Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me....

  Guess what we learned about last week?

 

Swash-bucklin', plank-walkin' pirates.

 

And, boy was it fun!

 

I wracked my brain for a topic that would be fun for the kiddos and fun for me. Oh, and I also wanted the kids to have some stuff to do independently so that I could finish about a million and one things that needed to be done to close out the school year.

 

We started the week with an anchor chart.

 

 

We built our schema, thought of questions and then started our research. I read them the following book and they had a BINGO board with terms from the book that they had to write down the definition for as we read.

 

 

This book was the best - it even says so in the title! I happened to find it in a garage sale a few years ago and it's been used a few times. Good purchase, I must say :)

 

At the end of day one, we also started reading Treasure Island. I'll be honest, I'd never read it. But, we started it and the kids were absolutely ENTHRALLED in a matter of minutes. I think it's pretty cool that the kiddos got so sucked in to a classic book like that so easily. We read a children's version, of course. But, it still has the classic song in it:

 

"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest,

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"

 

Okay, okay. Maybe my kids shouldn't have been exposed to that - but, it's a classic! And, they don't know what rum is. And, besides, they made up their own version in a matter of hours. Yo ho ho and a bottle of glue has a nice ring to it, huh? Ha!

 

The next day, the kids used books about Blackbeard the pirate that I printed off A to Z Reading to make a huge bubble map of the infamous buccaneer. They were pretty wrapped up in and it took them forever and a day to finish them. Which is fine by me because I was wrapped up in my own stuff. So, I forgot to take pictures of the bubble maps. Oh, we also read another really good book that day:

 

 

This started quite an impressive streak of pirate babble in my crew.

 

Wednesday, we strayed off a little bit and read this book because we took the Math Constructed Response Assessment (gag me) and my kiddos were all spread out and arrived back at the room at different times:

 

 

It's so cool! It's a mystery about this boat a long time ago where the crew went missing. I had the kids make a hypothesis first. Of course, they almost all thought it was pirates. But, as we read clues (that the kids recorded in their notebooks), we eliminated pirates as a possible cause because the cabin was neat and tidy and nothing on the boat was disturbed. From our reading, we knew that pirates caused destruction on board ships they plundered. The kids were so into the story and we had a ton of great discussion. They were using a lot of inferencing and synthesizing. Very cool book...

 

Thursday, we did a lot of crafts. We started off inventing our own pirates. They had a list of things to think of: what they wear, what they do, what they look like, things they like and dislike. Then, they went back to their desks and made wanted posters for their pirates. They turned out so cute!

 

 

We were having a 50th Anniversary of our school on Friday and the principal asked us to make sure the hallways looked good. So, I got it in my head to make pirate faces out of paper plates. The sign says "We aaarrrghh ready for 4th grade, mateys!" And, the pirates have little speech bubbles telling what they are excited about next year.

 

Friday was the best. In the morning, we made treasure maps. They did SUCH a good job! They had a rubric to follow but basically they had to make a map with a compass rose, map key and at least five symbols. Then, they had to write a letter explaining the directions to find their treasure. They had to use direction words and highlight them.

 

 

 

Notice the pirate talk?

 

I bought the kids eye patches out of the party section at Target and we made hooks out of tin foil and red Solo cups. Mr. Hedgepath dressed up as pirate for us and we had a treasure hunt around the school that ended on the playground with popsicles!

 

Today, we finished Treasure Island. I let one of the boys read while I slipped out for a second to get some paper in the hallway.

 

How adorable is this?

 

Well, this will be my last school post of 2013. We're on our last week and there will be NO blog-worthy activities going on, I'm afraid.

 

 



Happy Mother's Day!

Somehow, I got blessed with the best Mom a girl can have.  She's funny and silly. She's currently obsessed with Duck Dynasty and has called me "Jack" more Times in the last two days than should e allowed. She taught me everything I know about decorating and taught me that if I like something, I should buy it. She's not a cheapskate and neither am

I :) She went to every single baseball game that my brother had from age five to, well, now. And believe me, that's a lot of games. She loves and adores my little puppy. She's honestly my best friend and I love her so much. I'm at my grandmas right now and so I have access to lots of old pictures. So, here's to the best mom around...

