Who's Who?

I love to display student's work in the hall but I always seem to have one silly problem, no one can seem to find their own paper, there are papers without names or everyone puts their names in different places on a paper.  I tried something new this year, I used word art on a word document and created an outlined header of each student's name that they then decorated.  Then I glued them to the top of a piece of construction, laminated it and attached clothespins to each paper.  Voila, the students now can hang their work on their own paper and everyone knows whose paper belongs to who.  The kids love it because they always know where there paper is hanging and it is clean, eye-catching and different and I like that!

Cell Phone Book Reports

I found this great website adn decided that the cell phone book reports were the perfect culminating activity for the books we read in our Literature Circles this last month of school.  I love when you can purchase an activity that has everything you need from start to finish!  Not to mention the kids LOVED these phones.  They were relatively easy (ask for problem, solution, recommendation, favorite part and a picture), relatively cheap ($4.99 for the download), come with a rubric where the kids grade themselves as well as the the teacher grading, and they look great hanging up.  Take a look! 

 Hanging up in the room.

I think that I will try the gameboard book reports on this same website for next year.

Parts of Speech Books/Powerpoints

The end of the year is fast approaching and it is time for me to be working on some culminating activities and one I have chosen for this year is a review of the parts of speech.  I have done Parts of Speech books in the past and the requirement was simple.  Each student needed to decide on a theme and make their book center around that theme.  Each page in the book had a part of speech, its definition, a sentence with that particular part of speech highlighted that follows the theme and then a picture to go with their sentence.  It was a lot of fun and more importantly it took the kids quite a while to finish, which is always a good thing at the end of the year.  This year I decided that it IS 2011 so instead of making books, they are each making a Powerpoint.  Their requirements were the same except they had to have a title slide and then one slide for each part of speech.  I let them decide on the slide design, font, and clip art.
They started them a couple weeks ago and most of them finished during 3 computer lab sessions (30 minutes each).  I actually had kids that finished start presenting today and will finish up next week.  Perfect for the last week of school!  They should be up on our school's website when they are done.  I will direct you there when that happens. 
Below are some pictures of one of the presentations (obviously this one was a powerpoint about monkeys).

Mother's Day Flowers

I struggle every year with what to have my class do for their mother's for Mother's Day.  It all comes down to 2 things, time and money.  This year, I did not have either so we fell back on my "go to" project for fifth graders (this could probably be done by fourth and maybe third but considering it uses bamboo skewers, I wouldn't go any lower than that).  Here's what they look like:

Here's how you make them:

You will need bamboo skewers (I bought the smaller size at the grocery store, pkg. of 100 for $1.50)
several strips of construction paper cut 1" by 12" (one flower uses 20 strips)
strips of green construction paper cut 2" by 9" (for leaves)
tape
scissors

The first thing you need to do is to put a piece of tape about 2/3 of the way down around the bamboo skewer to keep the strips of paper from sliding off. 

Then, they cut the green strip into a leaf shape and poke the center of the green strip onto the skewer.

After that they use the colored strips.  Starting with the center of the strip, pole it onto the skewer.

Then, grab one end of the strip and poke it on the skewer.

Repeat with the other side.

Then push the petal down being careful not to crease the sides or smoosh (technical word) the other petals. 

Do this with all 20 strips alternating the direction of each petal so that it looks fuller.  Some of my kids didn't use all 20 petals because theirs was already big enough and some needed more because they smooshed too much.  When they are done you will need to add a piece of tape to the top to keep the petals from popping off and then carefully (with a great pair of scissors) snip off the sharp tip of the skewer. 

They look great finished and the kids will have a blast making them.  Most of them finished 2 of them in 30 minutes, but then I have a few that will be working on them for 3 hours.  You know how it goes.  :-)

Oh, I almost forgot, I did give them some ribbon that I had laying around to tie onto the bottom just for fun. 

There you have it.  As always, e-mail me if you have any questions!  Have fun and have a great Mother's Day!

