Little Scientists Save Summer

ATTENTION PARENTS AND TEACHERS:

Are your kids barely into their summer vacation and already whining, "I'm boooored"??

I came across the blog The Kitchen Pantry Scientist towards the end of the school year and just knew I had to get some of these science experiments in during the last days of school.

She's a fellow Minnesotan, and has been featured many times on our local news sharing fun science experiments.  She's an actual scientist (bacteriology), and explains the science behind all of the experiments.  Best of all, all of her experiments can be done with ordinary things found in your pantry!

First we did one called Magic Potion, using cabbage juice, vinegar, and baking soda.  I wish you could have seen their eyes light up when the chemical reactions occurred.  :)

Also from The Kitchen Pantry Scientist, we did Fizzy Balloons.  Super cool!

We did an experiment called Elephant Toothpaste (not from The Kitchen Pantry Scientist), which produced a chemical reaction (foaming) and a thermal reaction (warmth).  

Look, some of my former students stopped by for the fun, too!

Yes… They should have been wearing goggles….  :/

It was fun to play with the foam after the reaction… it was SO soft!

I even repeated the experiment with my niece!  Check out that little scientist!  :)

Our last actual unit in science for the year was exploring light and shadows.  We made shadow puppets using construction paper and popsicle sticks and explored how drawings and cut holes affect the shadows.  My students LOVED when I closed all of the blinds and turned off the lights in the room… it was VERY dark!  I gave pairs of students a flashlight and told them to take their shadow puppet, find a blank wall and make some shadows!  It kept them occupied for almost our whole science period!

So next time your kids say they're bored this summer, grab some simple materials and let them explore SCIENCE!  It might just SAVE the summer!

In the Olympic Spirit!

Our school has monthly staff meetings, and usually they are kind of a drag.  I'd rather be up in my classroom getting ready for the day.

BUT our most current meeting was anything but boring!

To get in the spirit of the Opening Ceremonies, our staff meeting held the first annual BOBSLED RACES! We had teams from grades K-2, 3-5, Middle School, and Administration.  It was AWESOME!

Take a look!

We had a bracket-system to declare a winning team.

For the medal ceremony, our music teacher led us in singing the national anthem to honor the winning athletes.  It was quite the emotional moment.   :)

Does your school's staff do anything fun to make meetings or professional development days just a little brighter?  I want to hear about it!

Until next time,

- Miss Woodward

Halloween Happenings

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Does your school get to celebrate Halloween?  This year, we did, and it was such a fun day!

In this post, I gave you some ideas for things to do on Halloween.  Here's how my day ended up!

Meet four fab superheroes!

Ms. Tarah, Miss Woodward, Ms. Eichhorn, and Ms. Meredith

Our first initials actually spelled out TEAM, so it was perfect!

We spent quite a while (and oodles of hairspray) to get our hair look like it had been blown back from flying to school.

Oh yeah, some of my students dressed up too!

How cute are they?!

We also made these cute paper bag pumpkins.  I got the idea from this post at This Old Art Room.

One of my partners had directions for a monster glyph project, so we did that in the afternoon.

Here were the guidelines for the glyph:

- BODY: favorite shape

- EYES: Boy= 1 eye   Girl= 3 eyes

- HAIR: How old you are

- TEETH: How many people in your family

- LEGS: Your favorite color 

How cute are these little monsters?

We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".  The kids loved the part where Charlie Brown kept getting rocks in his goodie bag.

We ALSOOOOOO listened to the scary stories that our classes wrote.  Each 3rd grade class has been working on writing a scary story together.  Yesterday, Ms. Meredith recorded us reading them on her iPad, and added in our sound effects.  Take a listen to ours!  I'm so proud of my kiddos!

"The Graveyard Hospital" by Miss Woodward's Class

Just click on the link to listen to our story!  :)

How was your Halloween?  Did you do anything fun in your class?

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

"Monday" Made-It: Play Dough!

I recently read a blog post from Clutter Free Classroom about using play dough on the first day of school.  (Yes, even with third graders.)  I loved the idea so much that I decided to try it for the first day of school!  So.... the night before school started, I was busy making 24 little baggies of play dough for my kiddos.

Read about Clutter Free Classroom's take on play dough here.

If I hadn't run out of salt or cream of tartar, this really wouldn't have taken long at all!  But my extra trip to the store delayed my production time.

I got four small balls of play dough out of one batch.  To speed things up, I doubled the recipe to get eight little balls at a time.  I stored each ball in a plastic zip bag labeled with each student's name.

Pretty soon, I had 24 little baggies of play dough for my students!

Stay tuned for my next post about the first day of school and how the kids responded to the play dough!

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

Game Organization

My game shelf needed a makeover.  Last year, I used a flimsy shelf and flimsy bins to hold my games.  Everything was always unorganized, and it drove me crazy!

I decided everything needed a place, and students needed clear labels to know where to put things back.

I used my old book bins (yes, I realize they don't match... I didn't want to spend any more money on new bins.)  I divided my games into "like" piles.  I put all of the puzzles together, all of the board games, all of the card games, etc.

I ditched the puzzle boxes, and put each puzzle in a bag.  I cut the front off the puzzle box, so kids at least know what the puzzle is supposed to look like!  :)   I put a label on the bag, too.

Now kids can pick a puzzle, and when they are done, they put it back in the puzzle bin.  I did the same process for my other games.  Matching labels on the games and the bins means (fingers crossed), that everything will stay organized and in the correct bin!

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

Last Day of School!

Well, I survived my first year as a teacher.

Wednesday was our last day of school, and we had a very busy day.  After some cleaning, we played "Minute to Win It" games.  The kiddos loved it!  In one minute, students had to....

...move cotton balls into a bucket using chopsticks... (they were very good at this one, because a lot of them use chopsticks regularly at home.)

... use only one hand to sort a bag of M&M's into piles of each color...

... remove all of the tissues from a tissue box...

...move red cups one by one from the top of the stack to the bottom, to reveal a blue cup on the top...

...use an uncooked spaghetti noodle in their mouths to pick up four penne noodles...

...and stack 36 cups into a tower.

It really was a great last day of school.  

The best part of the day was as we were taking the kids out to the buses.  A crowd of teachers had formed, cheering for and hugging the students as they walked to their buses.  It was such a positive way to end a spectacular school year.

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

An extra recess never hurt anyone!

On Friday, I took the kids outside for an extra recess time at the end of the day.  Everyone could use a little extra play time, right?

One student had brought a hand-made jump rope!  A popular thing to do for the families at our school is to make jump ropes out of woven rubber bands.

It was so cute to see all of them organizing a jump rope game together.

Only THREE more days left of school!  I can't believe it!

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

Carnival

Today was the Carnival at school!  

My class has been looking forward to this ALL year.  For a few hours in the afternoon, the kids had free reign of the school to play games and win prizes.  Parents and other family members came, too!

Kids could get popcorn and mini donuts... Yum!

 They could create Spin Art...

...get their faces painted...

...try to get a basket, shoot a goal in hockey, and kick a soccer ball...

...get their nails painted or get tattoos...

... And so many more fun games!

Does your school have any fun celebrations towards the end of the year?

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward