Modeling Clay Mayhem - The Meek Moose Makes Something on Monday

So, pre-kidney stone, I had attended Wetlands Bootcamp.  And it was awesome!  I had a grand time.  You can find tons of pictures on both Instagram and my facebook page of my week.  And I may even write a post about it.  Just not sure yet.  I have to say- once I start Instagramming and Facebooking, it's like, didn't I already write a blog post about that?

But I swear- by the end of this post- you will see how I sort of made this thing right here:

Except, now that I'm looking at this extra large picture, I think mine is, um, really not smart.  It's supposed to be a model to show kids the effects of erosion, pollution, the water cycle, and the wetlands.  I thought it was awesome, and I thought I wanted one for me too.  But now, maybe I should have just offered her money for hers...

Before we get to it- two things.  First- let's check in on the Meekster, eh?  How is she doing a week out from the 6mm Crisis?

Hello?  Is it me you're looking for? #lionelritchieface

 I'm hoping the face says it all. I have a training tomorrow- so I'm really hoping I have a different face on.  I'm thinking the complete absence of pain medication from my body will help. The facial expression anyway.  Not sure how that's going to work out for the kidneys.

Second- A quick link to The Teacher Tribune Monday Meet Up #6.  Because I enjoy writing random things about myself in cute little posters.

Okay- back to business.  Monday Made It:

Let's make an erosion/pollution/landform model.  You need a paint tray as a base.  I tried to get everything at the Dollar Tree- I'm a bit strapped for cash this summer after the five weeks of leave- so I'm counting coins.  However- there was a problem with the paint tray from the Dollar Tree.

Cracked by the time I got home.  This is probably why i was only a dollar.

So then, I had to get naughty.  I had no choice. I went and took the paint tray from the garage under my Dad's tools.  ONE- it was under a BUNCH of stuff, so he won't notice it's gone. TWO - he hasn't painted in years.  THREE- It's not like I'm going to get caught.  He doesn't read my blog. and my sister won't tell.  I'm assisting witht he purging of unused objects, I am.

So, here we are.  It's just not, well, pretty.

The supplies. Sponge brush, craft paint, modeling clay.

painting done

 I painted the sides light blue, the bottom portion dark blue, and the flat part green.  Basic sky, water, land areas.  I wanted this in case the modeling clay didn't do quite the job I was hoping.  Plus, it was starting to look like the two packs I bought from the Dollar Tree weren't going to be enough.

The key with the clay was to pinch off small bits and really ribbon them out as much as possible to cover the most area.  I didn't need a thick amount of clay on the tray. Just enough to press a Lego into.

building up the water

adding in strips of land

 And then here's my final.   But I just like how Dee's looked better. Maybe I'll go back and re-position the clay...there's a thought to keep me up all night.

I will be back with a video demonstration of how it works though!  I promise.   In the meantime- have you made anything that turned out in a way that you liked?  Go share with Tara!

 One day, I'll actually make something right on these Monday Made Its...

Mr. Cookie Baker - an unexpected mentor text

Today I am linking up with Mrs. Jump's Class for the Let's Talk About Books Linky.

***UPDATED with more pictures because I finally found my book! Sheesh 6/6/14***

I first owned Monica Wellington's Mr. Cookie Baker as a board book that I read to my youngest.  The book is bright, colorful, and I love cookies and baking.  So it was a win-win for reading to the baby. But the more I read it and noticed the illustrations, the more I got to feel that this would work excellently with my second graders as well. (The link to Monica's site also offers some activities to go with this book)

1. Illustrations

At my school we teach an Illustrations Unit to our kids.  It's one of my favorites to teach.  We spend time looking in books that we admire and noticing how Illustrations are an important part of the story.  They either clarify text, or add more information.  They can help the reader experience the emotion of your character or situation simply through facial expression or color choice.

What I like about Mr. Cookie Baker are how the illustrations frame the text- much like Jan Brett's technique in her books.  I like showing this to the kids as an example for if they don't feel comfortable with their drawing skills to draw one bog picture, they can assist the story by drawing small items around the edges.

