Weather and Energy Activities

Hello everyone!
My post will be very short this time, I am working on a free product that I would really like to finish today so I can post it tonight or tomorrow :)
We have been working very hard on weather and weather tools... We have been talking about thermometers, wind vanes, windsocks, and rain gauges. As a lab activity, we created thermometers in our classroom.
I started looking up Google and I found the activity HERE
Here are some pictures of how they turned out; my students were very excited and engaged while creating these. We ended up running out of time, so we created a thermometer for each tables group (4 students); However, it turned out to be perfect as a group project. Each student was able to contribute by doing something in this activity. I have some students that are very outspoken, so this activity really helped them to work on heir patience and skills as a team member.

 

 

We also did our best to keep a bar graph with weather; However, with all this testing going on around, we have not been able to finish it and have a complete graph.

 

After our unit of weather, we proceeded to Energy. We started this unit by introducing some vocabulary such as energy, mechanical energy, light energy, heat/thermal energy, and sound energy.

We looked into each source of energy throughout the week.

For sound energy I did a demo on musical scales; you fill each bottle with an amount of water and add food coloring to differentiate one bottle from another. After the demo a played the Magic School Bus episode called "The Haunted museum". I love this episode because it deeply explains that sound is produced by vibration.

 

 

 

For the heat/thermal energy, we baked a "Coffee Mug Cake," HERE is the link that I used. I did this twice. My first group of students used coffee mugs, but after cooking it, we realized most of them were not mixed properly and the mugs were too small for the mix. So for my second group we switched things around. We increased the amount of the recipe so we could use the lab's equipment; we used the Mason Jars (Quart size). These jars really helped my students because they were cleared glass, so they could see the bottom of the jar and make sure it was well mixed. Also, since we increased the amounts in the recipe, we heated the mix in the microwave for 7 to 8 minutes instead of 5 minutes.

 

I found this picture on this website to help me with the jar sizes.


Here are some pictures of my students working in groups. Since last activity was such a success, we did this activity as groups, too. Each of them had a task to do and they worked even better than  last time.

 

 

The weather has not been on our side lately, we have been doing a lot of the "indoor" recess at our school. So we decided to stay in our classroom to eat our cake during recess. The students loved it and were very engaged during this activity.

 

That's all for today, I hope these activities inspired you to try them out in your classroom. I am hoping to post another page tonight or tomorrow with my freebie!

 

Have a great Saturday y'all!

 

 

Arrays, arrays, and arrays!!! PLUS Water Cycle!!!

We did a little bit of multiplication this week....
We have been having unit tests every week, whether for math or science... so I figured the kids needed a little bit of sweetness in their work...
So I picked these two books to review about arrays and talk more about multiplication:

 

 

We worked on some vocabulary words such as arrays, factors, and product. Then we read a little bit of both books, and at the end we added a little bit of fun and sweetness to our work.

 

Students received 12 Hershey Kisses to create different arrays with them, and record their arrays on their math journal. After they recorded the different arrays, I gave them a legal size of black construction paper and a sheet that contained about 25 Hershey Kisses clip art. They were working in partners to create different arrays with the amount given. At the end of the day, I let students take the chocolate home and eat them there :)

Unfortunately, I can't give you my copy because I do not have any permission from whoever did the clipart; HOWEVER, I can tell you that I just looked up on Google "Hershey Kisses coloring" and I found the one I used for this activity.

 

Here are some pictures of what my students created:

On this same week we had some minutes left to do something different.... The idea started when I saw Amy Lemons post about area, you can click HERE to go to her post. However, I used this idea differently, we create robots so we could make arrays.... here are some pictures of what my students did... I think they turned out pretty cute :)

On this same week, we have been learning about the water cycle (more of a review for 3rd graders) and each stage of it (we went in more depth to describe each stage). We created a foldable to write about each stage and we illustrated the water cycle on our journals. As an independent/assessment, students illustrated on a legal size construction paper the water cycle, and labeled each stage. I think they turned out pretty good, and I especially liked the one that had a wave.. :)

This is what we have done in a nutshell :) I am hoping my week will be smother and I will be feeling better to keep posting things.... Thank you to all that keep reading and stopping by my blog :)
I know I have not been very good at posting weekly, but I hope that you understand that even when we try, we can't control our health and that things happen in life :)
I wish you all a engaging and fun rest of a week!!

Tally marks, pictographs, and more graphs!!! :)

I am still alive, I promise!!!!
I am still recuperating from being sick, but this last week has been crazyyyyyy!!! We have been taking our Benchmark tests, WHICH they were a mirror to the STAAR.... ahhhh!!! Anywayssssss.. those were my excuses for not posting for the past two weekends!!
On another note, I would like to start sharing with y'all some of the hard work my students have been doing in class... Three weeks ago we started talking about bar graphs and creating them, here is my blog post http://brincaintobilingualnicolau.blogspot.com/2013/10/oue-busy-week-and-facebook-first-friday.html
These pictures are from two weeks ago (a week after my last post), when we were reviewing bar graphs and starting to compare them with pictographs....

My fantastic team partner gave me this idea... After talking and comparing the two types of bars, students did their own poll... They created their topic, their options so others can vote... Then, they went around the room to ask their classmates and record their answers by creating a tally mark chart... After they finished with the Tally Mark Chart, they proceeded to create their pictograph (including a key), and their bar graph....

   

 

 

 

This week was so much fun and the students did have a great time creating their own graphs. There were very engaged and had a great time working on their own bar graphs...

