E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!!

OH MY GOSH!!! My Eagles are in the Super Bowl! I can’t believe it!

In case you can’t tell. I’m a big Eagles fan. My mother is a huge Philly sports fan and I guess she rubbed some of that off on me. My room currently has a green theme and I’ve been decked out in Eagles gear on our Eagles Spirit days that we have had. It is a wonderful time to be a Philadelphia sports fan!

With that being said, I’ve had the opportunity to give my students an excess of Eagles related activities. And now I can share some of them with you.

Firstly is math. We have currently been working on fractions and word problems with my fourth and fifth graders. I gave them a warm up problem related to the game. This can be any sort of problem you want! My students are particularly trying to focus on understanding word problems. I gave them the below problem as a warm up. It is super simple, but easy to complete incorrectly.

“The Eagles are going to the Super Bowl. This is Super Bowl 52. They are playing against the New England Patriots. In the game the Patriots played, they won 24 to 20 against the Jacksonville Jaguars. When the Eagles played the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, February 21st, the score of the game was 38 to 7. The Eagles are now 13 and 3 for the whole season. This is a great record for them. The last time that the Eagles were in the Super Bowl was 2004. The score of that game was 24 to 21 What was the difference in the score of the Eagles and Vikings game on Sunday?”

I love the complex problems! I threw as many stats in there as I could. My students did everything I wanted them to! I wanted them to add, subtract, multiply, and divide all the number combinations possible and they did!!!! We used this to look through the problem and take our time!

Our steps to solve word problems are:

1. Circle the problem (What is the question that they want us to answer?)
2. Underline the important information (What matters in this problem and will help me solve it?)
3. Write out the problem (Use the information we found to determine what I need to solve)
4. Solve the problem

For this, my students just need to subtract 38-7. That is it. But with all that other information, it can get very confusing. The PSSAs do this a lot too. Not as extreme as this though. When my students realized what they actually needed to do, it was so funny. Most just groaned at me, others whined about how I was trying to be mean, some just laughed and moved on. It was a great lesson.

Next lesson is short and sweet. A POEM! Acrostic poems are a fun project that students can complete independently. I gave directions on how to write an acrostic poem in my Thanksgiving post (Check that out here).

For this fun season, have the students make an acrostic poem for the team. Use the words Philly, Eagles, Foles, Wentz (or any player name), Football, or Super Bowl. Get them excited. Write about the player, the team, the game, or their emotions. This can be a lot of fun and are really cool to share with the class, hang up, or send home as a fun project.

Enjoy your week and GO BIRDS!!

What Will I Do In 2018?

New Year’s resolutions. They have been the bane of my existence for so long. I honestly hate them. I used to not make one, but then people would tell me about how well they were doing on theirs. “I’m getting so fit”, “I’m losing all this weight”, “I’ve saved so much money”, etc. It got to a point that I felt the pressure to start a resolution. And I wanted it to be something easy that I knew I could do. I would make it something simple like, “I’ll spend less money on stuff I don’t need”, “I’ll make an effort to make my bed every day”, “I’ll make sure I’m more prepared when I pack my school bag”, etc. Once I set a goal for myself, I was more likely to get something done, especially if I set a reward for myself too.

This makes a great lesson for my students. Some teachers do goals at the beginning of the year. I like a mid year goal personally. It gives the students time to get used to school and take some time to learn how school and how my class works. Now that they have had 3 months, they can now set goals for themselves. A New Year’s School Resolution.

The first step is to think of something that they are good at. This is a jumping off point. Make sure the students know that they are successful.

Then have them reflect on something they want to work on. This could be something simple like “Raise my hand more”, “Participate in class”, “Keep my hands to myself”. Or it could be something a little more challenging like “Master my multiplication facts”, “Write my name in cursive”, “Get an A+ on my Social Studies test”.

Once they have a goal in mind, have them write it down. These can be typed and placed on desks, in assignment books, or in a homework folder where the student can look at it and remember their goal.

