Augmented reality

This has to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  The students color a picture and it magically comes to life with the app called ColAR Mix.  So you go from a picture like this:

To a picture like this: 

The kids can touch the screen and the zebra will move.  Touch different parts of the zebra and it will do different things.  AMAZING!  

Biography Project

My kids have been working for months on their biography projects.  Each one picked a person that has made an impact on our world.  The chosen people range from athletes, to singers, to presidents and scientists and everything in between.  The kids have researched facts on their person and will even dress like that person for their final presentations.   So what better way to showcase their hard work- BACKGROUNDS.  The kids each painted their own mural of sorts for a backdrop for their final presentations, a Living Museum.  Here are some of my favorites.  We found clipart on the internet, traced them on butcher paper and the kids had a blast painting them all.


                                                                     Rosa Parks

Frida Kahlo

Stan Lee

Michael Jordan

Abraham Lincoln

Christmas Around the World

How do you celebrate Christmas?  Do you think people celebrate differently in different parts of the world?  My third and fourth grade students decided to find out.  I found this great foldable activity from Teachers Pay Teachers Holidays Around the World.

All I needed was a few paper bags with the folded end snipped off.  Once folded in half it made a great book with pockets.

 I premade the books for my kids just to save some time.  The kids glued each page on to the book for each of the different countries.  Now it was time for some research.  The kids had their ipads equipped with QR Readers.  Each country had a QR code that once scanned, would take you to the different information about how they celebrated Christmas.  The kids would fill in the blanks from each page as they learned about how that country celebrated Christmas.  Each country was also equipped with an art activity.  These were small and easy but helped the kids remember what each country did to celebrate.  These art activities fit perfectly in the pockets for storage.

How Santa Got His Job

Well, the semester is almost over.  What better way to wind down than to do a few Santa activities.  We read How Santa Got His Job.  We talked about what Santa learned at each job that made him more successful.  The student's jobs right now is to be the best student they can be.  We talked about what we wanted to be when we grow up and what we could do now to help in our success later on.  The kids were encouraged to remember that we attend school to learn how to be a better worker in the future.

We also read Santa's New Suit and completed several of the writing activities included.  

TPT Santa's New Suit.  Their homework was to use their imagination and create a new suit for Santa.  

I think the kids thought the Santa Slime was their favorite though.  I found the recipe on Pinterest.  Here is the recipe we used: Santa Slime Recipe.  I had made oobleck before using white school glue but never with clear glue, or glitter glue.  

Snowmen at Night

What's more fun than watching Frozen? Reading about what snowmen do at night.  Who knew that the reason my snowman was always disheveled every morning is because he was out on the town every night?? Not only does this book have fun pictures of what the snowmen do, but on each page there are several hidden pictures.  My kids were so fascinated by the hidden pictures that I was not allowed to turn the page until we found them all!   

After reading this fun book, I let the kids watch a youtube of a funny snowman trapped in a snowglobe from Pixar.  

Trapped in a Snowglobe Snowman Video

My students also painted fun pictures of what they thought the snowmen did at night only using a Qtip.  I found this idea on pinterest.  

Once we were done, the students created borax snowflakes.  See video here: 

Borax snowflakes

Fun with Flags!

Secret codes, flags, and sailing the seven seas.  What do they have in common you ask?  Well, they are all part of our next lesson on nautical flags.  The kids discovered that sailors used to communicate, before the technology we have today, by using flags.  Some flags were universal and could be understood in any language.  We used the nautical flag alphabet and created a banner with our names. This is the alphabet we used from Design Sponge.

It was helpful to have the squares precut before the kids arrived.  I helped the kids with hard letters like A & B that needed cuts made, and ones with lots of squares like the letter N. 

 

I am UNIQUE!

Three books I love reading with the kids and teaching about individuality are Miss Hunnicutt's Hat by Jeff Brunbeau and Gail deMarcken, Odd Velvet by Mary E. Whitcomb  and Three Hens and a Peacock by Lester Laminack.  Each book is unique but the message is the same.  It is ok to be yourself.  It is ok to be unique and different.  Since my kids are gifted and talented, some of them feel very different compared to their peers.  They think different, they have those quirky GT qualities that makes them so very special.  We talk about how it is ok to be themselves.

Odd Velvet is a strange little girl with unique interests.  When the rest of the girls in her class bring dolls for show and tell, Velvet brings a milkweed plant.  One day at school the kids were having a drawing contest.  Everyone knew that because Velvet only had 8 crayons, she could never win.  But little did they know how very talented Velvet really was.  Velvet also had a vivid imagination.  When Velvet invited everyone from class to her house for her birthday party they pretended to fight dragons, jump over the moat and had a she even taught them how to draw like she did.  Suddenly, Odd Velvet wasn't so odd after all.  

For our activity, the kids were given a folded piece of paper to look like a gift.  We discussed that we have many gifts and talents.  Inside the folded paper, the kids were to draw a picture of themselves and draw four pictures of things they were good at, or their gifts.  

Miss Hunnicutt is also a unique individual that wears a live chicken on her hat.  The town is preparing for the Queen's annual drive from her country cottage to her city castle.  They notice Miss Hunnicutt's hat and are embarrassed!  No one wants her to wear it but Miss Hunnicutt insists. When the Queen  drives by she notices Miss Hunnicutt's hat and stops.  She too has a hat like Miss Hunnicutt but instead of a chicken, she has a turkey!  Because of their similar tastes in fashion, the Queen invites Miss Hunnicutt to her castle for a party.  The other townspeople are jealous and even those that made fun of Miss Hunnicutt have decided to follow her fashion and wear live animals on their heads.  

After reading this book the kids made their own hats and put fun animals on them.  We paraded around the school with them for all to see.  

The last book about uniqueness that we use in my class is Three Hens and a Peacock.  This funny book demonstrates that it is ok to have your own special talents even if they aren't like everyone else.  The Peacock and the Hens learned the hard way when each tried to trade jobs for the day.  For this activity the kids used washable markers on coffee filters.  They colored them completely not to leave any white.  Once they were done I sprayed them with a squirt bottle of water to blend the colors.  Once they dried we added the features of the peacock.

  

The kids used solo cups with hole in the bottom and a string threaded through.  When you wet your fingers and rub them down the string, it makes the sound of a hen.  The kids all laughed the first time they heard the chicken sounds.  

Screaming Chicken Youtube