A slight duct tape addiction

Hello.  My name is Ashley and I am a Duct tape addict.  Phew that felt good to say.  I blame is all on my mentor.  She reminded me of all the fun things you can do with decorative duct tape like:

-Use it as bulletin boarder
-Hang up pictures from kids around your room creating a "frame"
-Fix broken kids shoes (Yes- this actually happened)
-Fix books who have sadly been sent to the book hospital
-Fix book bins that are breaking because they are full of so many books (What a tragedy, right?)
-Fix kids binders that are falling apart
-Mark Notebooks (Get out your Science notebook- the one with the GREEN tape!)

AND my students most favorite thing of all....

Binding their writing! Check out that binding!

 

I'm guessing Greg over at Kindergarten Smorgasbord would LOVE that mustache tape!

 

Seriously, how fun does that look? My kids {el-oh-vee-ee} to see their writing materpieces hanging in the hallway and they are so proud of them.  Not to mention, it helps bring out even more of their huge personalities.

 

 

Even better than the fact that it makes their writing look even more fabulous? They can do it by themselves! Yes people, by themselves!! They look forward to putting on their binding and sharing it with a friend!

 

 

 

They sell tons of fun patterns at almost any store.  The possibilities are endless!

 

What are your {maybe-not-so-strange-as-I-think-mine-is} addictions?





Love me some extreme weather! {Come grab a Freebie!}

Thank the good Lord upstairs for intersession.  The perks of year round! Once everyone starts getting really tired, it's time for a break. 

Right before intersession we finished up our unit on Weather.  I have a weather FANATIC in my room this year.  I mean, serious weather fanatic.  He could not wait until we got into extreme weather because he had sooo many questions about tornados.  I knew he would love our mini research!  I especially love little projects like this because it helps me see who is a leader, who is a follower, who is bossy, who does all the work and who just does the bare minimum.  I do have to say that each and every one of my 20 little second graders put in a tremendous amount of effort into this project!  Check out the work they did!

 

For this project, I split them into 5 groups and gave each group 1 type of extreme weather to become experts on.  They would research and find information about this weather and present their research to the rest of the class.  Here are the graphic organizers we used to take notes.  Students did the research in pairs and came back together as a group to decide what information was the most important and what they needed to teach the rest of the class.

You can click on either picture to head to my TPT store to download a free copy of these posters!

Check out my little babies at work!

They were so proud of their work and looking forward to more of this throughout the year!

ane-WHAT?

This week has been all about wind, wind, wind!  Yesterday, we talked about what we know about wind and did a little investigation with bubbles.

Today was all about how meteorologists use tools to measure wind.  We looked at a Beaufort scale and then I showed them an Anemometer!  (As I was showing them this and having them repeat ANEMOMETER, I just kept thinking about this...)

Love me some Nemo!

Each student build their very own Anemometer & we took it outside to test! Here's a good site with directions on how to make one if you'd like to try this with your students.  We did a little different to make it easier on me.  I stapled the 2 straws together making an "X" (I did this ahead of time).  Then each student taped the 4 cups at the edge of the straws, I put a push pin through the straws and then pushed it into a pencil eraser.  Worked great!  

It wasn't a very windy day but we still got them to rotate a few times when we found the windy spots around the school!  It was so much fun and students got to take their anemometer home to show to their family.  Nothing better than some engaging, hands-on learning!  

Math Fact Fluency (A Freebie!)

I'm coming to you today with a little idea I came up with last year to help my kids build fact fluency & get use out of some serious wasted time- You know... the time when kids are filtering in from Specials, or when they are using the bathroom after recess.. That time!!

I started this last year and I really liked it so I thought I'd share it with y'all.  I have NO idea why I didn't before.  Basically it is flash cards on PowerPoint and involves you just clicking "View Slideshow" and listening to your kids {quietly} shout out the answers!  Turn it on during that "wasted" time to turn it into some serious fact practice time! Click on the picture to head over to my TPT store to pick up this FREE resource!!