Graduation Gifts

Have you ever noticed that picture frames LIE? When a frame says it holds a 5x7 picture, what it usually means is, "I'm sure you didn't really want to remember the stuff around the edges! If it was really important, you should have gotten a bigger frame!" This has recently been an issue while preparing for the 8th grade graduation.

The 8th graders graduating is a big deal at St. Mary School. We really want them to know that we will miss them next year! The 7th graders play a big part in helping us send them off to high school on a good note. As the 7th grade advisor, I have been busy helping my students plan the banquet. I spent some time at the Dollar Tree looking for decorations on Sunday. I found some graduation picture frames to use for the place settings at the banquet. Inside the frames, I put a word cloud I made at Tagul.com. The seventh graders helped by going around to various students and staff at St. Mary's and asking for adjectives to describe the 8th graders. I told them to write down every adjective, even repeats. the cool thing about Tagul is the more a word is used, the bigger it appears in the cloud. 

I typed the adjectives (and some nouns) into a word document. So the names would be the biggest words in the cloud, I typed the student's name three times. Then copied and pasted the list into the tag source at Tagul. Then I made the colors as close as possible to the class colors the students had picked (tropical blue and tropical green). Finally, I saved the files on my computer so they could be printed, which brings me back to my earlier point. 

The first time I printed the clouds, I made them 5x7 because the frames were 5x7 frames. BIG MISTAKE. The edges of the cloud were cut off! I also didn't have the box checked for the picture to fit in the frame. Anyway, when I printed them as 4x6 prints, they worked perfectly!

Monster Instructions

I mentioned in my post about dump salad that the fifth and sixth graders are preparing to give demonstrations.Their topics cover a wide range of activities. For example, two students are demonstrating how to show animals at the fair - one will demonstrate sheep, and one swine. Another student is teaching us a dance move. A few students are teaching us how to draw.

As they are preparing their presentations, they have certain forms to fill out. The first form had them write their topic, what they knew, what they need to know, the materials they need, and the steps to complete the task. The second form asked them to write out the steps more specifically. 

This threw them for a loop! They had just written the steps - why would they have to write them again? The first person to turn in their second form had copied the steps from the first form verbatim. He was flabbergasted when I handed the paper back to him.

One of my drawers had written, "Draw two wheels" for step number one. I dramatically went to the board and drew two wheels in the middle of the board. As it turns out, the front wheel should be smaller than the back wheel! This opened their eyes a little more, but they were still confused. After seeing more forms like the first, I knew I hadn't explained it well enough. 

I figured I better do something to make them understand how specific their instructions should be. The next day, instead of working on our projects, I had an activity for them to do. I gave the students scrap sheets of paper and then asked them to draw a SIMPLE monster that anyone in the class could draw. That was tough, we have some artists in that class! 

I gave them five minutes to draw the monster. It was so nice out, I told them if they were working quietly at this time, we could do the rest of the activity outside. They have never been so quiet (it was a REALLY nice day!) 

Towards the end of the five minutes, I assigned each student a number. There were two ones, two twos, etc. Then we lined up in pairs to go outside. Each pair had a clipboard and more scrap paper. I told the students to spread out and guide their partner through replicating the monster WITHOUT showing the monster. 

After one person was finished describing, the partners switched roles. We learned a LOT! Hopefully now they understand why they have to fill out the second form. I told them to write "ORG" on the original drawing. However, if you can't see it, for the most part, the original drawing is on the left, and the replica is on the right. 

Dump Salad

You know how you're not supposed to show up at a party empty handed? Well, what happens if you have a last minute invitation and are in a pinch to make something? The solution? DUMP SALAD! I'm pretty sure this was the first thing I was able to make by myself. It is so good, especially when it is cold, and there are only four ingredients! Therefore, when I needed a sample demonstration for my 5th and 6th graders, I fell back on this gem! One of my students did the photography. 

All you need is cottage cheese, whipped topping, crushed pineapple, and Jello (any flavor will do... my favorite is Strawberry. My students decided they wanted to try grape, orange and blue raspberry.) 

draining the pineapple

The first thing you need to do is drain the pineapple juice into a cup. Go ahead and drink, chill, or toss the juice. After you drain the pineapple, you literally DUMP all the ingredients into a bowl. (You have no idea how difficult it was for my students to not bust a gut every time I said 'dump!' Naturally, I said it as often as I could!) 

Dumping the Cottage Cheese 

Dumping the Pineapple

 And then you stir. (I actually stirred the salad after I added each ingredient.) I don't suppose the order of ingredients matters, but I like to start with the whipped topping, followed by the cottage cheese. I stir these two together really well. Then I add the pineapple and give it another stir. 

Finally, I add the dry Jello mix. I had a picture of this step, but my students felt it looked morbid... so I decided not to use it. Don't let that stop you from enjoying this end product! :) 

Dump Salad
Ingredients:
Cottage Cheese (8 oz) 
Whipped topping
Crushed pineapple
Jello Mix (the smallest size, any flavor) 

Directions: 
Dump all ingredients into a bowl and stir. 

