What's the Matter?

I cannot fathom how much my class this year loves Science! I try so very hard to fit it in as much as possible. One of the most fun things I have taught so far is matter.

It seems like such a hard concept for them to grasp...at least "the teacher" thought. But my 21 (now 22) little minons decided to prove me wrong {which I have NO problem with!}.

 

 

What is matter? Why it's anything that takes up space if you must ask.

So we completed an experiment to prove just that. I took 4 cups filled with the same amount of water. I made sure to mark where the water line stood before placing and object in the cup.

 

Nothing was put into cup #1.

A  marble was put into cup #2.

A ball of clay was put into cup #3.

A wooden block was put into cup #4.

 

This simply shows that objects, no matter what it is, take up space.

The little smartypants also discovered that the bigger the object, the more space it takes up!

 

To conclude our activity, we read a poem about matter and added it to our interactive science journal. We colored all the objects in the poem that we could consider matter.

 

I'm sure my "science eyes" {which I kept from college} had something to do with their enthusiasm about learning!

 

Now back to matter...

Brainpop has an excellent video to help introduce solids, liquids, and gases. We learned about solids first and recorded the definition along with some examples we found in the classroom in our science journals.

 

Next up, we learned about liquids.

We had a race with 3 different types of liquids: water, honey, and oil.

After filling out our experiment form, we put a drop of each on the start line, tilted the pan up, and watched to see which one crossed the finish line first. We made sure to discuss why some moved quicker than others.

 

 

We took what we knew about liquids and tried turning them into solids. We made predictions of what we thought would happen and observed the actual changing state of matter. We performed this to see what would happen if we turned a liquid into a solid and then from a solid to a liquid.

 

On our last day, we took our schema about matter and went outside to find the 3 states of matter on a science scavenger hunt.

 

We concluded that is was much easier to observe solids and liquids than it was gases!

 

Digraph Crafts

Who says a week of review has to be boring?

"Not I", said the teacher.

Each day last week we picked a different digraph to review and got a little crafty with it!

 

 

We started off each day with a review of digraph sounds on BrainPOP.

{If you don't have a subscription I HIGHLY recommend it!!}

I had them listen for digraph words. We took those words and others they came up with and wrote them down in a brainstorming session on our chart.

Each day I had the students pick one word from our chart and use it for our craft.

 

Day 1: CH

We took our words from "Our ch words" anchor chart and made a CHocolate CHip cookie! 

 

Day 2: SH

We took our words from "Our sh words" anchor chart and made a fiSH bowl!

 

Day 3: TH

We took our words from "Our th words" anchor chart and made a paTHway of words!

 

Day 4: WH

We took our words from "Our wh words" anchor chart and made a WHale!

 

We had so much fun and the kiddos looked forward trying to figure out what digraph each poster was for!  Perfect way for THem to SHow WHatCHa know!

Five for {TGI} Friday!

 

 

It's been SO long... 1) since I've blogged regularly and 2) since my last Five for Friday.

So glad to be sharing happenings from my "firstieland" this past week.!

 

 

Mental images are so much fun when they come from the fabulous Mrs. Jump! We began our visualizing journey this week by reading My Neighbor's Dog is Purple. Kiddos adored it, especially with it's surprise ending!

 

 

Who said reviewing can't be fun? We spent each day this week reviewing a different digraph, brainstorming words, and crafting it up!

{Check out a post on this Sunday!}

 

 

Correctly using punctuation is still in the works in our room. I thought it was time for a little review during small groups this week, so we did just that. I typed up a few sentences, threw them into a plastic sleeve, and off we went.

 

 

Fall in Texas is NOT usually this cold...30's at night!?!? But I am definitely LOVING it. The hubs made a fire 3 nights in a row this week. Heck yes!

 

 

Cold weather gives me another excuse to stop and get a Caramel Brulee Latte....4 days in a row! WHAT!? Yes, I may have a slight severe addiction.

 

Head on over to DoodleBugs to link up!

 

Happy Friday

Thankful Turkeys

One of the many reasons I'm thankful for Thanksgiving is we get a whole week off! Forget the silent cheer....WAHOO! I'm so glad my little "turkeys" haven't turned into turkeys yet (if you know what I mean!).

 

My teammates and I decorated our hall festively for the month of November. Each class traced and cut out their hands to glue on a large colored feather for our larger than life-sized turkey. Isn't he just adorable!?

 

Here are a few turkey crafts I like to have my littles work on during the month of November.

 

I like to start off the month of November by reading the book Thanks for Thanksgiving. We have a discussion about hat it means to be thankful and the many things we are thankful for. We write our thankfulness on turkey feathers and add them to our class turkey!

Last year, we were learning all about fact families in math so we made fact family turkeys.

 

 

I gave each student 3 numbers and they had to write each fact of the family on a different turkey. You could do the same thing with sums of different numbers.

 

Here is a freebie I created for a quick and easy fact family game using dominoes.

{Click on the picture to download}

 

 

This guy can pretty much be used for whatever phonetic skill you are working on. Last year we were covering blends so we made our feathers using blend words. This year, our turkeys will have digraph words on them.

{Download the template from Cara Carroll HERE}

 

If you missed my post about "Turkey Alliterations" click the picture below!

 

 

Hope this inspires you to "get your turkey on"!

Turkey Tongue Twisters

Holy blog hiatus!

 

I'm about to be totally honest so if you are not up for hearing it, skip to the next paragraph.

Since my last post 3 weeks ago, I haven't really been feeling the whole blogging "thing". You know, when you get in a slump and just can't dig your way out. That was me! I'm not going to blame it on being busy, or Halloween, but just plain 'ol "I don't wanna!".  I haven't written a post, read a blog, or dare even create anything...GASP!

 

Thankfully my "don't wanna" has turned itself back around just in time for the holiday season!

 

This past week we discussed alliterations. Who knew those tongue twister poems such as "Peter Piper" and "Sally sells seashells..." had such a cool name!?

 

 

After reading these 2 amazing books below so that our ears could make some alliteration identifications, we used our names to come up with our very own alliterations!

 

 



 

Talk about a ball y'all...they had so much fun coming up with something and helping their friends conquer theirs!

"Davis dives in the deep dark water."

 

On Friday's we normally complete a craft of some sort based upon what we learned. So we tied turkeys together with the concept of alliterations.

 

First, we brainstormed a list of "T" words and wrote them on our turkey words chart. 

 

Then, we picked a few "T" words and wrote an alliteration sentence.

Here's my teacher example: 

 

I must say they turned out pretty darn cute! 

"Teddy the turkey threw the tiger at the teacher."

 

 So cute that they may have just made an appearance out in our hallway for the remainder of the month!