Here's my mom as a baby. Can't we all agree she was the cutest thing ever? 

I love you, Mom! Thanks for everything you do for me!

Fifty Nifty United States

Well, it's over. TCAP's over. I don't know how they did - I honestly tried not to look! But, I'm supremely happy that it's over! In fact, I feel so free now!

 

This last week, we spent a lot of time learning about the fifty states. To say that my kiddos were happy would be an understatement!

 

One of the things we did was make state brochures. The librarian helped me find a book for each state! So, the kids picked states and they each made 2 brochures. They worked so hard and did such a great job!

 

 

 

 

 

They worked on these for two days and when they finished, they shared with each other about their states.

 

I took their brochures and put them up on a bulletin board outside our room.

 

 

The whole time that the kids were working on the brochures, they sang along with maybe the cutest song about the states I've ever heard:

 

 

Seriously, they listened to it about a hundred times. Listened, sang along, danced... they just loved it. LOVED IT! One kid said "I'm gonna' tell my mom to make this her ringtone!" Well, okay then :)

 

Our school gets these awesome social studies kits and they come with laminated maps for the kids so they can write on them. So, we used them to trace routes across the United States using the interstates. The kids ABOUT DIED!!! They were all saying "Tell us another one!" Whenever I would tell them a destination, they had to tell me which states they had to travel through.

 

 

 

We read the book Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure. It's a super cute book about the lady who made the first trip driving across the US. While we were tracing routes, we made sure to trace her exact route across the states using the text.

 

 

Another day, we made a T-Chart to compare traveling in 1909 and traveling today. It really led to some good discussion from the kids.

 

We read a big book about the regions of the US, too.

 

 

As we read about each region, we color coded the region, wrote notes about what the region is known for and then filled in an anchor chart about the major exports from each region. We did this because next week we're going to focus on economics.

 

 

 

 

One other book we read was The Scrambled States of America. The kids ADORED it!

 

 

I actually printed off a reader's theater for the book, but got sick and missed a day last week. Sooo, we didn't get to do it. But, we're going it. I know the kids will think that is so fun!

 

It was such a fun week! This week will be fun, too! I already said we were focusing on economics, but we're tying it all in with a novel that we've been reading. Want a clue what it is??

 

Ha!

 

Have a good week!

 

LBL 2013

Once upon a time, a LONG, LONG time ago, it was Spring Break. And, I went with the second graders at my school to Land Between the Lakes. This is the third year I've been and it's a trip I LOVE to go on! This year was, well, rough. Really rough. We just had a lot of things go wrong and the kids weren't exactly as well behaved as we'd prefer. All the adults were pretty much over the whole thing by the time we left there on the third day. But, now that it's been a few weeks, I'm over it. It really was a once-in-a-lifetime trip for a lot of these kids and it's fun to see it all through their eyes :) I took a bunch of pictures so I thought I'd share some of the fun things we did:

Here's all the boys in my cabin ready to hit the road! I love kids in rain boots :)

Before we left, I had to get some sweet baby cuddles from Brenda! Her sister was in my class last year and her brother is in my class this year: and, I ADORE THEM ALL!

Squeeeeeeezeeee!

First stop was the Homestead where kiddos got to learn about chores in the olden days... fun, fun!

They got to learn about cotton...

and peek out of windows that are really high up!

We played games outside after every meal. (And, when I say "played games" I really mostly mean "kept kids out of the lake.")

Speaking of the lake, it was GORGEOUS!

We even dressed up Ms. A as a beaver!

We may or may not have made a Harlem Shake video in which Mrs. Kristy had to sit on the mantle to film and she may or may not have split her pants open. Hmmm....

All in all, it was fun trip.

I'm just glad I have a year to rest until the next one :)