 

Thank you for stopping by my blog, I will be writing another post for the following week and thing we did!!! :)

 

Our busy week and Facebook First Friday Freebie!! :)

Hello everyone! :)
Well this past week, has definitely been a better than the previous weeks... Except that I got severe allergies (thank you Texas), but I have been able to feel better with medicine and rest. My kitchen floor has also been updated with tiles, so you can imagine the amount of cleaning I had to do after (sign).... Nevertheless, it has been productive and fun in class! So here we go:

1. We have been talking about money and reviewing the value of coins by making a foldable. This is a picture of my journal; however, instead of stickers, you can always use the front and back coin stamps that you can find at teachers stores :)

We also wrote word problems in our journals that included money concepts, so we wrote a list of words that refers to money

 

 

On the same week, we started talking about bar graphs and their scale. I brought three different types of candy for students to eat and to vote for their favorite to create a bar graph with sticky notes. This was our result:

 

 

I was surprised three students liked the Jelly Beans the best, I personally dislike Jelly Beans... like a lot! I only bought them to get to know their taste, and apparently most of them have the same as me ;) They absolutely loveeeeeedd the skittles! I would have bought snickers (because they are my favorite candy of all!), but I couldn't bring them since it has peanuts inside :(

 

Anyways, after finishing our bar graph and talking about strategies on how to represent information on bar graphs, I asked students to get in partners and create their own bar graph using their Chex Mix bag. I simply placed some Chex Mix in a zip lock and pass it over to each partner so they could create a bar graph to represent how many of each type they had in their bag. These are some examples of their hard work, I was so pleased to see their work and see them so engaged on this activity :)

  

We will start reviewing and creating pictographs next week, so stay tuned!

Lastly, I wanted to share with y'all my new Facebook Friday Freebie! I cannot believe we are already in October! So for this moth, I decided making a match game for community helpers. I have a friend who teaches younger students and she gave me the idea :) I created this activity in both English and Spanish, and for those that teach DUAL LANGUAGE Classrooms! This can be useful if you print both English and Spanish word versions and they have to match the community helpers in English with the community helpers in Spanish :)
Click on this LINK to see instructions on how to follow my Facebook and have access to my Facebook Freebies! :)

Have an awesome weekend friends!! I will be grading and writing lesson plans!! :) Wooohoooo ;)

Science: Solid, liquid, and gas... PLACE VALUE

Hello everyone!!!
Yes!! I'm still alive! I am sorry I have not posted anything for the past two and half weeks! I have been SICK, SICK, SICK!!!! For the past weeks, I have NOT been myself at all! I barely made it to work every morning, and coming back home to take all night off. I am not like that at all... I usually workout as soon as I get home and then take about one or two hours to do some work... Well, that has not happening... I am not sure what it was, but I know that I feel better now. At least, better to start working from home and do extra things after school.

Therefore, I decided to have a SALE on my store until Wednesday!! Enjoy 20% off on all my products! To go to my TPT store, click on the top right icon of this page.

Anyways, here is a little summary of what we have been working on for this past unit in Science:

We started to have a weekly lab day in my school, so we have been able to do lots of different experiments... We have done Oobleck (I obtained the recipe from a mailbox book, but you can always look on Pinterest) and Soda bombs! :)
Click HERE for a FREE copy of this recording sheet :) (first page of document)

I found the perfect way to do easy soda bombs!!! We talked about soda being a liquid and combining it with Mentos (which are solid) will create a chemical reaction by producing gas, making this gas exploding from the bottle. My students had so much fun doing this as an experiment. I got the idea  from the following blog: PANCAKES AND FRENCH FRIES

We have also created a tri-foldable to show the different states of matter and how the particles/molecules of each state looks like. Click on MY PINTEREST to see where I got the idea from :)





Moreover, we did some sorting activity on our Science journals to classify matter in solid, liquid, and gas. Click HERE to take your to the FREE copy :) (second page of document)

Last, but not least... I finally finished my unit on Place Value. This was supposed to be done earlier, but as you understand, I have not been as healthy as I wanted to be in order to finish this on time. Nevertheless, I hope you find this unit useful for your class. I will be working on a multiplication unit for the next few weeks and some Math centers! So stay tuned :)
To see my unit on my TPT, click HERE
Here is a little peek of my new unit:

That's it for me today... I hope you have an amazing week.. I will be reporting myself on Friday with new pictures and activities :)

FREEBIE - Free Homework Passes

Hi everyone! :)
I have to admit that this week has been rough y'all... I am barely dragging out of bed and half asleep as I am getting ready dress and having breakfast :( Have been feeling like me?
On the other hand, my kids have been so great and doing their best at school so that's been a relieve... However, I've been told that we are still on the "honeymoon" stage ;)

This week, we have been working about all numbers... place value, number line, comparing numbers, ordering numbers, etc. I am currently working on Math centers so I can get to start using them towards the end of this week :) So if you are looking for some great Math centers, stay tuned!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show at this time, but I promise I'll be posting some very soon!

This post will be very short, so I apologize for not being able to blog more about my week. However, I didn't want to skip this week and skip my new FREEBIE :)

I created this Free Homework Passes for this year :) I know they are not monkeys or safari with animal prints, but the super Rock Stars characters have animal prints on their outfits (so that counts), PLUS they go better with the title :)
If I change my theme next year, I am planning on creating more so it can match my classroom theme :)
Click on the Front cover of my Freebie OR click HERE to take you to my TPT :)

Thank you for stopping by my blog and I hope my Free Homework Passes will be a good addition to your classroom theme this year :)

As always, have a great and restful weekend!