Electronics Party

We love to party around here so when we finished our state assessments and did quite well, I decided it called for a party.  I was tired of all the same old parties we have had over the years...movies...games...extra recess etc.  I decided that since all these kids talk about are video games and music then we should celebrate that by having an electronics party.  I allowed the kids to bring any handheld games they had as well as games for those systems to school.  They could also bring i-pods, i-pads, cameras or Wii games (this was thanks to a parent that hooked up their Wii to a dinosaur of a TV we have in our hallway).  The only thing I wouldn't allow was a cell phone, I didn't want to mess with texting and they were completely fine with that.  I have a parent that works at a movie theatre and one that works for Hostess so we had popcorn and snack cakes to eat, played games, listened to music and according to the kids, it was the best party ever!  I will definitely be doing this again.  I must also add that I am the reigning Just Dance 2 champ in the classroom...just sayin...

And we're off....

Welcome to my new blog.  I spent two years blogging about my passion, my family, but I have been feeling like it is time to try something new.  I have been a teacher for 15 years and 10 of those years have been spent in a fifth grade classroom in 3 different states, public and private school.  As a teacher, I am always looking for ideas and even more than that, I LOVE sharing ideas.  I thought it was time to bring my family blog to a close and start a blog about my other passion - Teaching.  Feel free to look around and let me know what you think.  Unless you think it is bad, then I don't want to hear from you...just kidding....maybe....

Poetry Unit

Since we just finished our state assessments I decided to take a break from the norm (which lately for us has been preparing for the tests) and do some poetry.  It is National Poetry Month after all.  We are also pulishing books and I thought it would be fun to make them poetry books. 
When I went through my poetry file I picked my favorite poems and worked it out so that we did one or two a day so that they have a lot to choose from for their books.  Here's what we did.

• Who am I poem?  This is a twist on a biopoem and a great way to start.  I did biopoems at the beginning of the year so this was something different.  I plan on making this the first poem in their books.
• If I Were in Charge of the World.  I take this poem by Judith Viorst and we make our own version of it replacing most of the nouns with things that pertain to themselves.  It is fun and easy.
• Acrostic.  I know, I know, they have done a million acrostics, but since I was having an "All About Me" poetry day, I decided to have them make an acrostic poem about themselves.  It turned out nice and I think that next year I will have them make an acrostic poem about another classmate as well.
• Cinquains.  These are easy, fun and something loved by all.  I let them choose any topic they wanted just as long as it followed the rules of the number of words for each line.
• Couplets.  I gave them the topic of "food" for their couplet poems and told them it had to be at least 6 lines.  We did one together where I showed them how to use the Rhyming Dictionary (if you don't have on of these, they are a MUST for any classroom).  Then, to display them I had them create the food using construction paper and write their poem on top of it.  They look great displayed in the hall. P.S. this takes a long time to do.  Which can be a good thing.  :-)
• Haikus.  These are super easy once you get the kids to get away from making each line a complete sentence with a subject and a predicate.  They did a good job focusing on nature and making sure the three lines had the appropriate number of syllables I just had to send a lot of kids back to fix lines that sounded too much like a story.  They are so used to making everything perfect it is hard to break that habit...temporarily.  When we were done writing, I let them paint a picture to go with their haiku with water colors and after it dried, they wrote their poem on the painting.  This wasn't in my lesson plans, but they turned out great and make a great display in the room.
• Preposition Poems.  These poems consist of nothing but prepositional phrases except for the last line which can be anything they want.  We did these when we learned about prepositions, but they are so easy to write I am going to have them write one for their books. 
• Feeling Poems.  I didn't get to these and I am a little disappointed.  But they are easy to write.  They just choose a feeling and then the first line they relate that feeling to a color then they use similes and compare that feeling using each of the 5 senses and the last line is what that feeling/emotion feels like.  (see sample below) It is also super easy.  Next year.....

I love doing poetry.  It is a good way for the kids to be creative and you can learn a lot about them by reading what they write about.  We are working on our books this week so that I can send them off to be bound next week.  I can't wait to see the finished products.  Below are some samples.

 Couplet Poems

 Who am I? Poem Template from the book "Poetry Lessons, Everything you Need" by Kathy A. Perfect

 Haiku Poems Displayed

 Close-up of Haikus

 One version of Cinquains.

 If you have any additional questions, feel free to e-mail me at jyankovich@hotmail.com.

Thanks!

Jen