Stations, Stations, Stations!

Recently, stations/centers/independent work has been a hot-topic on my campus. All of us teachers love working with small groups of students, but we sometimes struggle to find ways to manage the other 24 students while we are working with the small group. I've used this system to manage my station-work for the past couple of years and it works well for my classroom and teaching style. 

I usually set up 12-14 stations and students rotate through them. I don't get to stations every day, so these 12-14 stations usually last me for about 1 month. That means I have to spend a couple of hours getting my new set of stations ready, but once they're done, I don't have to worry about them again for an entire month. 

Another way I make the work-load easier is by using some stations repeatedly every month. My Spelling Station is always the same. Students don't get bored of it because they only get to it once or twice a month and it's always with different words. My Word Builders station is always the same, but with different letters. Buddy Reading and Vocabulary expectations always stay the same as well. Then I just rotate my more specific skill-based stations in and out of the monthly line-up based on my students' needs. 

Students are able to choose their own math stations/games as long as they are listed in the Math Stations section. I rotate game options every month as well. Finally, there are Finished Early Stations for those quick-finishers. 

All of this structure frees me up to work with small groups for intervention and enrichment!

 

Life in Early Arizona

We recently finished our study of cultures in prehistoric Arizona. We focused on the Mogollon, Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi), and Hohokam cultures. As our final project, students wrote first-person narratives from the perspective of a child in one of those cultures. They created foldables that included interesting facts about their culture, a narrative about a day-in-the-life of a child in that culture, a diagram of their home based on research, and a self-portrait that included cultural elements. They turned out great! Here are a few of my favorites!

Where in the World?

For the past several years, I've noticed that my students truly lack a sense of geography. They have a hard time differentiating between cities, states, countries, and continents. They have no idea if they live closer to Canada or China! This summer, I ran into a friend from high school and found out that she teaches in China. She asked for my school address and started sending my students postcards about her experiences there! Then, we mysteriously started receiving other postcards from all over the world! It turns out that Hana had sent our school address to her friends and family who have pretty much adopted our classroom. Almost every week, we receive a postcard from somewhere in the world. After we read it, we post it on our map. We also find the locations of events (real or imaginary) as we read and we mark those on our map too. This simple 5 minute weekly activity is helping my students expand their worldview beyond their own neighborhood. We feel like we're taking a trip around the world!

Gradual Changes to Earth's Surface

We've been studying gradual changes to Earth's surface in science: weathering, erosion, and deposition. First we did an investigation involving the difference between the effects  on a mineral of one weathering agent (rocks) and two weathering agents (rocks and water). We found that two weathering agents cause more weathering than just one. 

Then we did another model involving sand paper and wood. Sand paper acts as the weathering agent on Earth's surface (the piece of wood). Then we watch as wind erosion carries the sediments (wood dust) to a new location. 

Today we modeled the three processes using clay. I want to give a shout-out to Mr. Avery, our amazing art teacher, who provided us with the clay so Miss Barber didn't have to go buy it! Woo hoo!

Character Trait Charlie

This idea was a collaboration between our fourth grade team. We noticed that our students needed more exposure to character trait vocabulary words and their meanings. They also needed to practice proving that characters were displaying these traits using textual justification. So we created Character Trait Charlie! Each week, we replaced 6 of our regular spelling words with character trait words. We study the words and describe the actions, feelings, thoughts, and words that a character with this trait would use/have. Then we categorize each trait as positive or negative. It's so easy to refer to these words as we are reading now that we have studied them and they are always visible.

Happy Holidays!

Our class had a wonderful day together on the Friday before winter vacation. First, we were surprised by a group of "carolers" - some of our school's advanced band students! We were quietly working in our classroom when we heard music coming from outside our door! Miss Barber peeked outside and saw the ensemble with our band director, Mr. Graca. We all went outside and enjoyed our mini-concert with all of the other fourth and fifth grade classes in this wing of our school. What a wonderful surprise!

We also completed some elf projects. My students are so creative! We had teacher elves, security elves, reindeer elves, toy-making elves, ASU elves, and so much more! We also wrote notes to our Secret Santas - the student who we watched all week in order to catch them doing something kind, generous, caring, respectful, responsible, etc. It was so fun to read the kind words that our friends had to say about us and to find out who had been secretly watching us all week!

Growth, Growth, Growth!!

Miss Barber's students were SO excited about their growth on their timed fluency quizzes that they couldn't even stay in their seats! During our last round of testing, EVERY SINGLE STUDENT IMPROVED their score! In these pictures, we are holding up our graphs that show our growth. We are so proud!!

Crazy Miss Barber

Miss Barber got a pie in the face at our last school assembly!

Miss Barber and one of her former students at the Girls on the Run 5k race! Beware, olympians. This girl (not Miss Barber) is a rocket!!

Look at these awesome PJ pants Miss Barber got from her Secret Santa, who turned out to be Dr. Kim!

Studying Solar Energy

Our class recently studying renewable and nonrenewable resources, including hydro energy, wind energy, solar energy, and fossil fuels. We conducted an inquiry experiment using metal bowls, plastic bowls, and paper bowls to see which material would make the best collector of solar energy. We measured the temperature in each bowl when they were placed in direct sunlight for 1 and 5 minutes. Of course, we found that the metal bowl collected the most heat energy from the sun.

The Election!

Our class participated in the presidential election in November. We first studied the electoral college and calculated the fewest number of states a candidate would need to win the necessary votes. Then we studied the candidates and their views on popular isses. After we decided which candidate we most agreed with, we took a vote. Each row was given a certain number of electoral votes based on the number of students who sit in that row. The popular vote in each row decided the winner of that row's electoral votes. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see which candidate won our class election!

According to our electoral college, a candidate needed 18 electoral votes to win. Obama narrowly won our class election with 19 electoral votes!