End of the Year Watermelon Day

Watermelon Day is one of the best days in school ever! Your kids are engaged and learning and you are having a blast.  What more could you want?  

Of course Watermelon Day has to be full of watermelon food and drink.  We have watermelon, watermelon juice, watermelon candy and have bubble blowing contests with watermelon bubble gum when possible.  I ask for donations from the parents and we buy as much as the money will purchase for us and sometimes that's just watermelon and rubber bands which is still a blast.

We learn a fun watermelon song by the Biscuit Brothers which you can find by clicking here.  A big warning that the song is a little cheesy and gets stuck in your head!

The best part of our day is our STEM project.  The STEM project tests the limits of force and motion using rubber bands and a watermelon.  You can see the video below.  After doing this lesson for a few years now I have a few suggestions for you.  The first suggestion is to buy your watermelon early so it's nice and ripe when it's time to do the project.  The second suggestion is to buy at least 6 bags of #64 rubber bands. Walmart sells them in the office supply section for around $1.50/bag.  The rubber bands that you use really matter.  You'll want ones that are thicker and stretch the diameter of the fruit.  My next suggestion is to place the rubber bands in the same spot on the watermelon.  In my video my rubber bands are spread out too much and it takes longer.  This brings us to my last suggestion.  Complete the experiment with at least two other adults. This way you can help each other out and switch out when your hands get tired.  If you do it by yourself you will have several blisters on your fingers.  The experiment takes between 1-2 hours.  If your students are younger than 2nd grade you may want to pre-load some rubber bands.

When we are done exploding the watermelon we save the seeds, rinse them off and have a seed spitting contest that turns into a measurement lesson.  With each lesson suggestion here you can tailor them to meet anywhere from kindergarten to high school.  Believe me when I say the adults are having just as much fun as the kids.

We read several different texts during our day.  When I taught first grade we used to read The Watermelon Seed.

In second grade we read Watermelon Day.

 While I was on Amazon it suggested the book below.  It looks like a great book, but I can't tell you for sure because I haven't previewed it.

Aside from all of the fun above, we also have fun with coloring, learning about the history of watermelons and how to pick the perfect watermelon.  Those activities can be found by click the picture below.

Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions!

End of the Year Camping Day

Who wants to go camping? Whether you are in a traditional classroom, homeschool classroom or just hanging out with friends camping inside while learning is a ton of fun.  As a teacher I LOVE Camping Day because you get a lot of bang for your buck.  You get a lot of bang for your buck because all you really need are blankets, books, flashlights, some lesson plans and a couple of cheap snacks and kids are engaged for hours learning.

Everyone loves a good read aloud and it's even better when it's done by flashlight.  You can read to the children and then send them back to their tents to read with flashlights and friends. This is a great way to have a reading lesson.  We love the book, "A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee"!

For writing I like to build a simple campfire out of a fan and tissue paper taped to the fan.  The fan rotates completely up so it blows the tissue up like flames.  I got it from Walmart.  I've seen this done with construction paper and logs too.  We use this to sit around and tell stories.  It's a great way to get speaking and listening standards into a fun writing lesson.

Tents are simple.  Everyone just brings in old blankets and uses whatever furniture, backpacks and other materials we have to construct tents.  My rule in the classroom is that it has to be open around the bottom so that I can see everyone.  You can construct these during science or math and make it into a lesson on engineering or measurement.

For treats I like to make S'mores bags.  It's just a mixture of Honey Grahams, mini marshmallows and chocolate chips.  You could teach Science with this and do mixtures.  If you want to explore chemical changes you could bring in a toaster oven and make traditional S'mores.  Just make sure the fire marshal is far away that day.

Aside from all of the fun mentioned above I also have fun print and teach activities that I created for the day.  If you need more materials click on the picture below.

Fairy Tales - ELA Lesson Plans #26

Well hello end of the year! With only two weeks left of teaching, the plans are to SURVIVE! Seriously though all activities will be whole group and easy.  We will read a fairy tale, play a quiz game where I ask questions from the book and Dojo randomly selects students to answer.  After the book we will make a craft.  Then we will play minute to win it games and go through our writing unit.  You can find the writing plans by clicking on last week's plans.  Just like last week, we will not be writing anything during reading for Mrs. Labrasciano to grade.  It's survival of the fittest friends and no one has time for a bunch of grading two weeks before school is out.  Report card grades are due by Friday.  Scroll down if you want to see my quick, easy and inexpensive crafts.  Click back to last week if you want to see more fairy tale crafts.

