Saturday, August 24, 2013

Five for Friday- Water cycle, Geography, and place value


Yep, I know it's Saturday...but I still really wanted to link up...
fiveforfriday2

Hey there!  You know it's the beginning of the year when you feel like you don't even have time to breathe, let alone blog, right?  ;O) 

Is anyone else that's back to school feeling like this?

Millions of papers to fill out, assessments galore?  Ugh.  We are finally starting to get a "normal" schedule!!

So, here is what we have been up to this week!!  I'm thankful this linky with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching allows us to talk about random things that we did!


We have been working on states of matter and the water cycle in science.  Here are some photos from our interactive notebooks.  For the flippables I used Erin's (from I'm Lovin Lit's) interactive notebook templates (which rock by the way!).


We have been working on geography in social studies.  We got out the big maps that can be used with expo markers and did a search for the landforms and bodies of water that we had been learning about.

We also used a game from Lynda Kamp's awesome geography pack and the kids had a lot of fun with it!


We made acrostic poems in LA for water and geography terms.  Here was my example...I of course forgot to take pictures of student examples...this definitely caused them to think!

 For a culminating project, we made United States cookie cakes (a cute idea from a teacher that I work with)!  The students had specific landforms and bodies of water that they needed to locate in the U.S.  These were places that they will be learning about throughout the year so we do this unit first so that they have an idea where everything is as we start learning the content.

 Using pre-made dough, you just cook the dough as one big long cookie.  Then, we had a cut out in the shape of the U.S. and you put that on top of the cooked cookie and cut around it to get the shape.  :O)

Here is the final product!
It's completely edible!  Talk about a sugar high!!

I am also linking this up with my sweet friend Joanne for her linky because I feel like cookie cake was pretty motivating!!  They knew they had to study to be able to put all of the items in the right place for the cookie cake and they all really did a great job!  Isn't food (especially cookies and candy) motivating for all of us?  ;O)


In math, we have been working on place value (up to the millions).  Stacia and I have worked really hard trying to make our math real-world applicable.  That being said, how often do we really use numbers to the millions??  As a teacher, unfortunately, I do not make millions of dollars so unless I win the lottery, I'll never see or write those numbers (on a check) in my lifetime.  ;O)

Anyway, we came up with the idea to use a theme of the movies for this nine week period in our math and it has kept the kids engaged!  Two great movies came out this summer that most of the kids have seen and so we have been using numbers from that in our discussion of place value!  We have been pasting this into our interactive math notebooks!  It's been fun!

These show how we used numbers from daily and weekly profits for both movies to teach standard and expanded form as well compare numbers and talk about the value of the digit.  :O)

 Phew!  No wonder I'm tried after this week!  We had a ton going on!  ;O)  But that's how I like it!!  :O)

Have a great weekend!
Amanda

11 comments:

  1. Those maps are great! Where did you get them?

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    Replies
    1. They came from our county- in our Nystrom map kits! They are great! :O)

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  2. I LOVE your real world math example! I hope you don't mind, but I am totally going to steal that idea to use with my kiddos when we hit place value. Thanks for the suggestion.

    Cookies are always motivating!

    Hunter's Teaching Tales
    Find me on Facebook

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  3. I love the water cycle foldables. Interactive notebooks are one of my goals this year. Thank you for the inspiration!

    Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

    Mary

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  4. Love the US cookie cakes! What a super idea!!

    :) Tamra and Sarah
    First Grade Buddies

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  5. Love your real world math application (and love the minion)! I just posted on my blog and included a link of my bulletin board with minions from Despicable Me. =O)
    Wendy
    One Happy Teacher

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  6. The U.S. cookies look great! I would love to do that activity this week! Thanks for the awesome idea!!
    Bethany
    FabandFunin4th!

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  7. WOW!!!! You HAVE been BUSY! I love all five of your ideas this week. What a great idea to use the movie profits for learning place value. We are starting place value next week.
    Alison
    Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin'

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  8. OMG! I so love the real-life movie tie-in. I hope you don't mind if I totally steal that idea. I don't head back to school until after Labor Day - thankfully because I would have been so upset if I missed using this idea (place value is our first topic). Thanks for the inspiration!

    Kim
    Quinnessential Lessons

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  9. I love the science stuff!! Thanks for the shout-out!:)

    And I'm all about that big cookie!!

    Erin

    I'm Lovin Lit

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  10. A cake-cookie is just about the most motivating thing I can tink of right now!!
    Love your idea to use movies to show numbers in the millions - that is a great idea - do you get to watch the movies too :)

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