Peek at My Week: Science Genetics Unit and MORE!

Here's to another Sunday spent planning.  The goal for next week is to get a few things planned before the weekend comes! To make this post a little shorter, I am breaking it into two parts. Tomorrow, I will share my reading and writing plans for some Minilesson Magic :)

Science:

This week, we have our mini-unit on genetics scheduled. Our students need to learn the following objectives:
* Explain why organisms differ from or are similar to their parents based on the characterisitcs of the organism.
* Give examples of likenesses that are inherited and some that are not.
For my student journal pgs, click here (free and in a pdf).

Monday: Set up science journals. The label shown above will be pasted into their notebook as a divider for our first unit of study. Complete the "Mice" assessment probe to see what students already think about how traits show up in organisms.

After students think about their own explanations, we will use the explanations above to make a bar graph for how they think offspring's fur color is decided. (This assessment probe comes from Page Keeley, Uncovering Student Ideas in Science).

Use 1st page of heredity video to explain heredity.

Tuesday: Fingerprints Lab (found this gem linked for free online)

Wednesday: Observing Human Traits Lab (free from Tamra Young on TPT); explain dominant and recessive traits and draw conclusions about what traits are dominant/recessive for humans based on classroom data)

Thursday: Complete active sort around the room for Inherited vs Acquired traits and make flipbook (free materials from Jennifer Findley)

Friday: Learn about Punnett Squares with Leprechaun Genetics (free from Making it Teacher

on TPT)
Other Resources that might be thrown in w/ extra time: 
Unit Outline from Moore County (includes a smartboard file to guide the mini-unit)
Peas in a Pod (Mendelian Genetics) online freebie; Questions to go along with the reading selection included (I made these last year)
Heredity (from Brainpop)
DNA (from Brainpop)
Animated Videos that explain DNA, genes, chromosomes, protein, heredity, and traits

Math:
This week in math, I will be getting to know my students better as mathematicians. I'm using some of the journal prompts/explorations from my Math Explorations that focuses on factors. (Not only will we learn about decomposing numbers, but students will be forced to use their multiplication facts). Since my Math Explorations are aligned with the mathematical practices, I thought it would be a good way to introduce concepts like communicating in math, perseverance, using multiple methods for showing work, using different strategies, etc. We are also going to continue working on our Summer Slide questions, which we started on Friday. 
Given time, I will also begin to introduce some of our math stations. For math stations, my team decided that we would have 4 stations this year, MATH SUPERSTARS, CONCEPT FOCUS, ALGEBRAIC, and something computer-based like Moby Max. 

 Morning Meeting:

 We are going to focus on perseverance all week. We have a county-wide assessment that is designed with all tasks focusing on perseverance, so this fits in nicely with morning meeting. The kiddos may not even realize they are being assessed.
Finish Strong
Erik Weihenmayer on Oprah (start at 1:21)


Hope you enjoyed peeking at my week! Tune in tomorrow for my reading/writing minilesson ideas for the week.

Peek at My Week~Back to School Tomorrow!!

It's finally time! 

Here's a peek at my upcoming week! 

 

Farley’s Currently for the Classroom for JULY (I plan to use Currently every month this year! These will be great assignments to post in the hallway and I think Kiddos will love to see what was happening for them month to month.

  

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have fallen in love with morning meeting. Last year, I tried to squeeze it in from 8-8:15, but this year, I want to give it more time on the schedule, so I have blocked off 8-8:25. I have also begun working on a "Year's Worth of Morning Meeting Themes and Ideas" so that teachers can have a morning meeting resource ready for the whole year. This is going to take a little while to complete, but what you see above are the themes I am introducing this week. Basically, I want to have a quote, key words w/ definitions, read alouds, and videos/modern songs to match each morning meeting theme. In the future, we will focus on one theme for a week, however, I plan to introduce 5 important "beginning of the year" themes this week and spiral back to them in following weeks. I hope to get to belonging, kindness, perseverance, and legacy during this week's morning meetings.

Here's a peak at my morning meeting bulletin/display boards. I love the clothespins because I can just take down an old theme and put a new one up. (I also plan to have a display board in the room of past themes so that they stay on our minds). By the end of the week, we will definitely have identified a few classroom goals.

