JOY IN THE CLASSROOM - Dreams and Gardens

Looking for Hands On Fun in the Classroom!

We are always looking for fun hands on ways to teach all the things. Check out some fun Project Based Learning options that are tried and true!

International Dot Day … Make Your Mark!

Dot Day is celebrated on September 15th and is one of our favorites! In my class, we incorporate the story, “The Dot” by Peter Reynolds, into all reading assignments. We read The Dot and then we learn how to summarize using SWBST strategy.

I love this book for so many reasons, but mostly, it teaches students growth mindset.

Dot Day Bulletin Board – Coffee Filters Craft

After summarizing the book, we color coffee filters with washable markers. Then we drop a small amount of water on the coffee filters (or spray with spray bottles) to make the colors run together. We let them dry and then we hang them all on the wall. Our whole grade level did this and created such a cool bulletin board!

QUIVER 3D Dots

Another fun activity we do is our 3D DOTS. Students color the Quiver Dot Day paper. After coloring, we use the Quiver App to make our dots become 3D images. While their dots are 3D, I snap a photo so we can create some magical wall art to display these. The students LOVE this project!

Toothpick Towers – STEM

Yet again, our toothpick and spaghetti noddle towers were a hit! Students create toothpick and spaghetti noodle towers with dots and marshmallows. I have students work with their table groups to create the tallest tower and the most stable tower. I love this activity. Some students start building their tower really tall and don’t think much about the base. Others start creating a good solid foundation. The towers that are only tall, start to tumble. Then we get to discuss how if we think about and work on our foundations, then we are stronger.

Balloons Over Broadway

Talk about Hands On Learning! This one is the greatest! We start out reading the book “Balloons Over Broadway”, by Melissa Sweet. The students really love this book. We start this 2-3 weeks before Thanksgiving holiday. We have eight 3rd grade teachers on our team and we purchased enough books for each teacher to have a copy. We refer back to the book quite a bit. There are so many great vocabulary words in this book. We use them as spelling words and work on ABC order with them.

Story Maps and Reading Skills

After reading Balloons Over Broadway, we create a story map of the book and direct teach many reading skills. This book is great for cause and effect, problem and solution, compare and contrast how the parade changed over time, and many other reading skills. There are many great resources on TPT to teach these skills. Click here for the comprehension quiz we use.

Career Visualization

This is when the real fun begins. Students begin thinking like designers! We discuss how fun it would be if we could create a balloon design for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We start imagining what we’d like to see in the parade. We discuss why each idea would be a good addition to the parade. Students start discussing their balloon idea. We put these into categories: popular characters from games, TV shows, movies, historical (teach kids something) or fantasy (something made up). After imagining, brainstorming and discussing their ideas, students start drawing a design of their idea. They first create a rough draft drawing and then they add labels explaining colors and materials they are going to use for their design.

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Persuasive Writing

Once finished, they get it approved by the teacher and can start on their final draft of their balloon diagram. The final draft of their diagrams are done with watercolors and outlined in fine point sharpies. This project lends itself to great lesson on persuasive writing. We write to our audience: Macy’s, to convince them to use our balloon in the next Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Click here for a lesson on persuasive writing on TpT.

Rough Drafts, Final Drafts and Publishing our Work

The next step, Diagrams and their persuasive writing piece will be added to a long piece of construction paper to display in the hallway. Students will then create a persuasive writing piece convincing others to choose their balloon design for the next Thanksgiving Day parade. After the diagram of their balloon design and persuasive writing is finished, students can start working on their 3D version of their balloon. I teach a gifted and talented class so we dig in deep and create paper mache versions of our balloon designs. We use recycled cardboard materials: cereal boxes, toilet paper rolls, cardboard box items and masking tape. To create paper mache mixture, we love flour and water as glue and then brown paper towels for the paper. We let their creations dry for a few days and then we paint the creations. When children are encouraged to explore, experiment, and make mistakes in a supportive environment, they develop resilience and a growth mindset. Click here to read more.

Integration of Subjects

To integrate this into other subjects, we create array cities and multiplication flower balloons in math class to create our backdrop. Students really love this activity! My gifted and talented students create newspaper articles. This is a non fiction research assignment.

Extension Projects

After reading Balloons Over Broadway, we always research a lot about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This can be used as a stand alone research project or as a group collaboration project through Google Classroom. In my 3rd grade class, we use this as an extension project for our gifted and talented GT students.

This set has been updated to include a text features anchor chart, an example of our class newspaper, a template for newsletter and printable cut and hand out research options. Click here for a link to this lesson.

