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!