness!!





I am so excited that I get to spend this weekend with two of my best friends!!  My college friend came to spend the end of her spring break with us! We graduated together and then went our separate ways.  Back in 2009 she went on a major road trip with us up the California coast to Oregon!!  Since I have had children she has come to visit many times, and was even here for the baby shower for my son!!  She has come a few times since then, but has not seen my daughter since last summer!!  We are so excited to be able to spend these few days with her!!



My best teaching buddy is in town for Easter weekend too!!  She left me for Vegas, and every day I miss her being next door!  My school year has not been the same, and I miss her and our ice cream dates!  I'm excited to be able to spend some time with her this weekend though, and hope we can sneak in some Blue Bell somewhere!!




This week we were able to use some amazing centers by Ashley over at Schroeder Shenanigans in Second!  If you have not checked her out yet you will want to make sure that you do!!  We were able to use her new math centers, Eggcelent Place Value and Fraction Practice.  My kids loved the games, and they kept them engaged!

We were also able to work on our helping verbs with her amazing Helping Verbs scoot!!




In science this week we have been doing many hands on activities!  We are learning about layers of the earth, volcanoes, fossils and rocks.  We have not been reading out of our textbook, and instead have been using amazing products I found on TPT LAST YEAR!!  I couldn't believe it when I realized that a product I bought A YEAR AGO, was from The Blessed Teacher!!  I love Jennifer, and was so excited when I realized it was her pack that I used!

This week we made different types of rock using laffy taffy, graham crackers and frosting.  We also went on a fossil dig using chocolate chip cookies!!  On Thursday we were able to make our own fossils, so hopefully they will be nice and set on Tuesday when we get back to school!




Easter is one of my favorite holidays, and one of my favorite holidays to teach my students about.  There is so much that goes in to the Easter story, and for some of them it is the first time that they will read the story straight out of the bible.  We talked a lot about what Judas did, and how Peter denied Jesus three times.  It is so easy for us go along with the crowd, and not always stand up for what is right, or for what we believe in.  I'm looking forward to discussing the rest of the Easter story next week, and the amazing events that took place on Easter Sunday!!!
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Cassandra





How often are you able to do fun hands on activities for science?!
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Cassandra

I can't believe it is Sunday night already!  Where did this weekend go!?!  I feel like Sunday night comes faster and faster every weekend!!  I have big plans for this summer on how to make sure that my weekends can be spent relaxing, and not spending them planning, printing, laminating, you know what most of us spend our Sunday evenings doing!!


I'm linking up with Jennifer over at Mrs. Laffin's Laughings to share what we will be doing this week!


I'm excited for our rounding activity that I found from The Blessed Teacher!  We are going to work on rounding to the nearest tens and hundred with this Bingo game!!  I think my kids will love it, and it will give them the opportunity to practice using any numbers that they would like.  Make sure you check it out!  Every teacher loves a bargain, and it is a freebie, so how could you go wrong!?!  Make sure to leave some awesome feedback and check out the rest of her store too!!



This month we are starting our Earth science unit!  This unit is probably my favorite because I have found some AWESOME resources to use, and don't really have to use my textbook AT ALL!!  I am hoping parents will like it too because we aren't going to take a test, but instead we are going to do some hands on projects and experiments to show what we know!!

I am using products by the amazing The Blessed Teacher, and Nicole Shelby!!  You will want to make sure you check them out!  Jennifer has some great ideas on fossils, and she even has directions on how the kids can make fossils on their own!!  Nicole has lots of great ideas and organizers to help your students show what they know in many, MANY, different ways!!  I look forward to using most of her product, and to watching the kids have fun as they learn this month!!

In religion we are talking about Easter this month.  I am always amazed at what my students take away from this time of year, and how deep we are able to go into the story.  I am looking forward to talking about the Last Supper this week, as well as discussing the great gift we received on Good Friday.

I hope that you all have an amazing week!!  I am off to read before I fall asleep and get up in the morning to begin this fun week!!
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Cassandra

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