2. Writer's Workshop

This book is also great for the beginning of the year to help reserved students realize they can still write a good story in a few sentences.  They just have to make sure their sentences are constructed with word choice in mind.

This book can come out again during our Informational Writing Unit as an example of How-To.  The entire story is a description of the steps the Baker takes everyday to make cookies and sell them to children.  Usually, How-Tos are straight directions.  This is a nice transitional example for kids still bent on the narrative form.

3. Math

An example of math in real life.  The page above, in particular.  "He counts and measures..." shows the importance of precise work.  It leads to the discussion- What would his cookies be like if he had only estimated?  When would it be appropriate for him to estimate? A trip tot he grocery store for what he needs for the week, becomes a relevant answer.

The illustrations are a great intro to fractions.  The subject matter lends itself to hands on exploration of either making real cookies according to recipe, or craft dough for pretend cookies.  Either way- the kids are counting and measuring. And, so important- PROBLEM SOLVING.

Computation and Estimation lends itself to how many cookies did we cut out, how many have we baked, how many will we have all together? 

Skip Counting enters the court when we start looking at cookie sheets with set numbers of cookies on them.

Time is easily put into play with how long will they be in the oven?  What time will it be by the time they have cooled?  How long does it take to decorate one cookie, or twenty?

Money can't be forgotten ass the Baker sells the cookies near the end of the story.  how much should you charge for one cookie?  How much will you have if you sell ten?

I sincerely doubt that there is a math strand that can't be applied to this book.

4. Social Studies

No way! Yes way- Economics, my kittens.  Mr. Cookie Baker is a producer, the kids are consumers.  Mr. Cookie Baker uses several natural and capital resources during his day, and he himself is a human resource.  Does he provide a service, or does he sell goods?  Is it both?  What other producers does Mr. Cookie Baker have to rely on to make his cookies?  Is he therefore also a consumer?

And all this easily translates into enough background knowledge for the kiddos to design their own shop and list the natural and capital resources they would need to offer a service or sell a good.

5. Science

I've got to be kidding, right?  This is a book I read to a toddler for Pete's Sake!  But it's in there.  Solids, Liquids, and Gases when you analyze the ingredients Mr. Cookie Baker needs. Scientific Method if you just give the kids some ingredients to make craft dough but no instructions on how to actually do it. The role of evaporation as a cookie gets harder as each day goes by.

Convinced yet? If you click either picture, it'll take you to Amazon to buy it now! You know you want to!

I was inspired today to try to make some complimentary clipart.  My attempt is a freebie in my store for the next 48 hours.  I'd love to know what you think- as I did all of the art this time by myself. Click the picture below to go get a set.

Speaking of my wonderful sister- she's getting ready to go work on Pinkalicious: The Musical in the next few weeks.  She'll be making costumes!  How cool is that?  My daughter has always loved the Pinkalicious books!  I'm looking forward to getting to see the show and share about it here on the blog! Wow, I went a bit nutty with the exclamation points there, but it IS exciting!!! Ok. Now stop, Heather.  Stop.  But- if you're near the DC/Maryland area- you might want to check it out.

And even MORE news- 

I'm on a roll with the clip art, kittens.  I finished up the next Armadillo pack in the wee hours of the evening yesterday:

And of course, I had to make him a video:

I've been checking in regularly at the linky to see other teachers' book selections- and I've found tons more to load up my Amazon wishlist with (oh, but to win the lottery and spend it all at Amazon and Target!) - professional books too!  Go to Deanna's post to link up your own book - I want to know! and see all the other great ideas out there.  Thanks for the great linky, Deanna!

I'm going to go find some cookies...

GAR! I almost forgot!  Did you hear about Reading Rainbow on Kickstarter?  I do not have $10,000 for the chance to wear the one and only Geordi Laforge original STNG visor- but I did donate $25 for a great cause.  My first investment!  Next, up, the i-STAAPS!

Adventures in Gardening

We remember the bean plants last year, yes?  Feel free to refresh yourself at last year's drama.  

This little event was happening around the same time as my caterpillar catastrophe - aiyiyi - and I haven't even built myself up for another try with THOSE yet.  But anyhow- I gave the planting another go this year.

