5th Graders.

Sorry for my little blog break... my little guys took the writing SOL here in Virginia today and yesterday. These past few weeks have been a little nutso... encouraging them as writers, while trying to make sure they are as well-prepared as possible. Now it's over... and I am beyond proud of them.

Anyways... (I use that word way too much. Need to expand my vocab.) we are learning about the five kingdoms that scientists classify with... My kiddos were having a bit of a hard time distinguishing between vascular and nonvascular plants... so we did an experiment :)

Celery is a vascular plant... so I wanted to show them how things travel through the plant using the 'veins.' This also helped my kiddos with the independent/dependent variables they struggle with always. Ask me why 10-year-olds should be able to identify the control in an experiment? THEY ARE TEN.

We put the same amount of water in two cups... put food coloring in one cup... and then cut the celery and put one stalk in each cup.

I don't have any idea why this is so grainy... but this is the 'right after we put the celery in' picture.

and this is the 'after two days of sitting in food coloring' picture. SO COOL.

pinterest projects

I did another Pinterest-inspired project this past weekend for my kiddos on Valentine's Day.

I found it on Caffeinated Conclusions, which is one of my favorite teaching blogs!

This is what she made:

And this is my version:

My kids loved it. I just mixed golden grahams, milk chocolate chips, and mini marshmallows. It's addictive ;)

complimentary

The makings of something awesome.

This school year, I've been working on positive reinforcement with my students. I have a personal goal to not punish the students who don't necessarily need to be punished, unless the whole class exhibits bad behavior.

Anyway, one of the ways I'm doing this is by spelling out C-O-M-P-L-I-M-E-N-T every time they get a compliment in the hallway (from someone other than me) when we're 'traveling' or if someone comes in our classroom. They also can earn one letter if the whole class has excellent behavior. When they spell out the whole word, they get a reward. With me, that usually means sweets! (To give credit, one of my co-workers, Heather gave me this idea at the beginning of the year. Thank you!)

I love baking for people. It sincerely gives me joy. I've baked for my fifth graders two or three times this year and they all want me to bake their birthday cakes. I have the sweetest kids.

They FINALLY earned their 'T' on Friday, so tomorrow, they're getting rice krispies treats!

 I am going to be honest; I love rice krispies treats, but I hate making them. It's too messy and too sticky. They put me in a grumpy mood... until I taste them.

Veteran's Day

We had an awesome assembly today at school to honor our veterans. Since we're so close to Quantico, there are a lot of moms and dads in the military. My students also had interviewed veterans in their families and brought in projects. So many of my kids learned new things about their families; it was great to hear.

Anyway- I did zero cooking today... except if oatmeal counts? AND I did help cook an MRE. Yeah, that's right.

One of my student's godparent's came in and brought a few MRE's. The kids had fun eating the cookies and it was cool to learn about chemical reactions (the heating device... I have no idea what it's called). I had a bite of pasta with vegetables... and it was not the best thing I've ever eaten.

Thank you to all  of the veterans who have served our country and continue to serve.