Earth Changes Freebies

My class just wrapped up our Earth changes unit and they had a blast and learned a lot too! 

We watched the fast and slow changes Brainpop videos and took notes on fast and slow changes to begin our unit.  My kiddos love Brainpop and it was a great introduction!  

We took notes in this flipbook.  Which doubled as a study guide! Win, win. :)

Click on the picture or {here} to access this freebie on Google Drive.  Thanks to Hello Literacy and Fancy Dog Studio for the fonts and frames.

We also watched this hilarious You Tube video from MIT about fast Earth changes.  My kids LOVED this and requested it daily. 

 

We also spent A LOT of time hitting home the difference between weathering and erosion.  Thank goodness for Study Jams! :)  Have you used Study Jams? If not, you should.  It is FULL of FREE and engaging videos for math and science for upper elementary!

Study Jams referred to weathering and erosion as Superheroes Breaker and Whoosh.  Breaker swoops in and break things apart and represents weathering.  While, Whoosh represents erosion because he moves or "whooshes away" weathered rocks.  These superhero references totally helped this concept stick! 

We also did lots of experiments and hands on activities with weathering and erosion and used this H- Map, read more about H-Maps here on my friend Denise's blog, to organize our thinking and findings about weathering and erosion.

Click on the picture of {here} to access the file from Google Drive.  

Confused on how to download from Google Drive? Please check out this post by my friend Hadar.   I have already shared this file with you, all you have to do is download. :)

If you download and use these freebies, I'd love to hear what you think! :) 

 

Matter Vocabulary Booklet Freebie

Hi Friends! 

For the past few weeks we've been studying matter.  We  have had lots of fun learning all about the properties of matter and have been keeping track of all our important definitions in our little matter vocabulary books. 

 I love using mini books and they are so easy to make! All you need to do is just run through your copier 1-2 sided.  Our machine has an option to staple in two locations, top and bottom, then I cut them in half with a paper cutter.  The nice thing about these mini books are you can easily adapt this to your class, just pick and choose from the vocabulary words to create a book that fits your needs! :)

We use organizational binders in fourth grade, so all their folders go home with them each day.  So I've been asking them to review their vocabulary each night for homework.  Hopefully their studying pays off, we test on Wednesday! 

Do you want a copy of your own?  Just click on the picture below to download a copy of your own! :)

Or just click {here} to download the mini book from Google Drive! There is also no need to ask me to share this with you in Google Drive, it is yours to download, just click on File and then Download to save.  

We've been using lots of activities from my dear friend Nicole's matter unit and we have loved all of them!

If you need a matter unit for older kids, I highly recommend it! Click on the image or {here} to purchase it!

Also, congrats to Karyn, you were the first person to correctly guess my favorite Halloween candy, candy corn! Actually my favorite is candy pumpkins, but nobody guessed that! Your copy is on your way as soon as I hit publish. :) I'm also giving away a copy as part of Jen's Ghostly Good Giveaway! Click {here} to check out this awesome giveaway she has organized! :)

If you downloaded the matter vocabulary book, I'd love to hear about it! :)

Sound Parade and a Big Annoucement... :)

I'll get to my big announcement in a minute.  
No, I am not with child.  Just be patient, you'll find out soon. :)

For the past few week or so, we've been studying sound.  My kiddos have had a lot of fun and become quite the little Smarties when it comes to sound, vibrations, pitch, volume, and echo.  Most of the activities we used came from our Aims science curriculum and were supplemented with Nicole Shelby's awesome sound mini unit!  I loved her whole unit and my kids really understood the vocabulary behind sound because of her awesome sound etch-a-sketch activity.  I just wish we had time to do all the great activities she included, but since I've been out so much lately due to Common Core meetings and a few personal family matters, I've had to be practical and leave more manageable activities for my subs.  



Yesterday was our big sound parade! All the second graders were encouraged to bring in an instrument they made at home and we marched around the whole school playing them.  

 A few of the the instruments brought in.  One of the requirements was to use common household materials, I love seeing their creativity! One student made a drum set out of boxes that had his face on it. :)

 We really had a great time! I only had my iPhone with me and it doesn't take the best pictures, so sadly I don't have that many. :(

It really was a fun activity, and is a memory my kiddos will hopefully remember for a long, long time. I do have a couple freebies to share from our sound parade, however, I am waiting on my Scrappin' Doodles license first! :)

My friends have been quite restless and chatty lately.  So I've been digging into my bag of tricks as much as possible to get them up and moving. I just want to say bless the heart of the teacher who dreamed up the idea of Scoot/Move About many moons ago.  

I foresee us doing a lot of Scoot in the last few weeks of school.  We were all kinds of crazy sauce before the parade and I needed to get some type of math instruction in.  Since we are benchmark assessing on math fact fluency soon, I downloaded this free addition/subtraction scoot from TpT.  It was perfect because some of the problems had missing numbers and were the perfect challenge to really stretch this activity.  


Okay, now that I've kept you waiting, I can make my big announcement!  Some of you know that I taught third grade for four years before I was moved to second for budgetary reasons.  As the year has gone on, I've really missed teaching older kids.  I miss the independence and how deep you can really go with topics.  My principal approached me a few days ago with a solution, and it was made official yesterday, so I can now proudly say:

I'm teaching fourth grade next year!

I met with my new team yesterday and I'm so excited.  They are a great group of innovative ladies and I'm thrilled to be working with them.  I student taught in fourth grade and down right loved the age group, so I'm over the moon about this change.  It's just the good news my family needed, there's been a little black cloud hanging over us for a while and things are starting to finally look up! :)

Which means I'll probably be changing my bloggy name, any suggestions? I was thinking of  Tales of a Fourth Grade Teacher, but I have since found out that there is someone out there with a similar name. I'm considering a non grade level themed name so I never have to change, my last name does mean fish in another language and I could probably something with "school of fish."  Do ya'll have any suggestions for me? 

Have a great weekend friends, tomorrow I'll be back with a giveaway! :)