EVEN THOUGH this following e-card sums me up- more or less:

This year, I planted early and wove it in with my Native Americans unit.  We planted the THREE SISTERS- dun dun duuuuuunnnnnn!  Really, it should sound more impressive.  I did it indoors and had dirt everywhere.  I forced the kids to play with it before we planted as a sensory bin activity.  

"Haven't you ever played in dirt?"  

"EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" they all said.  

"Hogwash!  That just means you've never done it.  Get over here and feel this dirt!"  

Conversations like these are completely ludicrous when typed out- and yet, it totally makes sense when you're talking in your classroom.

We discussed soil and mulch and Miracle-Gro vs the Dollar Store bag (Which, honestly, came down a difference in one bag being full of little nutrient ball thingys and the other one having chopped up bark and rocks in it. But it was a DOLLAR dadgum!).  We mixed them together with our hands.  We washed afterwards and noticed how it didn't necessarily come off without a scrubbing effort.  Lots and LOTS of soap was used that day.

We read the back of seed packets, carefully packed soil into planters.  We punched holes exactly one inch deep. And we tried to measure out a suitable distance in between the seeds as well, using our Unifix cubes.  So handy and versatile!  And now, full of dirt.  *sigh*  But when else were they going to get the chance?  I really do hope a first grade teacher and I get a gardening club going next year.  Not that I should be in charge... but I can stir dirt!

Teamwork! Then we got out our class calendar and counted out the days to sprouting and marked it in red. So we could wait ever so not patiently.  I also told them how many days it would take until the plant would be mature- and then they had to do a team math problem solving to figure out what day of the year that should fall on for each of the three plants.  Would we be in school still?  Would we have to wait until the end of summer?

I just sound awesome, don't I?  Snarf. Ok- but, uh, I am ME, of course- so, I sort of had them plant the three sisters all together. In one little seed hole, together. It seemed like the right thing to do.  Three sisters, helping each other grow and all that- I mean- why not? Apparently, that ain't how it's done, kittens.  So we ended up with some of the plants sprouting, but also some of the plants strangling.... and some non-pop-uppers.  A mess of tangled roots.

Still though- what better way to teach the plant life-cycle than actually planting a seed and digging it up continuously to see why it isn't growing like it should?

I semi-rescued the situation by then being able to teach about how plants need space to survive, room to grow and all that.  Going back over the basic needs of any living thing.  One boy looks at me and says "Ms. Meek, I have three sisters, and I would NEVER want to share a room with them!"  AH, so very, very, wise. And 7 to 10 days too late, buddy!  Sheesh!   My mind is just goop.  That's all there is to it.

We did compare the three different sprouts to determine the type of plant that had come up. We knew beans would make a stalk- like in the fairy tale, so we decided the tallest ones were our beans.  Plus, we could see the seed casing on some of them, so that helped.  We also decided, based on looks, that the single strand sprout had to be the corn. AND we discovered that they have super long roots that go sideways when we transplanted them to untangle them and give them room to grow strong.  The other two plants had the normal sort of spidery hanging off the bottom sort of roots.  And this left our last sprout to be squash, and we were very pleased that it had fuzzy leaves and stems.  And then of course, another math tie in- we measured the heights of stems, the width of leaves, ordered them from tallest to shortest.  

It was in this tallest to shortest deal that we noticed that this actually went by planter box.  Why?  Why was one planter box full of lush vegetation and the other one stunted?  Back to the basic needs- space, water, sun, soil.  "You didn't water them right, Ms. Meek!"  Yeah?  Want to blame me do ya?  Luckily, one of my kids love me, "She watered them in front of us, and she watered them all the same!  You know that!" Take that! So there!  Incredibly lucky that I have the ability to keep some of my mental conversation inside my head (from time to time).  The kids decided on sun being the issue.  The tallest plants were in the planters that were on top of our window pyramid.  They decided I needed to rotate the boxes every day to let each planter get to sit on the top at least once a week. Aren't they smart cookies?

