Red Ribbon Week

 

If your school celebrates Red Ribbon Week, then you're probably familiar with the whole door decorating/class banner competition.  My students were super excited to show off our banner.  And to get out of class for a little bit!

I found a ton of great ideas on Pinterest, and was going to go with, "Make no bones about it.  Drugs are bad!"  I thought the kids could make little skeletons out of pasta and it would also tie in nicely with Halloween.

 However, we're currently focusing on figurative language.  I got to thinking how "make no bones" is an idiom.  I thought it would be a great idea to tie in other idioms in relation to drug free/healthy choices.  During our ELA block, I took some time teach the kids some new idioms.  The students then turned those idioms into sentences that related to Red Ribbon Week slogans. 

 Here's a sample of some of the slogans e came up with...

 Mind your p's and q's. Stay away from drugs!
Drugs are for the birds.
Take the bull by the horns.  Say no to drugs.
Don't beat around the bush.  Say no to drugs.

 Each student then wrote out their idiom slogan on a half-piece of white paper and decorated it in a silly way to illustrate the idiom. The kids had fun, we learned some new idioms, and we made a pretty awesome banner.

What the Teacher Learned:  Even an idiom knows that drugs are bad!  And all that tie-in makes my life a lot easier.

AR Goal Setting

 

Does your school use Accelerated Reader?  Have you learned how to set goals for your students? It's so easy! First, students need to take the STAR test on AR.  Then, simply go into "Goals", click on a few boxes, and voila...goals set!  Each student will have a different point goal based on their STAR reading level and the number of minutes per day you want them to be reading.

 

Here comes the fun part.  Once you set your students' goals you can begin tracking their progress.  For the first nine weeks of school I gave students a popcorn kernel (cut out of yellow construction paper) to glue on their card each time they reached 25%, 50%, 75%, etc... of their goal.  Students with 75% or more at the end of the nine weeks got a popcorn party.  I decorated the pocket chart with little popcorn holders that I found at Smart and Final. 

 

For the next nine weeks of school, students will earn a "marshmallow guy" for each increment of 20% of their goal that they achieve.  Can you see the "marshmallow guy"?  He's in "whipped cream".  Students that reach 80% or more of their goal get a hot cocoa party.  Yum!

 

What the Teacher Learned:  Food is a good motivator!

Study Island Competition

 

I'm not a very competitive person myself, but many of my students are.   I wanted to find a cute, visual way to monitor students' progress on Study Island.  It also needed to be easy. 

 

I found this serene island poster at Target for a few dollars.  Each student was asked to color in a clip art sailboat.  As students pass topics on Study Island, they get to move their sailboat closer and closer to the island. 

 

The students were very excited to work hard, pass topics, and move that sailboat along.  Why?  Anyone who made it to the island got to come to a pizza party.  Yum!

 

What the Teacher Learned:  Tracking student progress is helpful to both the teacher and the student!

Haunted Multiplication Houses

 

The inspiration for these Haunted Multiplication Houses came from the book MathART Projects and Activities.  The students were able to work on them during math rotations. 

 

We just began our division adventure, so this was a review of relating multiplication to division.  The students chose a fact to review.  This student chose his eights so on the door he wrote "House of 8's".  On the outside of each window students were to write a factor, and on the inside the product.  This student also wrote a related division fact on the inside of the "shutter".

 

Since Halloween is almost here, I purchased some seasonal foam pieces for students decorate their houses with. 

 

What the Teacher Learned:  Art and Math do mix!

Computation Sticks

 

One of my goals this year is to keep the kiddos moving with centers, centers and more centers.  (Because they listen to each other way more than they ever listen to me!) 

 

I saw this great idea for Computation Sticks at Confession of a Teaching Junkie.  They were a breeze to make, and can be tailored to any standard you might be introducing, covering, or want the students to review. I have five sets for my math center.  Each set is written in a different color Sharpie so the sets don't get mixed up. 

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I can even see this being used in Language Arts:

 

Start:  What is the prefix in undone?

Un:  What is a synonym for accurate?

Correct:  How many syllables in attention?

etc...

 

I think I'll try to rope my 4th grade Partners in Crime into making their own sets.  Then we can trade from time to time. 

 

What the Teacher Learned:   Sneaky learning is downright fun!