What will the weather be? (instagram)

That is totally the truth here in Kansas.....today and tomorrow 80....tomorrow night 30, possible snow!! What in the world! Well since the weather is crazzzzy we are taking advantage of it during our weather unit!

We are using some of the activities from Hope's weather unit, which I love! We were talking about meteorologists and weather tools this week. We started off by reading the following book:

We talked about some words that describe a meteorologists and I made this cute anchor chart:

We used this anchor chart to write a little nonfiction piece about meteorologist  My kids are getting pretty goo at this! We have written several whole group and they practice during writing in D5. 

Today we made wind vanes... the kids thought this was the coolest thing! 

Tomorrow we will test them out! Hopefully the wind will be in full force! 

I will also be linking up with Rachelle, Natalie, and Jessica! 

Find me at Kelley Cirrito! 

Happy Tuesday! 

I am Back....MIA for too long!

OMG! I can't believe it has been this long since I have blogged. I have been soo busy! (remember the Cancun trip, Chicago trip, shower, oh and moving to my parents house because we sold our house!!) I can finally breath a little now that all of that is over. I wanted to share a little about the Chicago trip I went on....

The assistant superintendent, the curriculum director of secondary and elementary school, 2 other instructional facilitator, and myself went to an assessment training in Chicago. The point of the training was to teach us about how to create assessments like checklist and rubrics. My favorite part of the training was the deconstructing of the common core standards. Here is a picture of how we deconstruction the standard 2.W.2:

You look for main or big topics then break it down for what you need to teach or do for the students to understand. When we were done it was like we had a complete lesson plan template for teachers follow for this standard. If you would like to know more about this process you can email me at kelleywalsh13@yahoo.com. I was very interesting but very intense. 

We then created an assessment for this writing standard:

The challenge was to use something happening in the real world during that time period. Of course we chose Earth Day! 

Now that I am back in the classroom....I was gone for 7 days, we have been working really hard on fluency! I created this chart thanks to Katie at the Teacher to the Core. 

You color the heart and talk about how fluent the students will be after only reading one time, then you color another color for the second and third read. By the time you are done the students can see that reading several times really helps you be a more fluent reader. My students also really like Leanne's fluency packets!! They are amazing! If you haven't check them out you should!

We also have been talking about severe weather. I love, love, love Hope's weather unit! Here are some pictures of my kids working on their severe weather research!

Our 3rd and 4th grade friends were nice enough to let us borrow a couple of Ipads! We also read the following books about hurricanes and volcano!

I will be back later this week to share our finished research projects and how I was able to plan/stay organized for my sub for 7 days. 

Website Sharing

I don't have too much tonight. Today was a Monday for me since we were off on Monday. This week we are talking about severe weather/natural disasters. I was on google/utube all morning looking for "kid" appropriate videos. Many of the videos out there are a little to graphic and could defintly scare my second graders. After almost giving up I find this great website that I thought I would share with you! Click Here to go to the website! It has short videos of all the different disasters. My students were amazed by all the destruction! Many of them had not seen an earthquake or hurricane because we don't have them in Kansas. They couldn't believe all the damaged that they can do! In the next couple of days I hope to share about rainbow spelling! This is a strategy I use to help my students really understand how different letters work together. It is also great for practicing blending words! Happy Monday...I mean Tuesday!!
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Weather!!!

What a week of NOTHING!! I really haven't had any major behavior problems or anything hectic happen. I just have been totally unmotivated to get on the computer. I finally pulled it together to make this post. I will be sharing my freebie later this week. It will go with my Camp Learned A Lot unit I will be posting about in a few weeks. Camp Learned A Lot is what I do the last week of school and all the kids look forward to it. For the next couple of weeks we will be studying weather, the water cycle, and clouds! We talked about what a meteorologist is. The students wrote about whether or not they would want to be a meteorologist or not. This is a cute poster I made from Hope's unit.

Yesterday we talked about different weather tools and watched a short video on united streaming about how to measure weather. The kids were surprisingly into the video even though it was from like the 1980's!!!

Today we made wind vanes! The problem was it wasn't very windy! It was actually 92 degrees today in Kansas!!!

Here are the materials you will need to make a wind vane: 1.yogurt cup 2.beans or rocks 3.pencil 4.straw 5.paper plate 6.card stock 7.pin I think we are going to try them out again tomorrow!! I am crossing my fingers that it is a little more windy tomorrow! Happy Wednesday!!
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Meatball Weather

We started our weather unit. We first read one of my favorite books:

The day before I decorated the room themed out from the book! Here are the pictures of the FOOD hanging from my ceiling.

PANCAKES!!

MEATBALLS!!

Yesterday we talked about precipitation and today we talked about weather words. We used the website: weatherwhizkid.com to look up the words!

All of these great activities are from Hope's great unit!

Tonight I am eating dinner with one of my best friends! She is also a teacher so we don't see each other very often because she teaches in another district! Happy Wednesday!


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Clipboard Crafty and Weather!

I had seen this really cute picture on Pinterest for a cute bin for clipboards! I of course had to recreate it, but in a lady bug theme! My clipboards are currently in a white storage bin...GROSS! This will be way cuter!

This is the one from Pinterest!It looks liked she used a soft tub. Here is mine!

It is going to totally match my classroom theme!

This week we are starting our weather unit! I love teaching weather! It is probably one of my favorite science units. I will be using the following books during the unit:

I will also be using the famous Hope King's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Unit!

I am excited to decorate the room tomorrow with lots of BIG food! :)

We will also be going on a Field Trip this week to Science City. Most of our kids haven't been out of the town so for many of them it will be their first time down town. I am glad we are able to take them down there because I don't know if they will ever get the chance. I hope everyone has a had a GREAT Sunday! I wanted to leave you with a picture from one of the tornadoes in western Kansas. I pray for those families and communities that were affected from the horrific tornadoes that stretched across the Midwest Saturday.

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Stormy Night Brewing!

I know I will be getting NO sleep due to the storms that are suppose to come around well lets just say MIDNIGHT!! I am such a light sleeper so I might as well not even go to bed! I wanted to share something that came in the mail for me this week! It is from the FABULOUS Hadar!

Isn't that soo cute?? She made it and she sells them! Go over and check out her shop! I definitely think we could stop teaching and make lots of bucks doing crafts all day long! :)

Since I will be up most of the night I thought I would catch up on some reading and toe painting! I got my copy of the CAFE book in the mail. We finally get to do the Daily 5 and the CAFE at my school. I have already read the Daily 5, but I will be working on the CAFE. If you have any types for me on either please share!

As for my toes I got a new Essie color called Turquoise and Caicos! It is going to look great on my toes!

It is perfect for the spring! I hope everyone has a great Saturday night!!


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