Eventually, the snowing stopped and we packed them all into some cereal bowls we'd been saving from school breakfasts and took three different plants home.  But- as always- this leads to a time of reflection.  How am I going to do it differently next year?

Well, Cheesy Pete, I probably shouldn't have the kids plant them all together in the same hole.  Although, I might just do that in one container so they can see what happens when you do.  Also, I liked those green planters and all, but I think planting them individually, pre-labeled with type of plant, is a time saver.  The kids enjoyed the transplanting process and all- but three times the dirt, kittens.  At least three times the dirt- indoors!  Heavens to Betsy!  And watching for the equal sun time thing.  Also an important factor to note.

But then again- I got to teach so much by doing it sooooo wrong.  It's a hard decision to make.  Be a disaster and have a rich lesson, or achieve teaching perfection?  I'll probably mess it up anyway.

Some of my moose reported plant disasters after they took them home, and we are planting more seeds for more sprouts to try to make up for the losses.  Also, some of the kids broke their stems, from just not realizing that plants are fragile.  City vs. Country rears its head again.

Of course, when I start thinking about next year already, other people are too.  The Ladies at Collaboration Cuties are having a giveaway for some school supplies by C Jayne Teach.  Some super cool stuff, I must say!  Head over there to check it out by clicking their button!

So, do you garden with your kids?  Do you do it indoors?  Do you also have a gray thumb?  Would you have put all three seeds together in one hole?  Or am I the only nutter that thought that would work?

Connecting with Students

My year has begun.  Nine days in.  And every year has it's new set of challenges.  This year, one of the challenges is from me- I'm having trouble connecting.  Maybe I put too much emotion into last year.  Maybe I had too high expectations for myself for this year, and didn't give myself time to adjust.  Maybe...who knows.  I sure don't.  But I've just sort of been feeling like soda that's gone flat. 

 

I happened to notice that one of my students was having some struggles connecting as well.  New to the school, and a bit of a weird duck as well- he just wasn't finding a niche.  I believe it was the second day of school that he very animatedly told me about his favorite book about a pitcher plant.  I remembered that I'd seen at Lowe's in the houseplant sections some Venus Flytraps.  Not exactly the same thing, but the same idea.  And then I remembered I had this greenhousey sort of planter I had gotten out of the garage.

 

So, I sent the Mayor McCheese off with an Alexander Hamilton to get me as many flytraps as that could buy.  Turns out it equals two.  And then the next morning I sat down with the class and talked all about how I was inspired to get these plants for us by our new classmate.  We looked at two books from the library.  We looked up North and South Carolina on the map because the book told us that's where the plants came from.  We read the package on the plant and talked about why it needed what it needed. We talked about "soil" versus "dirt".  We talked about how the house traps heat.  We talked about "misting" versus "watering" and "moist" versus "wet".  We talked about how moss keeps moisture, and we could tell by the condensation in the bag before I added it to the top of our soil. 

We sent a great deal of time on how they actually eat and how they can't eat us.  Some of my boys were extremely disappointed.  Until we noticed that there actually was a fly inside the greenhouse already:

My view as soon as the fly was spotted.

 

Obviously, Venus flytraps are no where in my curriculum. But, oral language is- and we did a lot of talking.  And the vocabulary for soil and condensation is in my science standards- albeit later in the year. I also got to touch on some non-fiction text features, and looking at maps, and explaining how we live in the state of Virginia, and not elsewhere.  We all got to touch moss, and the plant, and create a schema for carnivorous plants.  Oh yeah, and I got to use the word schema.  And then they got to use the word schema.  And then we were all very big headed and smart scientists. 

 

The biggest blessing of the experience though is I feel a little less like flat soda.  Being able to do things with nature with my kids pumps me up.  And my little weird duck- he is now forever connected to our plant as the inspiration for the experience.  Two other little nature lovers have popped out of the crowd and spent some time with him on the playground looking for our plant's next meal. 

Anybody else feeling flat out there?  Try adding in a personal passion for a boost.
Anybody a champion at connecting to your year?  Give us some tips, kittens- I like my soda bubbly.

