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 decision was suddenly made 2 weeks ago to return me to my special of STEAM by administration.
Okay - so on a Friday - I had to figure out how to regroup and teach my class. Oh wait - I was going to be teaching a double class of STEAM and library with an extra adult to help (aides and/or principals!).
I was ready but not ready for this experience. My class of students that I had been with for 7 days was now divided among the 4 other classrooms at that grade level.
So I pulled out my Dot Day lesson plan with modifications like NO technology.
Originally...students read the book called "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds
Then - we watched the illustrator/author create Dot inspired art work:
Then it was time for students to CREATE images...the last part was to practice uploading to either TEAMS assignments or SeeSaw.
Here are a few pictures:
FARM TO TABLE
Starting on September 8, I started doing a Farm to Table lesson about Zucchini Bread. My last group got bread on October 1. It took 3 weeks to teach a lesson to every student. I ended up making 30+ loaves of zucchini bread. I think it was 12-15 batches of zucchini bread. I have left over eggs and need to use them up ASAP. However, most of the frozen zucchini has been used at school!
Students watched a cooking demonstration, discussed what is zucchini, tasted the bread, and more!
It was a busy time with the oven in a completely different wing of the school...but we made it work.
I would say that 95% of the students tried it and over 90% LOVED the recipe. I do not have many pictures because it is hard to demonstrate and take pictures.
PUMPKIN RUN
In addition, the librarian and I made sure to share the story of the "Pumpkin Runner with almost all 500 students in STEAM and/or library. This even meant a co-teaching day!
The event at the track was AWESOME!
As you can see, it has been a crazy first 22 days of school. I have been out of my room about 9-10 days.
I did hang my first week of school projects too! Those were all about initials and names. I called it a creativity design challenge!
