A Taste of Denmark

In my higher-level small group, we've been reading Number the Stars. It's a fabulous book, though it has some pretty sad parts. We finally finished the book, and I usually have each group do some sort of food that goes along with their reading. For The BFG, we made Frobscottle, and for Holes, we made Miss Katherine's Spiced Peaches, but Number the Stars really didn't mention much food (other than the cheese and bread Annmarie took to her uncle with the special handkerchief).
So, I had the kids research different types of food from Denmark (where Annmarie's family lives). They found all sorts of things, but the tastiest (and easiest) of them was Danishes. I bought 2 packs of these huge, delicious pastries from Costco for super cheap (around $8.00) and cut them into 4 pieces. I let the kiddos decide if they wanted cream cheese or strawberry, and we had a lovely Danish breakfast together while my small group told the rest of the class about the book. They absolutely loved it!

Dream Jars

Today we made Dream Jars in honor of The BFG. I found a super simple recipe for Calm Down Jars on Pinterest. I bought really cheap tubes of glitter glue from Wal-Mart, had the kids bring in an empty jar or bottle (glass or hard plastic works better than the flimsy plastic water bottles), brought in my collection of fine glitter, and bought a box of food coloring. I had the kiddos fill their jars half-way up with warm water in the restrooms. Then, I had them squeeze the whole tube of glitter glue in, close the lid tightly, and shake their jars until there were no chunks left.
After that, we added the fine glitter and food coloring. I also had some gold confetti stars that every student wanted. They shook them again until everything was combined and then added water until it was almost full. (I didn't have them glue their lids on, and it was fine, but for younger students, you may want to hot glue or super glue the lids on to avoid accidents.) The only blooper was when I had a kid waiting in line for his food coloring, so he took his jar off while he waited. All of a sudden, I he shook he jar (with no lid) as hard as he could, covering both him and me in warm glitter water. It was a mess, but we got it all cleaned up.
My students absolutely LOVED making these! They couldn't wait to take them home to show their parents and even asked if they could make more to give as gifts. We shook and watched them all day long. We even gave them crazy names, just like the BFG's trogglehumpers and golden phizzwizards!

Frobscottle and Snozzcumbers

What a fun day to be a fourth grader! We've been reading the book, The BFG, by Roald Dahl in one of my small reading groups, so today, I surprised them by letting them eat and drink things from the book! Of course, I let EVERYONE in class participate, not just Yellow Group members. It was so much fun! I had the Yellow Group members explain what frobscottle and snozzcumbers were and how they looked and tasted to the rest of the class while I cut up the cucumbers...I mean SNOZZcumbers and got the ingredients for our frobscottle ready. I told them, however, that whizzpoppers weren't allowed! ;)

Here's what you'll need:

Frobscottle:

• Two 2-liters of A&W Cream Soda Made with Real Vanilla (You can buy the cheaper ones, but the ones I found didn't say anything about vanilla I wanted them to see that it was cream- and vanilla-flavored)
• One 1/2 gallon of Red Raspberry Sherbet
• Green food coloring

Here's what you'll do:

1. Add a few drops of food coloring to the 2-liter (I added about 20 to make sure it was super GREEN)
2. Pour about a half a cup of the green cream soda into the cup
3. Add a small scoop of raspberry sherbet
4. Enjoy

If you don't want to use the sherbet (since it adds a texture to the soda that frobscottle doesn't have), you could add a few drops of raspberry extract instead.

It's SUPER easy and surprisingly tasty! They loved that we made the frobscottle using the colors and flavors that the Big Friendly Giant described (green soda with flavors of cream, vanilla, and raspberry). The kids even ate the all the cucumbers without ranch dressing because they thought plain old cucumbers would taste closer to what snozzcumbers might taste like. They had so much fun tasting what the BFG east and drinks!

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Parent-Teacher Conferences are just around the corner, so I figured I'd share what I do to maybe help them go a bit more smoothly. (But first, some humor!)

Okay, back to business. First, I have the students fill out a self-evaluation that I keep for the conference. I found this self-evaluation on TPT a while back, and used to have a different version, but she's updated it since then. My school lets students come to the conferences, so I have them read their own self-evaluations to their parents during their conferences.

Along with the student self-evaluations, I print out a PTC Checklist for each student to make sure I have everything together and ready to go. I use this during the conferences to make sure I talk to parents about everything on the list. I give them their report card first to check over. I also give them their Xtra Math progress report. We use 2 different assessments in 4th grade: the benchmark and the Gates-McGinnite test, so I provide their beginning-of-the-year scores and let them know my expectations for the end-of-the-year scores. I also let parents know how many missing/late assignments their child has had since the first day of school. I also remind them to make sure they sign the assignment sheet/newsletter each week. I use the Remind app in my classroom to remind parents about upcoming tests, field trips, money that's due, etc., so if they haven't signed up for it yet, I walk them through it during conferences. Lastly, I ask for Halloween party volunteers/food or drink donations during conferences. It's a lot to talk about in only 15 minutes, but I can fit it all in if I stick to the list and don't stray too far from the topics.

