Favorite Cup

Today I am linking up with Classroom Confections with my favorite cup.

www.ClassroomConfections.com

     A friend of mine, Beth, gave me the mug this year.  I have had the pleasure of teaching all three of her children.

       Coffee with lots of creamer, actually lots and lots of creamer is my drink.

Come back to visit again soon.  Enjoy your day!

Classroom Jobs

5th Grade Classroom Jobs...

        I put together these signs for my classroom helper jobs. As you can see they are a little beat up because the girls in my room took it upon themselves to change the jobs weekly or bi-weekly as they saw fit.  They did a great job calling names of their classmates and politely asking if they wanted a job that week.

 

      My girls came up with the new jobs this year.  One job was to "straighten the desks and rugs".
            We have a stack of small "bathroom" type rugs that the kids can use to sit on the floor during group work.  They can also choose to place it on their chair to use as a chair pad rather than sit on a hard chair.

How do you choose classroom helpers?

Leave me a comment,  I'd love to hear from any of my readers.  Come back again soon.

www.teachingblogaddict.com

Cuadros- Art Work from Women of Peru

         Guest Blogger -- Judi Odmark

          Judi's 3rd graders use a basal reader from Scholastic  LITERACY PLACE.

    
  If you look closely at the cover you will notice beautiful artwork.

    The artwork is actually a piece of hand-sewing called a cuadros.  Each color is a different patch of material or stitches in a variety of colors of thread.  Now you look at it from a different perspective.   The women in Peru make and sell the cuadros.  
    This is the story selection.

    A wonderful woman named Sister Theresa would come to school and help out in the 3rd grade working with the students during Reading.  She read the story selection in the basal reading book.  One of her friends named Barbara went to Peru to help local women become self-sufficient. 

  
       These are the cuadros that Sister Theresa gave to the teachers at St. Michael School.

This is a close up detail section.  You can see the different kinds of cloth used.

I love the snake and the flowers.

Each person has their own instrument.

The woman on the left is holding a woven basket.

      

   

  

    These hand made examples of the cuadros really make the story selection come alive for our 3rd graders.    

     Thank you Sister Theresa.  And many thanks to your friend Barbara, too.
    
          I hope my pictures do justice to the beautiful needle work these women of Peru have done.

Please leave a comment.  I enjoy hearing from people who read my blog.

"I'll Miss You" Note

          For the last day of school, the teachers at St. Michael Catholic School  fill large envelopes with awards that the students have earned during the year.   I also like to include something to wrap up our 5th grade year.  Last month I found a wonderful piece that was posted on Second Grade Sugar and Spice. 
        This page began with I'll miss ...  and continued with many thoughts about the school year.  I decided to try to make it my own for my 5th graders.   

Here is my inspiration piece. 

     So my good friend, Emily,dropped what she was doing and "helped" or should I say actually "put it together" while I sat and gave my two cents worth.  I knew what I wanted it to look like, the picture was in my head.  Emily always helps me out when I need computer help.  This is the final result.  Emma is Emily's daughter who was in my homeroom this year.          
     Thank you Emily for being such a wonderful friend and colleague. You are always there for me.

     

 I do hope my students liked their memento  of our year together.  This was the BEST 5th Grade class!

                                      secondgradesugarandspice.blogspot.com

Please take a minute and leave a note. I enjoy your input.

Box for Boarders

 Monday Made it
  

Guest Blogger - Barb Schuelke is my Zumba buddy.        

             Each year we take down our bulletin boards for the summer and put away all those boarder strips.  Most of the time, we just want to put everything away and just be done for the summer.  August comes and the bulletin boards need boarders again.  Usually we can't remember which boarder in in which box.  Barb came up with a great idea.  She cut a short piece of each boarder and taped them onto the lids of the boxes that hold all her boarders. This way Barb knows where to find each boarder very quickly.

 

As you can see, Barb has quite a boarder collection.  If you look at the top box in the above picture, you will see a small section of the flag boarder. In the picture below you can see the flag boarder.

  

How do you store your bulletin board strips? 

       

                                                      4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com   

 Please leave a comment if you could use Barb's idea.

Puppet Show Day 2015

                  I look forward to this day every year.  It is the culmination of months of work for my students where they can display so many skills that they have mastered. After we had finished the shows and the parents went home, I asked all the kids what they had learned from this project.  I was pleasantly surprised by their answers. 
             "We learned to work cooperatively." "We learned the it takes a lot of hard work to accomplish a big task."  "We learned that if we make a mistake, it can be fixed." "We learned that we don't have to memorize something, but we can learn it."
           The 5th graders each make a puppet starting with an old burned out incandescent light bulb.  Multiple layers of paper mache' are applied to form the head.  A nose is put in place and "bandaided" to the face with more strips of wet paper mache'.  I break the bulbs and we begin to paint on  the skin.
Faces are carefully painted mixing colors for the eyes and lips.  The next step in to design a hair style and then glue each strand of yarn hair to scalp.  Felt clothing is designed and and glued to the body with tacky glue.  Lastly, the head is glued to the body.
         Here are a few examples of this years' puppets.   The puppets are people from Bible stories.
Can you guess who they might be?

Can you spot Goliath?

The just want to speak to you.

Check out his staff in his hand.

The eyebrows and beard are very special.

I love his expression.

She looks like a very kind person.

I was amazed with the wings.

I'll add more pictures as soon as possible.  

Please leave a message if you enjoyed the puppets.