The Christmas Season...

...is upon us! To get into the festive mood, I'm sharing a photo of our classroom Christmas tree....it's black! Happy Holidays to all!

Class Writing Journals

These are our class writing journals.

We do writer's workshop each day that is separate from our Daily 5 stations. Work on Writing is still an occasional weekly station. These class journals are great for that station. You can download the sheets for FREE from my TpT store. The students add entries and we read some aloud. They are a simple and fun addition to any writing classroom!

Part 2: How can you grow a potato plant without a seed?

Several weeks have passed since I posted about our science guided inquiry activity involving potatoes. Thankfully, the experiment is over and the classroom smells better. Yes, beware of 2 week old potatoes fermenting in the classroom! Stinky aroma aside, we learned some interesting things after completing the experiment. On our Day 7 observation, there wasn't a whole lot to report. A few of the potatoes had begun sprouting tiny buds in a few places on the skin. The students made and recorded their observations. We shared some of our inferences about the water traveling through the inside and skin of the potato and helping new buds to form. The students also recorded predictions about what they might see on Day 14.
Day 14 is when we finally observed some real changes. Here are a few photos of our 2 week old potatoes--

The students recorded their observations.

Aside from the buds, we noticed the smell. We actually noticed the smell a few days earlier. They smell like they are rotting. We talked about the exposure of the inside of the potato to the water and the air. We discussed why the buds continued to grow and theorized about what we might see if we let these go another week. In fact, a couple students volunteered to take the potatoes home but I suspect they went into the garbage when parents saw/smelled them. The students learned a lot about making obsrvations, conducting a study, recording information, and making inferences and predictions. Good work all around!

Graphing Chips at the Fall Party

We had a short, 3 day week last week that ended with celebrating our fall party on Wednesday afternoon just before Fall Break! For the party, the students voted on having a chip party. Several students brought in different kinds of chips for everyone to sample. At the end of the party, each student voted on their favorite type of chip. I created this graph on SMART Notebook to share with the students today--

As you can see, Flaming Hot Cheetoh's was the unanimous winner in our "official" taste testing poll, with 9 students choosing it as their favorite. We'll review and discuss the results at the start of math today. I'm sure the results will stir up some interesting conversation and possible debates!

Thank you to all the parents who sent treats and goodies for our fall party! We enjoyed them all! Happy fall!

How can you grow a potato plant without a seed?

This is the exact question we are attempting to answer right now in C107! We have set up our potatoes (cut about 1/4 off and soaking in plain water for a couple weeks) and have begun to observe, infer and predict about the growth we expect.

Each student is keeping track of their information on one of these recording sheets. We will check back in a few days and again at the 2 week mark. We are anxiously awaiting the results!

In the mean time, it makes a pretty cool display in the classroom! If you're a teacher who'd like to try this experiment with your kiddos, you can download the lab sheet for FREE in my TpT store!

Anchor Charts for Writing

If you would've asked me my thoughts about using anchor charts in the classroom a few years ago, I would've said something along the lines of them being more appropriate in a primary room--not so much 4th or 5th grade. I've come to learn that anchor charts are just as necssary in intermediate classrooms--and may even be more beneficial--than in a primary room! Anchor charts are very big in my school and the students here have learned to look for them in their classrooms over the years. My students in the past couple years really rely on these charts and I am always pleased to see a student referring to one when they are working independently. As usual, Pinterest has an adbundance of anchor chart ideas and I have chosen some of those ideas to use in my classroom. Here are a few of our favorites for writing (along with a link to show you where the inspiration came from in the first place!):

These are two of the first charts we do together during our Launching Writer's Workshop unit. Plus, they are just fun charts to have hanging up in a classroom. My students were impressed with my drawings. The inspiration for both charts can be found at Life is Better Messy Anyway.

As we began the writing process for our first piece, we read the book, Little Monster Becomes an Author, and then created the following chart to help us through the process. I made color copies of the pages to add to the chart. It's quickly become my favorite writing chart and we will use it ALL the time! The original post about it can be found here.

When I got to the revising and editing minilessons, we made the final chart below. The inspiration came from Confessions of a 4th Grade Teacher. I've been teaching for just about 10 years and NEVER heard of these acronyms--they are genius!

I think it's safe to say that using anchor charts has changed my classroom!

Literacy Night Goodies!

Literacy Night is being held here at Harding tonight, Thursday 9/20, from 4-5:30 in the cafeteria (following a short PTA meeting)! A note went home earlier this week! I can't wait to see our families there. Every grade level will host some kind of literacy activity for students and their families. Our grade level will have a bookmark making station. Students can decorate a bookmark that includes a sticker reminder about the "Five Finger Rule". Here is an example:

And here is a close up of the sticker--I always encourage the students to use this in my classroom (in addition to keeping track of their Lexile and F&P reading level).

Finally, each family will receive one of these handy dandy little bookmarks as a parting gift:

These are great for parents or older siblings to have when working with a child who is reading. If they come to an unknown word, use one of the prompts to help them!

**If you are a teacher, you can get the templates for the stickers and parent bookmarks in my TpT store for FREE!**