Erosion Demonstration and a Giveaway

Kathleen at Middle Grades Maven is hosting a 1000 TPT followers giveaway on her blog. Shoot!  I've never seen so much stuff up for grabs!  The Meek Moose has contributed a winner's choice to the K-2 bundle- but she's also got a 3-6 bundle, a 7-12 bundle AND a freebie of class jobs posters featuring a tech theme.  Go check that giveaway out!

So- Erosion.

Confession: I pretty much ignored it during my science unit earlier in the year.  And I'm not really sure why.  Flamingo Fabulous had done a, let's just say it, FABULOUS experiment/discovery exercise with her class on erosion.  And filled with envy I made plans to do it as well.  And then, I dunno, I just didn't.  This happens a lot to me.  Let's say I'm suspecting myself of adult ADD. Or I'm going to use it as a crutch, either way, to explain myself.

But here in the last days, as I scrambled for things to do, since I didn't bother to plan at all- I remembered.  So I talked to my Dad about what I wanted to do, and asked him about what sort of goodies might be hidden down in the garage for me to utilize.  He went down stairs, fuddled about a bit and came back up with a million empty strawberry containers.  So right there, kittens, we can see that I come by the hoarding GENETICALLY.

Anyway- my Dad is STILL the Mayor McCheese, because then he went out in the yard and "cut me up some sod".  Dudes, I live in the middle of the country- this is how you do it.  He filled this great big rolley container. The type you slide under a bed to hide things you don't really want to bother to put away. Even though I had explained that I only needed to fill seven of the million strawberry containers. He said he just wanted to make sure I got the right sort of piece.  Whatever that might mean.  I got to hack at it with a pick axe thing-a-ma-jig though! Sheeeeee-ra!  And discovered lots and lots of worms and ant eggs and other interesting bits so decided to take the whole thing to school anyway.

He also gave me a bag of potting soil that he had rescued from work.  "Someone was just going to throw this out!  This is good dirt!"

So now I was ready for some erosion.

I loaded up seven sets of two trays.  One soil, one sod.  We went outside to the sidewalk with some loaded up plastic boxes of water and a measuring cup - and my tub tints too!

First I asked them what they thought would happen when they poured the water on the dirt.  They unanimously agreed that it would turn into a glob of mud.  I asked what they thought would happen when they poured water on the grass- and they said mud again.  We took the soil out first and poured the water.  They were not prepared for the water to come rushing out the bottom and dirt to pour out with it.  Huge gasps of surprise and EWWWWWW echoed.

So I asked again- what's going to happen to the grass basket?  And they said- same thing, mud and dirty water.  So off we went and HOORAY, clear water poured out.  They were pretty stumped at this point.  Until- whew!- somebody said "OHHHH, it's the roots!  The roots are holding onto the dirt!"  Can somebody give that smart kid a high five?

We then added a tub tint to the water to pretend it was pollution.  What would happen if we poured polluted water on the two samples.  They decided it would run out of the soil tub, but it would run CLEAR on the grass tub.  Interesting....

Turns out though, pollution runs out no matter what- so we drew the conclusion- pollution harms EVERYTHING.

End super teacher moment.  No, seriously.  It all went downhill after that. 

Pics:

 

The set up

 

 

the discussion

 

Splatter prevention position

 

the outcome 

pollution action shot

What did I learn from this:

1) I need to just do things when I'm supposed to do things. 

2) Buuuut, it was a pretty neat thing to do at the end of the year, all the same.

3) I liked the strawberry baskets.  I really like how it all poured out underneath and got the emotional reaction from the kids.  Emotional reaction equals MEMORY.  Note: would not ever ever ever use the strawberry baskets inside.  I would maybe do the pie tins like Flamingo Fabulous. Maybe.

4) I also like the additional discussion after adding the tub tints to the water and discussing pollution.  Not a standard for this grade level- but I thought it was some good stuff.

5) My Dad did indeed give me some good dirt.  We used the rest of it later that day at our picnic and dug for worms and other critters.  And we found dozens of fat wiggly worms for our worm hotel, and two interesting caterpillar like creatures that we clearly woke up from a deep sleep, and lots of ants eggs that we did not keep, but got to see a few stages of their life cycle happening in the patch of dirt.  And wild onions!  Which I thought was pretty cool, but the kids did not find interesting at all.  Oh well.