I also fill out strengths and concerns for each student that I go over with the parents during their conference (after the student-led self-evaluations). Sometimes, it's really hard to come up with strengths for those certain students! So, here's a list of strengths and concerns that could work for almost anyone.
Strengths:

• Very kind
• A friend to everyone
• Comes to school on time every day
• Helps others
• Trustworthy
• Neat handwriting
• Turns in (completed) assignments on time
• Always follows the rules, even when no one's looking
• Always volunteers (to answer a question or help another person)
• Grades/assessment scores
• Always focuses on work/tasks at hand
• Excellent work ethic
• Always on-task
• Always comes to class prepared

Concerns:

• Struggles with completing/turning in assignments on time
• Struggles to follow school rules
• Struggles with speaking respectfully
• Struggles with participating appropriately
• Struggles with friendships (drama, bullying, etc.)
• Grades/assessment scores
• Handwriting concerns
• Struggles with focusing on work/tasks at hand
• Work ethic needs improvment
• Struggles to stay on-task/stay seated

I also like to give parents a packet about how to help improve reading and math at home by doing a few simple things. I found this packet from Fun In First. All you have to do to download them is go to her Facebook page and "like" it for a free download.

If your parents are tech-savvy (and you have all their email addresses), an easy way to schedule parent-teacher conferences is to use Sign Up Genius. It lets parents sign up for a time and sends you a confirmation. It also sends out reminders when it gets close to conference time. We are fortunate enough at my school that our secretary schedules all of our PTC for us, but if you have to do it yourself, this website is really convenient and easy!

Lastly, here are just a few more tips to make your PTC go smoothly:

• Send a reminder note home with each kiddo with the date and time of their PTC
• Keep a few student work samples to showcase at each PTC
• Keep a teacher notebook handy to write notes about what you and the parents talked about and what you need to do to help each individual student (and how/when to implement it)
• Set a timer for each conference so that you begin and end on time and don't get completely off-schedule for the night
• Politely suggest another meeting time if parents still would like time to discuss things further
• Stay positive!

Fossils Rocks

Who would want to be a paleontologist for a day? My fourth-graders would! This lesson was SO MUCH FUN! I made "fossil rocks" for my 4th-grade paleontologists to excavate. They used hammers and screwdrivers (chisels) to break open their "rocks" and find the hidden fossil inside. Here's the recipe for the fossil dough I used. I also bought real shark teeth from Amazon to hid inside the dough before baking them. My students really enjoyed this lesson, but their favorite part was getting to take their shark tooth home!

Model Magic Fossils

In this lesson, students got to create their own fossils using Model Magic. (I used salt dough last year, but it didn't turn out well.) I passed out a chunk of clay to each student and had them roll their clay into a ball and then flatten it out to the size of a hamburger patty. Then, they used different materials (leaves, sticks, seed pods, plastic animals, etc.) to make impression in the clay, creating their own fossil imprints! They loved this! Many of them wanted their fossils to be perfect, so they re-rolled and re-stamped their clay multiple times until it was exactly how they wanted it. We let them dry and many of the students colored their fossils to look like rocks which really made the imprints stand out.

New Classroom!

Here's my sparkly, new, organized classroom! I'm so excited with my layout and decor this year! I loved setting up my bulletin boards, but I just can't decide what to do with the blank black one on the back wall. I'm sure it'll fill up quickly! I have 20 students this year, which is a lot for the small town of Concordia. I even had to add another student table to make room! My favorite thing though is the color-coordinated drawers and pencil caddies on each table. This will make life so much easier! Can't wait to see what this year brings!

This is Emily. She's my new partner teacher this year! 

We have the BEST staff at my school!

"Summers Off"

I just love it when people tell me how lucky I am that I'm a teacher and get my "summers off." NOT! By the time I'm done moving my classroom furniture back into my room after the floors get waxed, making copies for next year, coming up with new and exciting lessons, redecorating, attending workshops, etc., I literally have almost no summer left.

My bare classroom!

BUT, I love what I do, so I gladly spend my summers getting ready for next year. I actually consider it fun! I can't wait to get going again and try out some of the new ideas I've found. (Plus, I enjoy getting to sleep in every now and then.)

I love some of these bulletin board ideas that I found on Pinterest! 

First, I love this idea of using #hashtags for Social Studies! I think the kids would enjoy it, too!

I also like the idea of taking pictures of the kiddos doing science experiments and posting them on the bulletin board throughout the year.

Since read tons of books that take place in different countries all over the world, I would love to make a bulletin board like this one to have kind of a "road map" of where we've traveled to in our readings during the year. I might even let students post their own personal reading books on the map to get other students interested in that book and to encourage everyone to read more books from other countries to try and fill up the board. We could make it a competition to see how many countries we can mark before the last day of school.

I also really like the idea of showcasing student work somewhere. (Plus, my boyfriend loves the Hulk.) I thought about using my principal's face printed on green paper instead of the Hulk. I figured he and the kids would get a kick out of that.

I don't use a word wall in my room, but I loved the idea of using feather boas as a border. I bought some hot pink and black boas from Dollar Tree, but I haven't figured out quite how I want to use them yet.

I'm terrible at keeping track of absent work when students are gone. I have cute absent folder covers from Kindergarten Works. I think she's updated them since I first downloaded them, but I like her first version much better.

Lastly, I always have classroom jobs for my students, but I never thought about having them "apply" for them. I usually just assign them in alphabetical order and then change them each week. I love the idea of them writing about why they would excel at individual duties. I might have to try this one this year!

I feel like I have so much to do and not enough time to do it! Time to get printing! Enjoy what's left of your "summer off!"