Unlocking Creativity: How Green Screens Can Transform the Classroom Experience

The artistic side of me loves to incorporate fun ways to review content areas into the classroom. My students LOVE creating green screen projects. Right now, we are using greenscreen for our famous persons research and also science research on endangered animals! In November, my students created greenscreen videos where they were flying over New York with the balloons they created for Balloons Over Broadway! Such fun!

Learn more…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Kick off the New Year with a Writing and Craft activity. Students can visualize and draw a picture or pick their ONE WORD and write it in the visualize box. Then write what they see themselves accomplishing in next year. Students then write their new years goals on the writing page provided. Easy to download, print and go!

I have this lesson in my TPT store. There is a pennant craft option that you can print and go or use as a template (on cardstock) and they can trace on scrapbook paper. I’ve used these all year and my kids love them. We put the pennants up as they meet their goals. Super fun and EASY!!!

This activity also makes a super cute wall display for the hall!

This is a video tutorial to guide students through how to draw a face onto their new year portrait. It’s a short video so I play and pause and I lead the class through this illustration.

Charlotte’s Web

Charlotte’s Web is such a great book for a novel study. We try to really dig into the book and help the students visualize each chapter as we go along. This was my hall decoration while we read the book.

Informational Writing

This year we created Time for Kids magazines using the RACE strategy. I required at least 3 “articles” for each student’s magazine.

Students could

pick a passage that they find interesting

Turn it over and on the back there were several “questions” to pick from
they would pick a question that they’d like to answer

Using the RACE method, write their paragraph/article on notebook paper

add text features to their magazine, etc.

Write 1-3 “articles” for each magazine depending on the needs in your class

You can create these magazines using large construction paper, notebook paper and white paper (illustration) or an online version.

Before we started, we directed teach students where you find non fiction writing, review text features (we plan to go more in depth with this later, but intro here).

Brainstorm different places you might find informational writing – could make a chart

magazines

newspapers

non-fiction books

newsletters

articles

Reports

Online articles

Go through a few online “magazines” and go through a few non fiction magazines (Critter Connections are a great FREE option. Here is the link to sign up for Critter Connections and they will send them to you!)

Analyze non fiction magazines to figure out what makes it so interesting.

paragraphs are short with text features to go with each one.
super interesting facts
each section had its own heading to show the main idea.
colorful photos and illustration
interactive features like links to videos (online – multimodal)

Interested in more RACE strategy options? Click here!

Fractions, Entrepreneurs and Supply and Demand – Oh MY!

This is one of my favorite units to teach! I love to incorporate lessons into real world scenarios and this is one I can run with! I believe Project Based, Hands On Learning can boost a students mood and their LOVE for learning. Click here to learn more!

In Social Studies, we are learning about entrepreneurs. Later in social studies, we will learn about supply, demand, good and services so I just incorporate it all together in my lesson. It makes sense! We write out vocabulary words (entrepreneurs, supply, demand, goods and services) and definitions on index cards. We put them in our WIP (Work in Progress folders) until we are ready for them. We will glue the vocabulary words and definitions to the inside of our boxes when they are ready.

I love the topic of entrepreneurs because I was one (am one) and I have many family members that are entrepreneurs so it near and dear to me. I used to own an indoor playground and party center that was 12,000 sq feet inside with 4 party rooms. We were fully booked on weekends. We had a room for splatter painting parties, we had 9 huge inflatables in our large warehouse area and we had a glow in the dark sand discovery room! It was fun! I had a baby and the kid’s birthday party life was not ideal with a newborn on my hip… so we sold everything I stayed home with my kiddos. I talk about this with my students, then I talk about my grandfather’s business. I created a business for service, my granddaddy’s business was of goods. He created and sold boxes for different companies. It was very successful!

With the box making in mind, I teach my students to build a box. We first decide if we are a pizza company or a bakery with cupcakes or cookies. Students decide on a name for the business and create a log and tag line. I also provide bakery hats for the students that I purchase on amazon!

During our math unit, we are learning about equivalent fractions. Students use fraction circles to create either pizzas, cupcakes or cookies. After they decorate their fraction circles, we practice folding their pizzas, cupcakes or cookies to create equivalent fractions. For example, if you add pepperoni to 1/2 of the pizza. Then fold the pizza in half that is split into eighths. This will show students that 1/2 pizza is equivalent to 4/8 of a pizza. We use several examples like this. They are excited about it as they just created their “goods”. We write equivalent fractions on the back of each pizza or other “good”. We measure out the box measurements…. it’s a difficult task but once it’s complete they love it. They are so proud!!