Remind them occasionally during the year to look at their goal. If they meet their goal, reward them. If they are struggling, help them, encourage them. Make this an activity that lasts the rest of the year.

This year, my resolution is going to be to have a successful first year as a Learning Support Teacher!

Share with me your resolutions!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Thanksgiving! Time for Fun…or Stress.

Thanksgiving. A great time of year. It is a time to be thankful for what we have. Thankful for those around us. Thankful for the food we are going to eat. Thankful for conference weeks…and hyped up students…and…last minute tests…….and…stress………..

Yeah. For teachers, the few days leading up to Thanksgiving don’t always make us thankful for our students. I know that I’ve had several Thanksgiving weeks now that were more stressful then they were worth. But it doesn’t have to be all bad.

For my students, I always like to take these days to think about Thanksgiving and the purpose of the day. The day is not about stuffing our faces and watching college football. While this is a very fun part, this is not the purpose. The purpose is to think about all the things that we are thankful for and realize all the wonderful things that we have. When the pilgrims came to America they were thankful for their religious freedom, the chance to begin a new life, the chance to raise their families how they wanted. It was a new start.

This year I’ve done a few activities for the holiday. One I’ll give you today. You can have another next year. 😉

This is the thankful list.

For anyone who has written an acrostic poem, you will see this is just like that.

Taking the letters in the work “Thankful”, the students will create a list of things that they are thankful for. For my younger students, they need just one word. For my older students, they need to write a sentence. Here are two examples:

This one is for my 1st through 2nd graders (sometimes my 3rd graders).

Turkey

House

Animals

Nice people

Kickball

Friends

Umbrellas

Love

For my older students (4th and 5th), I have them write full sentences.

Thanksgiving with my family is fun.

Having a house keeps me safe.

All my family comes to my house for dinner.

No one goes home hungry.

Kids all like to play outside in the leaves before dinner.

Full bellies follow our dinner.

Uncles and Grandparents all watch the football game after dinner.

Love fills my house at Thanksgiving time.

 

As you can see, this offers a fun challenge for the students. You can pick any word you want! I’ve used “turkey”, “thanksgiving”, “thankful”, and have considered using the students favorite thanksgiving foods as well. That part is up to you. Choose something that will work best for your students.

Hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving! I’m thankful for all of the teachers out there. You all are amazing!

Chinese New Year: 2017 The Year of the Rooster

I love celebrating Chinese New Year with my class. This year (2017) will be the year of the Rooster. The past few years I’ve done different activities with our classes based on what year it is. Here is what we did last year!

We usually begin by explaining why Chinese New Year is different from our New Year. Some times I will explain that our calendar is based on a solar cycle and that the Chinese New Year is based on a lunisolar calendar. Most of the time my students don’t understand this because they are so young. But if you have older students this is a fun topic of discussion.

We talk about the different celebrations that occur for Chinese New Year, such as the parades with dancing and the dragons, or the firework displays. Most of the time we spend talking about the Chinese Zodiac. This is the best part. I’ve used the same great story to explain the story of the Chinese Zodiac. It is called “The Great Race” by Dawn Casey and illustrated by Anne Wilson. It is a wonderful story with lovely colorful pictures. 

After this we will talk about what the students Zodiac signs are. The back of the book tells what the zodiacs are and what years. It also mentions characteristics of the character.

Last year our students made fortune cookies. I created a template based off a post from another wonderful blogger Crafts By Amanda (click her name to see the post). We used regular paper so we could color the fortune cookies ourselves. Some drew Chinese dragons that went all through the cookie. We also used glue sticks rather than glue dots. I think if I were to do this again I would use glue dots or double sided tape to hold our fortune cookies together.

My students loved doing this. We decided to write our own fortunes and would put “Happy New Year” or “Wishing You A Prosperous New Year” inside on our fortunes. Our students were told to go home and wish someone a Happy New Year by giving them the cookie.

It was very easy and a lot of fun. Below you will find some of our cookies!

Wishing you all a prosperous New Year!