Here's a fun linky party that Lorraine over at Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies has come up with! Take a look back to the beginning of 2012 and list your first 12 posts of the year. After you create your post, add your link to Lorraine's post, then go visit the other links and leave comments!
I have a wonderful friend, Brenda, who comes to my class occasionally to do art with my students. We don't have art at the elementary schools in our district and it is hard to work it in. Having a friend plan and teach these projects allows my students to experience art without adding more to my already overflowing plate! Thanks Brenda!
For Christmas we made these sponge-painted poinsettias. The idea came from Deep Space Sparkle. This is a great place to find all kinds of art projects! Brenda made a PowerPoint so the students could see all of the steps from start to finish. It was a lot of fun and the paintings turned out fabulous!
Cut foam sponges into the shape of the flower petal.
Make 3 flowers in a diagonal across the page.
Add dark green leaves using a smaller sponge cut in the same petal shape. Using a Q-tip, add yellow dots to the center of the flowers.
Paint the white areas with a glittery wash made by watering down lavender paint and adding glitter.
Learning about sides, vertices, edges, and faces is so much fun when we use marshmallows! We started by building 2-dimensional figures like triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. From there, we built prisms and pyramids by adding more marshmallows and toothpicks. This is a great hands-on activity that allows the students to explore and compare the attributes of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes. Students will have to "visualize" the faces and they will also discover that they are unable to make a rectangle or rectangular prism because the toothpicks are all the same size. Small straws or stir sticks could be used to make these shapes.
Brian over at Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings is celebrating one year of blogging by giving away one of his best selling items. Hurry on over and get the download!
Cynthia over at 2nd Grade Pad is giving away her whole TPT store! Hurry and enter to win some really great products!
Mystery Skype is becoming a popular activity now that more teachers are using Skype in the classroom. Mystery Skype is a great ice-breaker for classrooms. Students can guess each other's locations and then share about their countries, cities, schools, cultures, etc. These initial contacts can turn in to year-long classroom relationships that will promote sharing and collaboration.
Earlier this week, I was chatting with a group of educators on Skype Instant Messaging, and we came up with idea of creating a place where teachers can sign up to make connections. Teachers who are new to global collaboration and Skyping will be able to find contacts who are located world-wide. The list also includes experienced teachers who are willing to share their expertise.
The Prefect Christmas Gift for the Special Teacher in Your Life!
I am not a fan of electric pencil sharpeners. They are noisy, messy, and they don't last very long. I have very strict rules in my classroom about pencil sharpening. My students are allowed to sharpen 1-2 pencils first thing in the morning before 8:00. They can also switch un-sharpened pencils with sharp pencils. The rest of the day is pencil sharpener-free.
That means I have to make sure our sharpened pencil can is always full. My old electric sharpener allows me to sharpen about 10 pencils before it heats up and stops. Now that I am using my Classroom Friendly Supplies Sharpener, I can sharpen enough pencils at one time to last several days! It comes with a mount that can attach to a table, counter top, or shelf so it stays put while sharpening. Best of all, it's VERY quiet!...no more frazzled nerves form the noisy electric pencil sharpener!
It's really easy to use too. Here is a how-to video:
