Nerd Day

Nerd Day fell on my birthday.  What better way to celebrate another year of a blessed life than by having a fun dress up day?  

2 of my friends dressed up with me. 

I got real crazy on my birthday and let them convince me to play tether ball, too.  It is amazingly fun AND such a workout.  Who knew??  I left with a bruised eye and busted blood vessels in my arm.  I'm way too competitive, LOL.

Delano Mile

The Delano Mile this year was postponed for the first time since I've been at Leon Sheffield.  The race was moved due to inclement weather.  Unfortunately the weather on the make-up day wasn't much better.  The students bundled up and braved the COLD 1 mile run!

And they're off...

They normally receive gatorade and popsicles once they complete the run because it is normally very hot outside.  This year they had their normal treats but could've probably used some hot chocolate instead :).

Fast runners!

Way to go, guys!!

Animal Lovers Unite

One of our Bling Slip rewards was Show & Tell.  Students were given an option of bringing in 3 items of their choice or 1 live item.  We had many animals visit this year including 2 unique ones:  a horse and a duck!

Ashton brought her precious puppy in to share with us.  She was the cuttest, smallest thing I had ever seen!

Sam brought in his pet duck, Si.  Si was a huge hit!

And then there was the always anticipated and loved animal man, Bob Tarter.  This year Mr. Tarter brought in (pictured clockwise beginning in the top left corner) a bat, a Three-toed Amphiuma, an opossum (YUCK!), and a raccoon.

Oh Yeah!  We can't forget THE BOBCAT!!  He was a very friendly creature but I wouldn't want to tote him around like Mr. Tarter does. :)

The animal man always brings the most interesting animals.  Lucky for my he chose not to bring any snakes this year.  I've ended up in this situation one too many times :).

Our Harlem Shake Video

LEGOS

Last week I was asked to attend a training on LEGOS Build to Express.  This training taught me how to use LEGOS when teaching.  We can use these to create predictions for books we're reading, to illustrate scenes from battles we may discuss in Alabama History, or even demonstrate how we may use fractions each day.  Each student is given a prompt, an amount of maximum pieces that can be used, and then given 3 - 5 minutes to build.

To begin we built towers.  Each student was given 15 pieces and 3 minutes to build.  Following their build each student was given a chance to explain what they built.  We had phone towers, castle towers, plain towers, princesses in towers, queens in towers, towers in New England, towers in England, and even a tower with the girl from Tangled in it.  I loved hearing each students' story!

Ask your child what our #1 rule in LEGOS is and why we have that as a rule.

Fraction Songs

We have learned several songs to help us remember how to simplify and create common denominators when using fractions.  Mr. Sanders walked by our classroom one day while we were singing one of our songs and asked us if we would like to come teach his class our songs.

Monday we had the opportunity to walk down to the 5th grade hall and teach them something new!  We sang our Rihanna song that has the steps for simplifying, our Taylor Swift song that has the steps for finding a common denominator, and our S-I-M-P-L-I-F-Y rap!  Mr. Sanders' class LOVED our songs and even wrote us a thank you note for sharing :)

Name Kaleidoscopes

We used math to make these cool kaleidoscopes.

1. First, fold both of your papers in half diag­o­nally, then in half again, and finally in half one more time. Unfold both of them and set one aside.

2. Cut out one of the tri­an­gles cre­ated by your fold lines on just one of the papers.
3. With the flat edge along the bot­tom and the point fac­ing up, write your name with large stick let­ters so that it fills the entire tri­an­gle.
4. Now, draw an out­line around your stick let­ters to make nice, thick let­ters that touch all three sides of your tri­an­gle. Trace over your pen­cil lines with Sharpie.
5. Next, place the tri­an­gle with your name on it under one of the cor­re­spond­ing tri­an­gles on the other paper. Trace your out­line let­ters with pen­cil onto the new paper. (It can be help­ful to use a light box or even tape your papers to a win­dow for trac­ing.)