These eyes are so much fun and only cost $1.  I bought a bag of gems from the Dollar Tree.  I painted the black so that it would be dry in time to add color.  Students use toothpicks to add yellow or other colors around the black. Once the second color dries they can go add a third color with a small paintbrush.  In the picture above you'll see that I experimented with glitter, but I decided against allowing students to use it.

These birds are so cute!! I used paper cups from the Dollar Tree along with scrap feathers and paper.  You will also need google eyes.  Students can put together any bird they like.  They represent the birds that ate the bread crumbs that Hansel left behind.

ELA Lesson Plans #25 Fairy Tales

 

The end is near friends.  We have 15 days of school left and I am teacher tired.  The next three weeks of plans are going to be engaging, quick and simple.  No grading will be done because all students who follow directions and behave will have speaking standards and crafts.  Students who don't behave will have to write loooooooong summaries.  So you see it's best to just listen to Mrs. Labrasciano and have fun.  The crafts I've created are quick and easy so that students can work on them independently.  The materials are inexpensive because I, like all teachers this time of year am BROKE.  Check back next week for one more week of fairy tale fun and end of the year thematic units!!

This craft was created with a paper plate, google eyes, red paper and a crown template.  For bellwork I will have students paint one side of the paper plate.  It's quick and easy because you just squeeze the paint on the plate.  The plates will dry within the hour and the students will paint the other side after reading "The Frog Prince".  Once the second side dries students will fold the plate in half, add the eyes, tongue and nose.  To finish off the craft students will use a crown template to create a crown for their frog.

Our Ugly Duckling swan craft was created with one paper plate, a google eye and a scrap of orange paper.  Students cut through the center of the plate until they get to the ridges on the other side.  They then follow the ridges to cut out the neck and face.  They can use the scrap plate to create the wing.  Students place a bill and eye on the swan and voila, they have an adorable swan that didn't drive you bonkers.

The Three Little Pigs Craft was created with a sheet of pink paper and google eyes.  I give my students templates to cut out the circles and triangles.  Once they glue the shapes together they can add eyes, nose and mouth.

For this craft I provide students with:  two rose printable, one/half Popsicle stick, one dot of clay, one cup and a circle.  Students color the roses.  When they are done they fold them in half and glue them together to make a 3d rose.  Then they glue the rose to the stick.  Once the rose dries they can use the clay to stick the rose onto the circle and place the glass on top.  For an added bonus we give these roses to their moms for Mother's Day.

The Snow White craft needs a small square of tin foil, a mirror template, blue paper and other decorating items in red and gold (if you want to stay with the Disney colors.). Students use the template to cut the mirrors out.  Then they glue the foil to the back. Once done they go wild decorating them and you get a few minutes of peace before you think about how much the custodians are going to hate you.

If you click on the link below you will find two weeks worth of my writing lesson plans and free materials.

If you are in need of any print and go materials, templates or other fairy tale ideas, click below.  The Fairy Tale Minute To Win It Unit is one of my student's favorites!!

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Fairy Tale Writing

Who doesn't love a good fairy tale unit? Well to start some of my 2nd grade boys moan and complain every time they hear our unit is starting. However, by the end of the unit they are in love!! I explain over and over again that fairy tales can be packed with adventure, gross things and magical creatures that would make Voldemort cringe.  This is especially true when it comes to writing our own fairy tales.   The key is to get the child to dig deep into the story structure and elaborate on everything.  That's a lot easier said than done, right?  Not really, in order to make these fairy tales happen I take it slow with my students.  The first day we read a fairy tale and only look at character analysis.  Then the students create their main character.  That's not too daunting.  The second day we read another fairy tale and make our setting analysis.  On the third day we take a look at our story's lesson and plot.  After all of the hard work is done bit by bit, we finally dive into a writing plan and detail everything.  It's so important to teach students how to plan and that with the plan writing is much more organized and fun.  After the plan is done we just take the story paragraph by paragraph until we have a well elaborated B,M,M,E and just like that 10 days have passed.  The sense of pride that students have when they are done is awe inspiring.  Below you will see the anchor charts that I use with my students.

If you are interested in my detailed plans and outlines, I have them listed for free.  Just click on the picture below.  

and we lived happily ever after, THE END!