***It tastes best when it has been chilled. 
***You can try substituting mandarin oranges for the crushed pineapple. 

Adjective questions

Back again with more adjectives. Today the third and fourth graders discussed the questions that adjectives answer: What kind? How many? Which one? 









Each student got a worksheet and we went over some examples. Then I handed out the activity sheet. On the sheet, there were sets of nouns with adjectives. Together we found and circled some of the adjectives on the sheet. The students did the rest independently. Then each student took out his or her handy-dandy scissors and cut out the word pairs and glued them under the question the adjective answered. It was interesting that by the end of the activity I heard them thinking out loud to themselves, "What kind of group? How many groups? Which group?" The wheels were turning, and they did a great job! Here's a finished product! 

Adjectives for Mom and Dad

Over the weekend I went up to visit my parents in Brillion, WI. They were working hard replacing the roof on the house. I was on babysitting duty reading TONKA books until my lips bled (best dollar I spent at a rummage sale EVER!) My mom was lamenting on this windy, rainy day for two reasons. First, this is not the ideal weather for roofing a house. Second, according to her, "Mother's Day is always yucky weather!!" She said that fathers get a day in June that is always nice, so it isn't fair. 

My aunt countered with, "But we always got the nice school-made gifts, while the kids were out of school before Father's Day." 

I'm not going to get into the rest of the discussion, but it did go on from there. 

Which brings me to the project the 3rd and 4th grade English class has been working on. We are studying some of my very favorite words: adjectives! I always felt bad about the lack of Father's Day gifts, so I try to do a little something for the dads. This year I found two very similar projects. Through Pinterest, I found the blog Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives, which brought me to A Cupcake for the Teacher's Teachers Pay Teachers Store. Now, if I was a kindergarten teacher, I would have purchased these in a heartbeat to use in the classroom. It has the adjectives ready to print as well as the written sayings. There is a Donut for Dad and To Mom with a Cherry on Top. However, I wanted the students to generate their own adjectives and write it out themselves.  The results were quite fetching if I do say so myself! 

I started off by having them make a list of adjectives to describe their moms in their journals. After about seven minutes, I had them make a list of adjectives to describe their dads. Now, it was pretty tough for some of them to ONLY think of adjectives because when you ask a child to describe their parents, the first word that comes to their head is usually an occupation. I let them use some nouns. I mean, if you want to say your dad's a farmer, what adjective do you use to describe that? I did tell them to think of adjectives that someone would need in order to do their job, which helped a little! 

One of the fourth graders noticed the "I am..." poems still displayed in the back of the room and recognized the adjectives. She got a lot of ideas! For the ones that were really struggling, I brought the group together and we all listed some adjectives together. They could write down anything they thought would work as we brainstormed together. 

I asked the students for their mom's favorite color besides red or brown. They were okay with not being able to choose brown, but the fact that red was off the table was nerve-racking for some of them. In the end, they did all make a decision for the ice cream. I made tracers for the ice cream scoop and the cherry. They shared them in their groups. While one person was tracing, the rest of the group was writing "I love you with a cherry on top!" on white-triangles. They wrote in pencil and then covered the writing in permanent marker. Then they could work on their adjectives. I had made white strips of paper which they could write multiple adjectives on a strip and cut between. After I checked their adjective spelling, they were able to go over the  pencil marks with colored marker. Each group needed to share a pack of markers as well. This worked fairly well because each student was working independently and together at the same time! There were enough things for the students to do that didn't have to sit and wait around for someone else to finish. Because they were finished on Friday, they were sent home right away. As a result, I don't have student examples for the ice cream cones. 

I had tracers for the donuts, which the student cut out of brown paper. This time, I asked for Dad's favorite color. Some of the students were stumped. I asked them what color Dad wears most often... their answer... BLUE jeans! There were a lot of default blues, a couple John Deere Greens and one International Red. Not everyone is finished with this project. 

Tomorrow, for the ones who are finished, I will  put them into groups to play Slapples to Slapples, a school-friendly version of Apples to Apples. I thought I found it on Teachers pay Teachers, however, I can't find the same thing again. It was free when I got it! The kids LOVE it, and they are practicing with adjectives at the same time! I did find this which I think is just an updated version of the game. It costs money, but I think it would be worth it! I will have to print the cards out on card stock so they last longer. 

I am...

As I said in an earlier post, the fifth and sixth graders have been writing poetry. Each student was issued a poetry journal (a large sheet of construction paper folded in half with 10 pieces of lined loose-leaf paper stapled inside). 

Because St. Mary's School turned 100 this year, we had a wonderful celebration. I wanted to have some student work on display, so I decided to have the fifth and sixth graders publish one of their poems. I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect! The pin took me to a  wonderful blog called Runde's Room.  The backgrounds for these poems were made in their art class with their art teacher.