2. Then line up your tri­an­gles for trac­ing so that each cor­ner is made up of a mir­ror image of your name.

6. Con­tinue trac­ing your name onto each sec­tion, flip­ping your name over every other time to achieve a “mir­ror image”. (Flip­ping your name over every other time is essen­tial to achiev­ing a mir­ror image, so don’t for­get this impor­tant step!!)
7. Then, trace over all your pen­cil lines with Sharpie.
8. Color with mark­ers or col­ored pen­cils.

Were those directions confusing enough??  LOL

Your child would be happy to show you how to make one!

If I found a pot of gold...

We are currently working on our writing skills.  We started small by writing a simple paragraph.  Our paragraph told what we would do if we found a pot of gold.  Some of the students ideas were to:  shop, buy a mansion, meet Justin Beiber, go to several concerts, and live in the White House.

Live Chess

Last Thursday was our Live Chess Tournament.  The 5th grade students that are in chess club participate in this event each year.  The 2 students playing for the championship were Caleb Smith and Joshua Topliss.

Several of our students watched closely.  I hope to see many of them out there next year!

Beauty and The Beast

Friday, March 1st we traveled to The Princess Theatre to watch our students in Beauty and The Beast, Jr.  They did a FANTASTIC job!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

We did several fun activities for Valentine's Day, but this was the only picture I came away with.

Students used conversation hearts to do math Thursday.  One of the last things they did with their hearts was to make a large heart out of all of the tiny hearts.  They enjoyed their math lesson that day :)

We also simplified fractions, made Valentine bags, exchanged Valentine's, snacked on lots of yummy food (thank you to each of you that sent in items!!), wrote about love, and created a LOVE acrostic.  We had a great Valentine's Day in class!

Mardi Gras

We celebrated Mardi Gras by making masks in our class.  We wore them around school and learned a little bit about the parades, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent.

A battery, bulb, and wire

Our electricity unit began this week!  On the first day of our investigation study students were given 1 d-cell battery, 1 light bulb, and 1 wire.  They were asked to use these materials to make their light bulb light.  After a few frustrations everyone in the class was finally successful!

They learned their wire must make a positive and negative connection, and the metal tip of their light bulb must come in contact with the wire or a poll of the battery. 

Paper Airplanes

Our reading lesson Monday was on functional reading.  I gave each student a set of instructions for making a paper airplane.  They were to carefully study the directions, synergize with their neighbor to be sure they understood the directions, and check with me with any further questions they had.  Following a 10 - 15 minute study of the directions they were asked to make their paper airplane.  We flew the airplanes to see whose plane went the farthest.  This was a fun way to practice our reading skills and Habit #6 - Synergize!

Number The Stars

Our first read aloud for the second semester was Number the Stars.  Number the Stars is a historical fiction novel that takes place in Denmark during World War II.  Hitler and his Nazi regime have taken over Denmark and are driving the Jews out.  

While reading this novel the students were able to learn a little about life for Jews during World War II. They loved the novel and hated for it to end.  This picture was taken on the day we finished the book.  They all wanted to gather around my desk because a book is a whole lot better when you're super close to the reader :).

SNOW!!!

After several school delays with no precipitation, we finally received a little snow.  We tried to play in it, but as you can see, it was more water than anything.  We had fun anyway!

Solar System Scavenger Hunt

We studied space during the month of January.  We studied the planets, our galaxy, and other items in our solar system, but our main focus was on space technology and its change throughout the years.  As we wrapped our study of space up they students took a scavenger hunt around the school to answer various questions about space.  They had a great time doing this.

Jack's Dog

Jack traded in 5 Bling Slips to bring his dog, Oreo, in to school one afternoon.  Oreo is the smallest, most precious little dog.  We loved getting to meet Oreo!  Thank you for sharing with us, Jack!

Merry Christmas

We had a blast at our Christmas party this year.  We feasted on pancakes & toppings, donuts, sausage balls, and bacon.  The kids had a great time and enjoyed all of the food!

Baby Chicks

Before Christmas break Mrs. White had 7 chicken eggs in an incubator in her classroom.  We were able to watch the eggs hatch and see the baby chicks pop their heads out.  It was the most precious thing and the kids LOVED it!