Tomorrow is the last day of school and I am sad, kittens.  I really liked my class.  And Flamingo is flying to elsewhere.  Boo hiss.  I will be drinking lots of pepsi and doing much emotional eating tomorrow me thinks.

 

Aesop's 1st Book of Childhood Adventures - Vincent A. Mastro

So I recently won this book and had the pleasure of sharing it with my class this week.

We read all three tales, one of which the kids were familiar with, two that I was familiar with, and one that none of us had ever read before.

The great thing about fables, is that they have a tidy package of the main idea at the end that kids can latch on to.  What sets this book apart in the genre though, is that Aesop is a character that is interacting within the story- relating what he sees, feels, and thinks of the situation before the main idea is presented.  This makes it a great example text for guiding young readers on the comprehension strategy of synthesizing information.

Another plus to this book is the richness of language.  It was a great opportunity to talk about synonyms and expanding our vocabularies.  We were also able to figure out unfamiliar words in context because of the synonyms we did know.

With each story, I was able to touch on a different style point to bring out in Writer's Workshop time as well.  With the Tortoise and the Hare, we had a great example of using bold words for emphasis.  In both that story and in The Friends and the Bear, there was a great opportunity to discuss onomatopoeia. And by the time we read the third story- we had a solid foundation for discussing how the stories each began and ended in the same way, but the middles were different.

There are indeed, a million other applications for this book.  I am excited to note that there is already a second one available, and soon to be a third.  You can find out more about them at the website by Aesop's Childhood Adventures and order a copy of your own by clicking the picture above.

Here are some other activities we did with the book:

Social Studies Connection:  Map Making

In The Tortoise and the Hare, the race route is described.  Using the comprehension technique of Visualization, we imagined the race route and created a map of what we saw in our heads.

 


Character Connection: - Rules of Friendship

In the Friends and the Bear, a bear sniffs a secret of friendship into a young boys ear.  We had a discussion about what we would have had the bear say, if we could have picked a friendship rule. 

Our pages were folded in half so we could staple them all together to make a book.

You can find a good friend that is always there!

Don't have a friend who leaves you behind.

Always help your friend when he is in danger.

Science/Math Connection - Liquid Capacity

In the Crow and the Pitcher, a good idea leads to a reward.  We tried this out for ourselves to see if this would work.  I put out different size containers and filled them halfway.  We went over cups to pints, and pints to quarts, and quarts to gallons in the process.  We also did incorporated the scientific method by posing the question which item would lift the water faster? The tiles or the cubes. Another math tie in was to make an estimate of how many tiles and cubes we would have to put in, and how many we actually ended up with.  I whipped up this quick chart on the fly:

This mamma-jamma ended up taking 517 tiles to lift the water. 

 We found out that the connecting cubes DID NOT raise the water.  WHY?  They "were too big", "didn't fit together like the tiles", "weren't heavy enough", and "had holes in them".  All around, an impressive study.  One container we only had time to try the cubes with, so it will be set out with tiles for a center station later this week.

What did I get out of this as a teacher?

1) They are great mentor texts for writer's workshop.  For serious people, they are jam packed with goodness.

2) I really want to get the other two books, and make the fables more central to my teaching next year.  I could really focus on two each quarter and consistently refer back to them.  With the Tortoise and the Hare, we were able to talk about how the Tortoise had focus and was able to complete her task.  So for the past couple of days we've been able to get our attention back to whatever we're working on by saying "Let's focus like the tortoise!"  and somebody always adds in "Don't be a lazy hare!". 

3)  I really enjoyed the science, math, and social studies connections I came up with on the spur of the moment.  I know that if I gave myself more time, I could come up with many different applications for these stories and create projects for them.

4) We didn't get to this yet- but these stories are great for retelling.  The stories would be great with masks or puppets- the children enjoyed the stories so much they can retell them again and again.

What does everyone else do with fables in their classrooms?