Saturday, November 6, 2021

Fall fun

 I have not updated everything in a month on here!  Fall is full of fun at home and school.  

Pumpkin farms, Halloween, Fire Safety...and more...

It was a crazy month in our house...I find that it is nice to sit down and reflect on my lessons, record the ideas in one place, and show off the amazing things going on in education even in the middle of an on-going pandemic.  

September was set to survival...October was a slow return to normal...November is book fair and traveling mural fun :)

I am secretly really looking forward to DE"STEM"BER 2021!  Bigger and better than before...paper circuit ornament, gingerbread design challenge, marble run design challenge, santa sleigh designs, santa tracker, and so much more!  

But let me go backwards to October.  

LEAVES...PUMPKIN JACK...CORN MOSAICS.  PLUS MORE FARM TO TABLE FUN!

I am working on progressive lessons...one grade building on the previous year.   

For example, K and 1 both read Leaf Man together.  I chose to have a read aloud on the screen to make it bigger for everyone.  


Grade K - did a leaf tracer then decorated their leaf man.  This was used to teach the students how to use a tracer and follow directions.    Mrs. Long shared adorable googly eyes for this fun project.













Grade 1 - used leaves, glue, and googly eyes to create a leaf creation...it could be a person, an animal, or more.  Then we practiced taking photos in Seesaw.  





This one is a T REX!!!



Grade 2 made 3 dimensional leaves.  I talked about it last year as well.  3D leaf post

Grade 3 has been working on learning about simple machines.  We are slowing it down...we have done 4 out of 6.  The students are watching a video, discussing a real life example, then writing down a definition and examples in our simple machine packet.  In November, we will finish the last two (wedge and screw).  In DeSTEMber, we will make a marble run using 1 or more simple machine in the design!  We also might do BINARY holiday ornaments.  I found a packet years ago online and just keep using it.

Grade 4 did a fun farm to table unit on PIZZA and HERBS.  Students got to explore our outdoor classroom and pizza garden.  They got to taste, feel, draw, and experience herbs.  The students in most classes would taste DILL WEED and say that it tasted like pickles and then we would talk about how this is how dill pickles are flavored.  
In the meantime, a basic cauliflower crust pizza was cooking.  Then we went back to STEAM to taste it!  YUM.  









MORE COOL PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES!!


TRAVELING MURAL

I joined a group of 9 other librarians and STEAM teachers across the country to work on a TRAVELING MURAL PROJECT.  Grade 3 and 4 are working on the final design next week.  It was launched by another blogger...The Library Voice  

Here is her post launching the Traveling Mural project...Traveling Mural

First students created listened to the "Hey, Wall" 


Then we talked about possible topics and I created a WORDLE of all of our topics.  Here is what was decided.  



Then we made individual samples/ideas for the mural.  These were displayed in the hallway.  Then the art teacher worked on taking a few of the best ideas into 1 final mural...TO BE CONTINUED!!





What other schools are we working with?  


So we are going to make a 10 foot by 3 foot mural.  Then cutting it into 10 pieces.  Our school keeps one section...the other 9 will be shipped to California, Texas, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, New York, and Connecticut.  and we should get 9 pieces back.  

Then we will make a mishmash TRAVELING MURAL and learn about other school and places in our project through out December!

I am curious to connect with my college roommate since she lives in the same small NY town as where one of our pieces of mural is going!  How cool is that?  I might actually know one of the artists hundreds of miles away in NY!!!

Look for more pictures and updates soon!

CORN MOSAIC

Okay so reluctantly, I took my children to the Erie Children's Museum since we bought a membership during a deal in August!  This inspired a fun Halloween activity for 4 out of 5 days.  The students LOVED it!!!  I would premake larger batch of corn or politely request parent support next time.  

I colored 15 lbs of corn in 4 days.  The process is similar to Easter Eggs and is not a last minute option.  

I used this blog as my initial recipe.  I used a lot less of the food coloring as we went along. 

The blue was one of my fav colors - the red was super awesome too!

trays of corn drying

Corn sitting in food coloring, vinegar and water - OVER NIGHT





tree, pumpkin, fall scene

tree and sky

Indian corn made with corn

leaf and tree

picture frame

game controller 

butterfly 

pumpkin


I almost forgot about Pumpkin Jack.

We are going to watch a pumpkin rot all year long then come full circle to a plant then back to a pumpkin!



Here is a post on the process - Pumpkin Jack blog post

Here is a video link for Pumpkin Jack.  Pumpkin Jack book

This is just a few highlights of October.

Enjoy!

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