A place to share thoughts, ideas, gadgets, and giggles from my classroom. 💜

Read my Mind: A Word Wall Game

I LOVE for my students to know how to use the word wall, and get familiar with the words that are available. This game helps students get to know the word wall, while reviewing phonics skills!
Students need a {Read My Mind} page and a word wall! I like to start with an example, then let the kids try it out. 
YES, I know VOWEL is spelled wrong on #2...I was in a hurry giving clues:)

The top quarter is where I did an example. The rest are the clues I gave my students. The clues I give them should single down to ONE word on the word wall. I always start with which half of the word wall it is, first or last half. The first half is A-M and the second half is N-Z. Then I try to single it down. For each clue I give, students write a word that matches it and all previous clues. There are four clues. The fifth line is for writing the word it actually was. 

It is fun as a class, but would be better in a small group for the strugglers. I don't give prizes for having it right. When I have given the last clue,  I say, " Who thinks they know my word?" The kids raise their hand. I count to three and they yell out the word they think.

It's pretty entertaining for the teacher too!
This page is available for FREE in my {Teachers Pay Teachers Store!} Grab it by clicking {here}!

-Aimee
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Getting Engaged in Fluency

I created a recording studio for my kiddos to work on fluency! They are so engaged and loving it!  I needed something to block the noise from the room, so I taped together two of my privacy shields from {Really Good Stuff}. You could also use two of those tri-fold boards from Walmart. I had an extra desk in the room, so I raised it as tall as it could go. 
Sorry for the glare!
The app we use is {Voice Recording}, a free app! It is easy to use and easy to save/upload files too!
When a student gets to record, they have to type in the book title and their name to save the file. 

This saves it to the iPad, but I discovered linking it to Google Drive was soooo simple! I created a new account so all my saved folders would not show up in the student drive. 
When you click "Upload to Cloud" you are given the option to pick where you want it to go. Google Drive is easiest for me, but there were other options as well! When students click the button, after I linked it, they are only given one choice. I love that the app doesn't give them so many options to look through. 
Once inside Google Drive, they find the folder that is for our recordings. The recording already has their name and book title from the very first step! This makes saving so so easy!
From here, I am able to download the audio and create a QR code of the book. Students can listen to their friends reading the book. Students can also go back and listen to themselves reading. This can give them a confidence boost when they have improved their reading! 
-Aimee
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Pencils Through a Baggie of Water?!? No Way!

This was one of my FAVORITE science experiments we have done this year...and it was totally last minute!
Materials:
Sharp pencils, must be sharpened to a point!
Baggies that can hold water
Water
Optional: Bowl, you know, just in case.
Prep: 
Fill the bags 3/4 of the way full
Sharpen pencils
It seriously is one of the lowest prep science experiments we have done ever! 
I had one student hold the bag while another poked their pencil through. The trick is to go slowly!
I tried it with more baggies than I would like to tell, just because it was so much fun!
The kids LOVED sticking their pencils through the bag. They did a great job going slow, and not poking each other with those super sharp pencils! Explaining how it worked got a little tricky since they are pretty young, but I did my best:
The baggies are made of plastic. The plastic is made of a special kind of material that makes it easy to shape and hold things. I took a baggie and stretched it out real thin so they could see that the plastic was very durable and stretchy. When we poke a hole through the baggie with the pencil, the plastic is going around the pencil and not letting a hole be made. This is what keeps the water in!
I tried my best to explain how polymers work in words that a 7/8 year old could understand.
#chemistry
They loved it and had fun! I loved the lack of mess, easy prep, and low maintenance experiment!

Aimee    
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