Smart Chick Teacher's Blog

At this time of distance learning across the country, I have been looking for ways to connect with my students, and one of my favorites is through writing and mailing them notes each week.  They really look forward to getting a weekly note, and I have discovered that you can send unusual things through the mail!

This week I sent them cards with a small growing creature tucked inside.  You can grab the growing creatures cheaply on Amazon or on the Oriental Trading Company site.  I also got a set of 200 cards and envelopes in bright colors on Amazon.  They just have to place the creature into a cup of cold water for 5 days.  I encouraged them to change the water each day.  At the end of 5 days, they can send me the results through a text message picture or even a flipgrid video!  Filpgrid is amazing!  Check it out if you have not already!

I found a read aloud of the picture book, It Came in the Mail, by B. Clanton.  It is an adorable book.

The character  in the book gets unusual things in the mail.  I am sending my own students something unusual next week!  I found some foam door signs from the Dollar Tree in one of my teacher tubs of rewards in my basement.  I’m going to mail one to each student!

I have a writing pack to go along with this book in my TPT store, too!  Click here to buy it!

What are you doing to connect with your own students during this time of distance learning?  Share ideas in the comments!  The first five commenters will get this pack for FREE!

Teaching is tough!  I am always looking for ways to boost the morale of my colleagues!  Over the years I have made several of these types of freebies.

You’ve Been Mugged!

You’ve Been Penned!

You’ve Been Stickered!

You’ve Been Slimed!  (My newest version!)

Choose a version that will work with your staff and get your colleagues smiling today!

I love shark week!  Each year I try to post a freebie in my store for sharks!  This year I am posting some shark bookmarks.  There are three different versions of the bookmarks to choose from for your students.  This file also has a set of blank bookmarks that can be used for any topic!

Click here to grab this shark freebie!

We are the GATORS at my school!  I made this freebie poster set to hang in my classroom!  Click here for the free download!

Now includes posters for BEARS, EAGLES, HAWKS, TIGERS, SHARKS, and WILDCATS!

Our school mascot is the alligator, so I am starting the year with a couple days of lessons surrounding the alligator!  Our classroom already has a frog theme this year, so I am thinking the alligator stuff will fit in perfectly!

We are going to start with an Alligator Escape Room activity.  I am hoping that it gets the table groups working together, communicating, listening, and learning where stuff is in our classroom.   Click here to purchase the Alligator Escape Room pack!

The escape room should take the students much of the morning time to finish.  It includes a reading paragraph, some math, a video to watch with questions, and two fun STEM challenges!  Students get a sheet to complete as they are going through the Escape Room!  When they finish, I got plastic alligators to give each student!  I grabbed these alligators on Amazon, click here for the link.

We are also going to read the picture book If you Ever Want to Bring an Alligator to School, DON’T! by Elise Parsely.  It is such a funny story!  Click here for the book link!

We are going to use this picture book as a mentor text and we are going to write our own funny stories using cause and effect (got to get started on those curriculum standards right away)!  Click here to purchase this writing pack!

 

We are also going to grow our own alligators!  This science lab is just AMAZING to students because the allgiators get SO big!  We start school on a Thursday, so by Monday these gators will be HUGE!  We place one of these in a plastic tub of water.  The kids take some measurements on day 1 and on day 5!  You can sometimes find these at the Dollar Tree.   Click here for the link to the growing toy!

The students will each have their own smaller alligator to grow!  You can also do one per group!  These can be purchased at Educational Innovations.  Click here for the link.  We use this pack for our smaller growing alligators.  Click here to purchase the Growing Gators pack!

 

What are you going to do during your first few days at school?

Kids absolutely love learning about bats!  We had a great time writing and doing science activities with bats!  The kids favorite part…THE BAT CAVE!

This was really easy (and cheap) to make!  Just a pack of plastic sheeting from the nearby Home Depot, duct tape, and a box fan!  The kids got to do research and read inside the bat cave.  They also got to teach younger kiddos all about bats while they brought them in the cave.

We also wrote reports on bats!

The kids had to do a lot of research to write these reports!  They learned a lot!

We also read a lot of books and found out a lot of information we did not know!

You can find these activities (and a lot more) in my Bat Pack!  Just click here to purchase the pack!

What animals do your students love to learn about?

We hatch eggs every year in our classroom.  It is such an amazing experience for students to see!  While we are waiting for our chickens to incubate, we do some research on chickens.

These reports are a larger version of the Take-out Container layout.  We used an 18 x 24 sheet of white construction paper to make these.  Students then came up with their own report sections from a list and researched and wrote the information.  They added a picture to the top of each informational strip (or chicken strips as they called them).

They learned a lot and got a lot of writing done!  I love doing creative writing projects, and the kids love them too!

This was one of my kiddos’ favorite STEM challenges this year!  It was so much fun.  We read the book aloud (which is totally hilarious), then we did the STEM challenge.  Kids had to make a pair of paper underwear that fit the stuffed bunny (I found the bunnies on the Oriental Trading Company website).  They had a great time AND it was a really challenging task!  Click here to purchase the STEM pack!

Underwear cracks my kids up!  What things do your students find funny?

I love using picture books in my intermediate classroom!  We read the book Plantzilla by Jerdine Nolan.  It is hysterical!  The kids then had to make their own plantzilla and write a letter to the person who was going to take care of it for a week while they were on vacation.  Here are some of their drawings!

Their letters were so funny!  Click here to purchase this writing pack!

Which picture books do you love to use in your classroom?  I am always looking for more great titles to add to our library!

We have to teach our kiddos about the 10 different energy sources.  It is a tough amount of information to learn!  I decided to make an interactive book with 2 pages for each energy source to help my kids work through this enormous amount of information!

I did not realize how excited my kids would be about all the hard work they put into these books!

I stapled 6 sheets of colored 12 x 18 construction paper that are folded in half to make each book.

Click here for the link to purchase the Energy Sources pages!

Do you have any topics that you would like to see made into this type of book?  Let me know in the comments!

Smart Chick