In addition to focusing on a theme per week, students will also have "Morning Meeting" journals this year. This will hold their reflections on the quotes we talk about and reflections on their personal goal setting. Who knows what else will end up in these notebooks--I'm sure we will have some classroom issues that need to be solved, so our brainstorms will also go in these notebooks. Basically, morning meeting is a therapeutic time to focus on being better human beings. I CAN'T WAIT to start our mornings like this! This week I will introduce each theme with a read aloud:

Launching Reader's Workshop Plans:

The goals for reader's workshop are simple this week. We won't have a ton of time to launch the full workshop with independent reading, but we will:

-learn about ourselves as readers (and share that with the teacher)

-discuss how to have our best reading life ever

-learn how to use our classroom library by understanding how it is organized

-set up our book bins with books that we are interested in reading

-set up our reader's workshop journals

-identify a book that is an "old favorite" and a book that we abandoned or struggled to read last year (won't this assignment give you sooo much info about your readers?) These books will be important in two future lessons I plan to do

-leave school with a "just right" book

-learn to set ambitious goals for our daily reading lives

Monday: Quick review of what it means for a book to be "just right;" explore classroom library and discuss how it is organized (maybe split class in half to work with two small groups and then come together to discuss these topics)

Tuesday: Read Alouds Aunt Chip; "I read Because sheet"; discuss ideal reading space and encourage students to create this space at home tonight

Wednesday: Aunt Chip; T-Chart: Reading is the best for me when/I don't enjoy reading when

Thursday: That Book Woman- How to Choose a Just Right book, finding books we love

Friday: Richard Wright and the Library Card (reading is a gift; people in the past have had to fight hard to receive this gift)

After lunch, we have a 20 minute block before we go to specials. I plan to do the following "fun" read alouds during this time.

When the kids return from specials, we are going to spend a lot of time on our first chapter book read aloud: Wonder by RJ Palacio. And, then we are going to organize all of our notebooks and materials.

Math and Writing will be my two subject areas that take a little while to get started. At some point, we will cover/decorate our writers notebooks and do at least a few journals/lists of writing ideas/etc. In math, I will definitely do some multiplication facts games to see who needs to study more and perhaps we will do something with our Common Core Math Mathematical practices, which we call norms.

It is a BUSY week for sure!! Are you exhausted yet? If you are still on break, lucky ducks! Although, I am pretty excited to get back into the swing of things and to enjoy this first week of school excitement!

Peek at My Week (this week and last!)

Hello all,
I missed Peek at My Week last week. I had all intentions of getting things shared before the week was up but I spent a lot of time on my Thinking through Reading Tests product and even revised it a little the day after I originally posted it.

If you missed my lessons on sorting question types, check it out. It's three days at least of meaningful test-prep plans with strategies that kids can use forever for all reading-type tests and even for open-ended questions. Heck, I think I will teach my QAR lessons from the beginning of the year next year.

I even had time last week to finish up a new product, Multiplying and Dividing with Decimals Task Cards. These questions are exactly like my Multiplying and Dividing Fractions task cards with the house plans theme, but the kids won't really care, will they? I teach those concepts so far apart, it will be nice for them to see the connections between decimals and fractions with these questions.

What did we do last week? You know, we worked on a lot of questions from released packets in math and used our questioning strategies on a passage a day during reading.

In science, we learned about Gregor Mendel and genetics. I had some good freebie resources I wanted to share with you in case you teach that too.
Peas in a Pod: Mendelian Genetics from Mensa for Kids. It looks like they have A LOT of other good resources that fit my science curriculum, so I will definitely be checking them out for more stuff later.
I made questions to go with the first two lessons from the Mensa for Kids Genetics lessons. You can grab it from my google docs to use with your students.

Finally, peek at my week, visually!
Morning Meeting:
Inspiring Kindness Video (song in video is GREAT!)

Hope you enjoyed peeking at my two weeks. What do you have going on?

~~Peek at My Week: Lots of Science! and Test Talk~~

It's a busy week. Unlike last week, I might actually get to teach all day long, every day this week! (Except we have our DARE ceremony on Friday.) Otherwise, this week is perfectly intact, which means I should be getting my plans together!

