Cyber Monday/Tuesday Sale

Although the turkey is still in the oven (dinner is at 4:00) it's time to think about holiday sales. 

We will be participating in the TPT Cyber Monday/Tuesday Sale. Best thing, no need to get up at 5:00AM and wait on long lines. Ahh shopping from the comfort of home. 

Being Each Other's Super Heroes

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...Village Avengers!

This week we acknowledged School Anti-Violence Week by becoming each other's Super Heroes.  It was a school-wide theme that cluminated in the wearing of Super Hero capes (decorated in Art class) on Friday.  The goal was to convey to our students that they can be each other's heroes by being upstanders when they see someone being bullied.  We did quite a few things this week to convey the message. 

Don't we look SUPER heroic!



First, we watched a Brainpop.com video on bullying and one on cyberbullying. We took the wuizzes together as a class on the SMART Board so that we can discuss and review the inforamtion we learned from Tim and Moby. 

I read One to the class and we participated on a class discussion of what it means to be "the one" for someone else.  This is a phenomenal story with simple pictures but a deep message.  In the story, the number 1 stands up for the colors being bullied by red.  It may sound "young" but I promise I read this to my fifth graders for years and they enjoyed it as well. 

We also spent some time discussing the qualities of a hero.  To introduce this idea I showed a clip from The Avengers that was posted on Youtube and had the kids start documenting the traits they see in the Super Heroes.  They discussed their ideas together and then we shared them as a group.  As I charted their suggestions we discussed how those Super Hero traits could translate to being a hero to someone being bullied.  

As our culminating activity we made Super Hero comic strips where the students played the role of the hero swooping in to help "save" someone who was being bullied.  They really did a GREAT job! Here are a few samples below....

Well that's it for now.  

Up!       Up!  and     AWAY!

Damien

Halloween Candy Math- "Sweet" fun for all Learners

With Halloween over there is tons of candy laying around.  Although this is bad for my diet, it is great for my Halloween Candy Math activity. 

This is a place value, addition, comparing numbers, and rounding activity that I did with my class this week.  It was perfect for the few days before and the few days after Halloween.  In my class it started with me giving the kids a large pillowcase of candy.  Later I though this could be done by giving the kids fictious amounts of candy on a class table used by the whole class.

A pile of delicious Math Manipulatives

Dumping the candy out of the pillowcase

My kids needed to find out the total number of pieces they had of each type of candy.  They immediately began sorting their candy into piles, estimating the number of pieces, and eventually tallying up the total.  

Let the sorting begin!!!

Over the next few days we spent time comparing our candy totals, rounding to the nearest tens and hundreds, solving addition problems using two methods, and-most importantly- thinking and writing about our thinking!

I always like to add a reflective piece to each activity we do.  So in this activity, besides asking about their enjoyment, I asked them what skills they felt they had a strong grasp on and what skills they feel they need to revisit and how they want to revisit them.  I am very interested to see what they say about what they need to revisit and how they want to revisit it.  

I'll keep ya posted!
Damien

If you are intierested in my activity it can be found here: Halloween Candy Math