Five for Friday

I feel like the closer we get to the end of the school year, the more and more tired I am getting as each day progresses. Haha. Whats wrong with me??? Thank goodness Spring Break is coming in a week!

Now, off to Five for Friday...

We started a new unit in Math this week....TIME! I'm actually sort of excited to teach this to the kiddos. Had to do some review of first grade stuff first...

The students have been working really hard these last two weeks writing their own version of the Cinderella story. A more in-depth post about this will be coming soon. 

A production artist from the SF Opera came to visit our school to talk about set and prop design. She helped the kids brainstorm ideas for the set of our mini-opera. 

On her next visit after Spring Break we are going to be making the set! The kids are most definitely excited.

We had a field trip today to the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. It started off with some light rain, so the Gardens was kind enough to give everyone a poncho. The kids were broken into smaller groups and then off on the docent-led tour they went! 

The kids got to see carnivorous plants, try some cacao beans and milk chocolate, and taste agave syrup! They all had a blast. :)

The field trip was only half a day (we got back at lunch). We had learned about telling time to five minutes the day before. It only made sense to just do a fun activity that reinforces a concept taught after a field trip rather than a brand new lesson. Thank goodness for TpT because I found the PERFECT freebie to use as the fun activity!

The clocks were very easy to make. The product also comes with worksheets to go along with the clock. Perfect scaffolding! The kids really enjoyed this activity. I told them to take the clocks home to keep practicing at home. 

Warning: Mini-Rant

I haven't been in the teaching field for very long so aren't too familiar with the old math standards...but is anyone else finding some holes in the Common Core Math Standards? Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with the standards as a whole. I'm just finding the non-algebraic standards to be missing some sort of continuity across grade levels. For example...time is only a standard in first and second grade. In first, you learn about hour and half hour. In second, you are supposed to learn to tell time to the nearest five minute. In third grade, the time standard is gone. So...when are the kids supposed to learn to read a clock to the minute???? Maybe this is just a California Common Core thing? I have no idea. Anyone else seeing this too? (I also see this same issue with money. We only teach the kids up to one dollar? What about the dollar coin, five dollar bill, and twenty dollar bill??)

End Mini-Rant

EDIT:

So I don't know if it was just me or something, but I searched online for the Common Core standards (I have been using my phone app all this time), and time to the nearest minute has suddenly appeared in the third grade standard! I'm sure it didn't suddenly appear of course, but I swear it wasn't on my phone app when I checked. My colleague swears the same thing since we were both talking about this and looking at the standards only like a week or two ago. So interesting...

Well, that's the end of this entry! Time to go eat dinner! :D

Last Week of March - Five for Friday

Holy moly! I don't know what's going on this week but I have been EXHAUSTED every single day. Could barely make it through each day!!! Might possibly have something to do with having 2 three hour trainings (different programs) this week? Thank goodness this week is over. @@

Remember our leprechauns from last week? Well, most of them are finally done along with the descriptive paragraphs! Stayed late at school to get this bulletin up! :)

Some close-ups...

Did you notice that the paragraphs weren't about the leprechaun's appearance? I made sure of that! I wanted the kids to think even deeper and write about the leprechaun's personality and character instead. I think they did a great job!

Geometry ended this week! We did this weeklong activity created by the district which involved having the students make a paper cube. 

Science was super exciting this week. Why? We are starting our life science unit which means...live specimen!!! Our mealworms arrived last week and were introduced to the students on Thursday. 

The kiddos were super excited. They each got their own container of six mealworms to keep at their desks for observation.

We are still working on our mini-opera for the SF Opera ARIA program. A production artist will be visiting our classroom next week so to prepare, we came up with some ideas of what we wanted our set to look like.

Assembly time! PEAK, an environmental education program that is currently working with our fifth graders hosted an all-school assembly to teach the kids more about saving and managing energy.

They learned how electricity is made in a power plant...

They also met Bulbman!!

Busy busy and exhausting week! I'm jealous of the schools that are on spring break next week. Mine isn't until mid-April. At least we get a long weekend because we get Cesar Chavez Day off. I will take whatever I can get!

Finally, I will leave you with a picture of the hallway bulletin of one of the first grade classes. So cute!

Five for Friday

Report cards are done (primarily since they went home today)! Also had parent conferences. So TGIF!!! Also means time for Five for Friday!!! There's lots to share this time! :)

We focused on narrative paragraph writing during Writer's workshop this week. We have spent a bit of time in the past talking about creating topic sentences. This time I wanted the kids to focus more on their supporting details. I gave the students two topic sentences to choose from, "Last weekend I had a lot of fun." and "Last week I did not have fun." The students then filled out their graphic organizer with supporting details and I asked for some to be shared. 

Some of them are quite entertaining!

We started our Cinderella unit last week. The kids have been working in partners and reading different versions of the Cinderella story (I had no idea there were so many!!!). We do one each day. 

Of course, it's not all about reading! They are also filling out pages in a workbook I created for them using pages from the two units I got on TpT below. 

They are both super awesome! I told the kids that they are doing research when they are reading because when we are done circulating through all the books, the kids will be writing their own Cinderella story!

We started our geometry unit this week. Lots of it was a review of stuff from first grade like reviewing plane shapes, solid shapes, and their attributes. 

We also took solid shapes and traced them on paper to see what plane shapes their faces are.

We also learned some new vocabulary words, too! :)

If you've been following my blog you'll know that my class is currently participating in the San Francisco Opera's ARIA program. We have been meeting with a teaching artist weekly and working on creating our own mini-opera based on the story, Bullies Never Win.

This week, we got a special visit from some Adler Fellows, opera performers in training with the SF Opera. Before meeting them, the class came up with some questions to ask them. I was really impressed with the ones they came up with!

Then we met them! (two singers and a pianist)

Each of the singers performed a short piece for us. Then we got to sing a song with them!

First they singed a song from the opera, "The Magic Flute"...

...and then we joined them!

Oh, what fun the kiddos had! 

Our school's annual auction fundraiser is coming up (next Saturday!). Each class is in charge of creating a class basket for the class auction (it's typically parents who create it). Some of them are currently on display in the school lobby to give parents a sneak peek of what they can bid on! Some of these are pretty cool! (My class's isn't pictured since it's not there yet.)

Okay, weekend is finally beginning! :D