Hi! It's Kelly from Teaching Fourth. I know that for some of you, your school year ended last week, but at our school, we have one more week to go. I must say, I'm ready for summer! Since it is the last week, I wanted to get a little gift for my sweet teaching friends just to let them know how much I appreciate them. After seeing several examples floating around Pinterest, I decided to create my own "Orange You Glad It's Summer" baskets. I simply gathered several orange items (gum, candy, dishcloth, candle, magazine, etc.) and placed them in an orange basket. It is so easy to put together. Just have fun gathering items that fit the orange theme!     If you would like to create a gift basket for your teaching friends, your child's teacher, etc., I have included a link to some free gift tags. Just click here to download them.     Enjoy!      ...
Hello!  It's Deb Hanson from Crafting Connections today, and I am going to share my all-time favorite end-of-year fifth grade ELA project... an advertising technique project ! I started doing this project a few years ago.  It was May and state testing was complete (yeah!), but students were still finishing up their MAP testing.  I was struggling to decide what to do during language arts once testing was 100% complete... I wanted to do something new and fun that would keep them engaged during the last few weeks of school, but I was struggling to come up with an idea to do that. As I was walking around, proctoring the test session, I noticed that some fifth graders were being given questions about advertising techniques.  The multiple choice questions contained specialized vocabulary like bandwagon, testimonial, and glittering generality .  Aha!  I had found my final ELA unit! My first step in planning this unit was determining the vocabulary I wanted my students to learn...
One thing I have been working on all year with my students is productive group work and discourse.  Whether we are talking about our read aloud, brainstorming about a topic, or sharing our reflections in a book club, we are working hard to be productive group members.  What does this look like? We have talked about piggybacking off the ideas of others.  We have talked about asking other people's opinions.  We have practiced disagreeing "agreeably".  We have even working on asking for clarification of ideas.  Pretty important stuff, right?  We have done a great deal of this in the context of book discussions, but we have also done a great deal of this during math class.  Today I thought I'd share what this might look like--especially if you haven't done a whole lot of this yet. Here's how I got started.  First of all, I do a TON of problem solving in my classroom--both individually and in teams.  I started to do more and more of them as warm ups where ...
It's that time of year when some students think school is almost over, so it's time for fun and games every day.  I see where they can get this idea... We recently had field day, our ice-cream multiplication party, our end of year parent picnic, and field day.  We also just finished our science book and social studies book - - - so now what?! Movies? NOPE!  Time for some PROJECTS!!   Around this time of year, I start my animal research reports with my students.  It takes them about 2 weeks of afternoons here and there to complete this project, and they absolutely LOVE IT!  I'd like to share with you how I organize this. First, I give each student a manila folder to hold all their information.  A regular folder will do. Second, I start collecting articles about the animal students chose.  I know some teachers let their students search online, but I'm old school on this.  I will google it - and print it for them.  I like to see them read the papers and mar...
You finally made it to state testing! Your kids are ready, or as ready as they are going to be, to spend an entire week or two showing the world everything you taught them this year.  Everyone, including you, has worked so hard this year, and now that you have made it to the BIG state test, it is finally over....right?  WRONG!   Yes, testing time is over, and there is a great feeling of relief, but the year is far from really being over.  In fact, this may just be the toughest part of the year.  If you are not prepared, these last few weeks of school can be brutal.   Here are a few important tips that are sure to help you survive until the last day of school. Planning is my first tip because it is SO important!  As teachers, we are programmed to plan out everything. However, this is the time of year where it is tempting to relax on your planning and "wing it".  Having every lesson, activity, or project planned and ready to go is critical, e...