Food Chain and Habitat Vocabulary

That 4 day week was the longest of my life !! :) Last weekend we had two feet of snow -- today it was 67 degrees! Gotta love VA ! Anyone else feeling the pain of having to be back at work?!  My students were.....BIG TIME!  I gave a SUPER easy quiz this week (I had a more difficult one planned before almost 2 feet of snow, but I made an easier replacement for when we returned.) We have been doing our habitat unit for some time now in science, and we are almost done! (Rainforest and Forest to go!!) I have short quizzes on several habitats, and a big unit test at the end. I made a super simple quiz for Grasslands and Deserts for my students, thinking it would be an easy transition back into school. W-R-O-N-G!!! The quiz was very easy, fill in the blank with a word bank. Each word was only used ONE time too! Sample questions were things like, "The ____________________ is what the weather is like in a habitat." with climate being the correct answer. Some of the answers were COMICAL! I mean, I swear they didn't even READ. One answer was, "The root system is what the weather is like in a habitat." 

So, to review with my students so that I could sleep at night knowing they remembered the vocabulary, I created a vocabulary booklet. Inside the booklet, students have a place to write the definition, and draw a picture for important vocabulary for habitats as well as food chains. Check out my kiddos working on their books.

( I am LOVING my newest App -- "Photo Grid" on my Samsung. It allows me to make a collage of photos and use stickers to cover students names all in about 30 seconds! It exports directly to Dropbox, Pinterest, Facebook, etc)

When the books are finished, we are going to staple them into our interactive notebooks! The booklet is in my TpT store for only $1!!!! Click the picture to head on over. 

 

Monday Made It (A Little Early), A Vocabulary Freebie and Other Weekend Things!

I'm posting my Monday Made It a little early because TOMORROW IS THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to talk about the made it first - because I know some people still have a few weeks left, and they may want to create one of these! 

Okay - so I've seen about 2.1 million "No Name" boards on pinterest. Several of my Pinterest Friends had pinned them, and I thought - I'm going to make one of those. At the end of last year - I still hadn't! I knew the hubs and I had planned a lazy Sunday, so on Saturday evening, we went out to a nice dinner, and I convinced him to go into AC Moore! He lasted about 2 minutes before he went wandering to the TJ Maxx next door to look for a new hat. 

I headed straight to the wood craft section and picked up these small letters to spell out "No Name". They were less than 50 cents a piece! 

 I painted  them on my super messy table (Really -- see it! The cereal box from that morning, the G2 I was drinking, and a binder of some things I had worked on earlier.) I picked up pink, blue and purple acrylic paint. I had some acrylic paint in my classroom, but I loved these bright colors, and they were on sale for around 40 cents each!

 I picked up the 40 pack of clothes pins for $2.99, because I only had one row left in my classroom, and they were on my list of things I needed. I also found this blank board for only $2. The hubby could have simply cut a piece off a 2X4, and he offered, but I liked the finished edge of this one.

 I painted the board black, and painted some of the clothes pins with the super bright colors I picked out. I also painted two coats onto the letters, so they would be even brighter! I used some Tacky Glue to put on the letters and pins, and this is the final product!

To hang it up in my room, I'm going to use some of the polka dot pink ribbon I have and hot glue two ends to the two corners. 

So, my sister called and told me she was headed over to our moms, and I decided to head over too. I'm very fortunate to live so close to both my mom and my sister- my niece even goes to the school I teach at! (Her 2nd grade classroom is RIGHT across the hall this year.) I had a great time visiting my nieces - they crack me up! This is my youngest niece: 

 Her sister and I were sitting on the couch together (Her sister was sitting on ME and I was sitting on the couch!) Yes - she is wearing her sunglasses upside down in the house. Yes, she is making a very important phone call on her Mickey Mouse phone. Apparently, it was very important because as soon as it was over, she picked up her purse and told us good bye! 

I left Mom's house and ran some errands. I had to pick up wasp spray because we have some VERY persistent bees that continue to build their nest in the corner of the roof over the front porch. Then, I took the truck through the car wash! 

Does anyone else LOVE the psychedelic look of the soap on the window?! This was the best part because the car wash TOTALLY missed each side of my truck :( Tomorrow I'll be taking my receipt back for another pass through. 

So, this year our school ordered planners - YAY! Less printing for me every week!! I'm REALLY hoping they came in so we can USE them starting the first day! We have also decided to stop printing our Journals for our SFA stories - and have students write their responses in a spiral notebook. We had a meeting, and we were concerned that writing down the vocabulary words would still take WAY too much time. So, being the OCD anal particular techie person that I am, I volunteered to make the recording sheet. Each week students get 8 new words, and they work with partners to study the words over 4 days. This could be used in any subject, and if you would like it free just click on the picture! 

If you are going back to school tomorrow, GOOD LUCK!! Drink lots of coffee, take deep breaths, and have a GREAT first day back!