Here's what we have on the agenda this week:

Reading EOG: Test Talk Time! We are starting this week with our Reading EOG prep. This is really a review since I had my babies last year and know what they are capable of. I am proud to say that we only have 4 weeks until testing. I am not stressed and neither should they be. But, we are going to turn our attention to making sure we remember to do what we know how to do. I created the following format/board for our EOG Minilessons. Basically, I want to take what students already know how to do, discuss why they use this strategy/skill with their own reading choices and then why it will be important and helpful on the EOG. The green/yellow signs are a few strategies that I remembered right off. My students have already reminded me of others that I have taught them. I will add those to the board later this week. (I may upload this set to TPT later this week, I'm just not sure it's ready yet!)

 

 

 To review for the science EOG, we are using:

Science Links: 
Matter: Properties and Change Vocabulary Mats
Matter: Properties and Change Vocabulary Activity Pack
Force and Motion Illustrated Dictionaries
Ecosystems Vocabulary Mats
Ecosystems Vocabulary Activity Pack
Weather Vocabulary Mats

I will be using these during my science block, some for morning work, and during some of our word study blocks. Students will also be able to take their vocabulary mats home to study their science vocabulary words. (Those words are make-it-or-break-it for the Science EOG!)

For more science products, click here.

Math Links:
Multiplying/Dividing Fractions
Add/Subtract with Unlike Denominators

Video Links:
A Child With Blindness (for morning meeting)
Check out Cafe Mom Studios for more videos like this (I am going to start using them during morning meeting to teach more about diversity, accepting others, compassion, overcoming our own obstacles, etc.)
Head over to Mrs. Wills for a Peek at everyone's Week. If you are a blogger, you should really start linking up with this linky. I LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE it! :)

And a teaser for tomorrow's Minilesson Magic (it's set to go live at 6 am so catch it!): Learn about Writing Riddles for Mini Research! :)

~This Week is Jacked Up! Peek @ My Week~

Good Morning Everyone,

I feel like singing "It's 3AM, I must be lonely," but I woke up at 4 am and now it's after 5. And, I'm not lonely :) I am working on writing down my plans for the week because this weekend was not about planning and....this week is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO
                                                                            JACKED
                                                                                           UP!

Ever have one of those weeks where your head is spinning from all of the interruptions? Well, this is one of those weeks where I have to write all of that down first and then fill in some holes with the stuff we need to get done.

Since my week is so crazy...(disclaimer: I hope my use of 'Jacked Up' does not offend you. It is a special phrase in my classroom that I am afraid I have taught to all of my students. When they come in and tell me a messed up story, something's not fair, etc. I say, "That is jacked up." Or, when the room is a mess, "This room is jacked up. Please help us get it back together." Wow. What a window into my classroom :)

Here's my list of INSANITY (but it is going to be a fun "insane" week!)
* Monday: Science Fun for Everyone (a day long in-house field trip of 3 science sessions)-If you are in NC, this company is out of Cary. It is super in-expensive. (If you are year-round, you can lock in cheaper prices before August, which is what we did this year!) We invite these guys over twice a year so that students get hands-on science with all of our curricular units. And, since 5th grade science is tested, this is an amazing way to reinforce our concepts.

* Tuesday: Middle School Transition meetings (for students with an IEP). I will be IN and OUT of the classroom! And, HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO my kids are still 5th graders, can we please friggin' stop talking about middle school and let me enjoy the end of the year pretending the best class in the world is not going to be leaving me---oh--so--soon? We are also starting our GRADE LEVEL SCIENCE REVIEW rotations and since our week is jacked up, you will see these all over the place instead of during our regular science block. We have each taken a unit to review (or do new experiences/activities, etc) with the kids. We will aim for 3 days of review a week and then two days in our own classrooms to reinforce those concepts and look at test questions. This also means that we get to teach the 3 day rotation 4 times instead of trying to put together all of the review for all of the units ourselves.
* Wednesday: Early Release~students leave at 11:20. I basically break the day into 8-9, 9-10, 10-11 and we get a lot done, but oh, wait....we also have our Scholastic Book Fair time on Wednesday.
* Thursday: Think you are going to get some normalcy here? Nice try! I have an ELA leadership meeting. We work on things like our AH~mazing open-ended reading assessments, talk about tweaks that need to be made for next year. This means SLEEPING IN~a little :) and being FINISHED EARLY as we should be done at 3ish, and I never-eVer-evaH leave school at 3. What-what!  If only I didn't have to make subplans...
* Friday: A REALLY NORMAL DAY, freaking finally. I say we just have a party. Well, we do have our last DARE session on Friday. Which means, I get to hang out in the room and clean, check work, go to the bathroom, etc. like a little bit of extra planning time. On a Friday? Really? :)