They started out by using pencil to draw curved lines on a piece of thick paper. Then they filled in the lines they made with paint. Her focus was for them to mix and blend colors. 

After painting in art class, they came to English class. In their poetry journals, the students made a list of adjectives - as many as they could think of. Next, they needed to rank their adjectives in order of significance. 

Once the paintings were dry and flattened, the students took Sharpie markers and drew over the lines between colors. You can see on some of the finished products that some of the lines between colors were difficult to find because of the blended colors. I actually really liked that effect! Next I had the students write their adjectives on the lines. I told them the top of the letters should reach from the top to the bottom of the space, and that the most significant adjectives should have the biggest letters. I also encouraged them to use fancy writing to improve the aesthetics of the piece. I told them to write the top ranked adjectives first so that they would fit the most important ones on the poem.
 
Some of the students realized right away that they should write the words in pencil before they went over the words in Sharpie. If I do this project again (which I definitely think I will), I will make that a requirement. It also would have been nice to have a way to allow the students to create a rough draft. Then if the students were not following directions, I would have been able to redirect them more easily. As you know, Sharpies are called permanent markers for a reason!

I Wish...

My example

 Today the third and fourth graders finished a week-long project! You can see my example to the right.  The silhouette is a student's because, let's face it, they're cuter than me. The wishes, however, are mine! This project is a conglomerate of multiple posts I found on Pinterest. I saw this picture of a student with puffy cheeks blowing on a dandelion with the "I Wish" poem underneath. Then I saw a blog post by That Artist Woman, and I loved the idea of using the watercolors and having a silhouette instead of an actual picture.

The first day we tackled was the background. I had forty-ish minutes to get every student to have a water-colored background without any white spots. I had them work in pairs to share the paint, and they did a great job of keeping each other in check! My vision would be that it looks like the sunset in the background. It takes a lot of newspaper because the students needed to use quite a bit of water in order to get both light and dark colors in their paintings. I would highly suggest not forgetting to have them write their names on the back of the white paper before you start. I had to make a mad dash around the room while they were painting to write their initials in the top corner. (Thankfully they all started on the bottom!) When they finished the painting, I had them carefully carry their paintings to the back room to dry. You would not believe how carefully they carried them!

I have a prep period after their class, so toward the end of the period, I wet a brush and dripped over the drying paintings. This is what created the drip effect.










The next day, I had them write a journal in a list format with the words "I wish..." I told them to make sure the things they wish for would make the world a better place (For example... as much as they wish for an X-box, having an X-box will not make the world a better place.) Because it was right around Earth Day, the students had all kinds of ideas for cleaning the environment, and most of their wishes had to do with that. I had them brainstorm in their journals for seven minutes. I also told them each bullet point should sound like a sentence if it had "I wish" in front of it. At the end of seven minutes, I asked them to circle three wishes they would like to use for their project. This way I could edit them that night. Then we attacked the dandelion puffs.

Making the dandelions was the WORST part of this project. It is very difficult to show a room full of kids how to make a puffball when you aren't standing right next to each of them. Also, I had them us wrap the yarn loosely around their three middle fingers instead of pieces of cardboard...Something that seemed so simple in my head became quite the nightmare in reality.




Also that morning I had duty outside before school. As the 3rd and 4th graders arrived at school, I took their picture sideways against the brick wall. I know what you're thinking, "Wait a minute, there's no picture in these final projects!" Well, you're right! I was very stressed out about how I was going to  find the time to get all of their silhouettes traced and still find something for others to do. My wonderful principal gave me the idea to take their picture -- but that is for another day of the project!

I wanted the I Wish poems to be on unlined paper, which is quite a bit to ask of 3rd and 4th graders, but they were troopers! I actually gave them index cards to put the poems on. Because there is a lined side, they used the lined side as a guide for writing on the unlined side. They wrote the wishes in pencil on the card, and then wrote over them with permanent marker. It is amazing how much I take for granted being able to go over my pencil writing with a permanent marker. This was a difficult task for some of the students.


Now for the silhouettes. As I said before, I took their pictures sideways against the brick building. As one of my students pointed out, "It's kind of like the sideways mug shot!" Your guess is as good as mine... I told them to pretend they were blowing on a dandelion and making a wish. After I took their pictures, I cropped them so that each head took up most of the picture. I printed them out on regular copy paper. The program I use allows me to choose a size, so I made them 5"x7".  

We taped the picture to a piece of black paper (only using one piece of tape so it could easily be removed). Each student then cut around their picture going through both the black paper and the copy paper. I told them to make sure they get right up to themselves so they would easily show up. It turned out to be a pretty great way to get a silhouette for each child in a short amount of time! (I printed out two copies of each student just in case someone cut off their nose.) 

All that was left after that was to glue everything together. (I precut the black background paper for the wishes.)