I'm sure I have forgot something...I don't even suggest clicking on my plans this week! Unless you want to laugh with me. Nothing is in the right place, everything is moved around, and I'm going to have to take it one day at a time this week.I pretty much feel like I am on vacation from planning. :) I'm sure that will change this afternoon when the science fun is over and I have to make sure I'm ready for Tuesday.

It's going to be a picture-taking kind of day! I'll post some of our science fun for your viewing pleasure later this week! Have a great week everyone!

Peek at My Week: Math Review, Human Body, Force and Motion

I'm linking up again for a Peek at My Week with  Deedee.

If you already checked out my plans for last week, I have updated them and moved things around to represent what we actually did. (You will notice I made changes with the Human Body Systems lessons and included links for the videos I used during reader's workshop to help students understand the body systems before they researched through reading. I also included what we discussed for morning meeting--this cannot always be planned the week before. Often, our topic comes from what we did the day before).This will probably be an obsession of mine--updating my posts to show my actual plans versus my projected plans. :) There's just never enough time for me to get ahead!

 

Weblinks:
Ms. Nelson is Missing Video (by Kindergartners found on Deedee's blog)--Too Stinking Cute not to use for Morning Meeting!)
Good Information for the confusing parts of Force and Motion (velocity, speed, and motion)

DPI Released Items for Math EOG

Bumper Car Physics
Roller Coasters: Build Your Own


Links to Products I am using this week:
Character Traits Definitions/Bulletin Board Posters

Force and Motion Illustrated Dictionary (Tarheelstate Teacher)

Bowling Ball Basics (FREE from Mrs. Kaiser, another NC teacher)
Math Common Core Assessments (Jennifer Findley)
Math Common Core Test Prep Helper (Jennifer Findley)

Cupcake Shoppe Multiply/Divide Fractions Problems (Tarheelstate Teacher)











Multiplying and Dividing Fractions with Area (House Plan Theme) (Tarheelstate Teacher)

Have a great week! I hope to get time to share something else this week too, even if it is just a photo dump! :)

Peek at My Week: Show me the Plans!!!

Hi Everyone!

Spring break, now over. I nearly laid in the bed all day (well, until 11:30). Then did some blog-stalking-pretending-I-was-planning-procrastinating. I watched an episode of undercover boss and cried when the boss gave a kid a full-ride to college so that he wouldn't have to work and go to school at night. Wow! If only everyone felt as grateful as this kid to be getting his education paid for. As happy as he was, I cried because I knew he was getting an opportunity for higher education that he wouldn't have otherwise. {Did you know I'm a softy?} I finally talked myself into a run-jog, walk-around-and-look-at-the-birds around 5. Now I sit here needing a shower, needing to pack my lunch, needing to pick out tomorrow's outfit, and needing to finalize my plans for the week so that I can link up with Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten blog for her AWESOME Peek at My Week linky.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited about our upcoming quarter, but I always get a little paper-bag hyperventilating when it feels like we are starting so many new things at once. I know I will be fine by Tuesday, and seriously, I am planned-and-ready for tomorrow, so calm down!

If you take a close look at my plan...you.will.find.some.holes. Seriously, I am a 3-day planner. I want to see how things go and then re-organize. I have some ideas in my mind (usually) but I wait to make final decisions on what comes next based on what my kiddies do. So, don't-judge, please :)

If you click on the images above, it will take you to a google doc where you can click on the hyperlinked plans. (Can't figure out why the google doc does not allow you to click on hyperlinks, but if you download, you can get them that way).

I made these plans in word and converted them to a PDF. Then, I watched Deedee's video about how she makes her visual lessons and she does it in powerpoint. You know I love to make stuff in powerpoint over word but I thought word would be easier for these lesson plans...I might be converting over to powerpoint next week! If you haven't hopped over to see Deedee, you definitely want to check out her blog and the other bloggers that are giving a "Peek" at their week.