CHILI COOK-OFF 2014

Each year, our amazing school hosts a Chili Cook-Off. The staff puts it on for the whole community and it is definitely one of the kids' most favorite events!

Each teacher and team makes a pot of chili and designs a booth based on a theme of choice. This year was a no-brainer for us. With the popularity of the new Disney film, we chose FROZEN! Check out some of our pics!

 We created this little snowman out of butcher paper and covered it over exercise balls from our Motor Lab.

 We found an image on Pinterest with the quote, "Some People are worth Melting for." My talented team member changed it to say "CHILI" :)

We covered the walls of our hallway in aqua butcher paper and stapled up some white paper in mountain shapes. To create the frozen winter effect, we hung lights and snowflakes from the ceiling!

AND....YES...this is a sleigh, just like from the movie! And it is NOT made out of wood...it's styrofoam! We had a super talented dad of one of our students make it for us. It was amazing! He also built the huge screen you see behind it so we could project a picture of the Ice Castle to complete the look.

Here is a shot of most of the booth area. Looked beautiful with all of the lights.

To make the sign, we printed off each letter from the logo, painted over with some glitter and glued on some foam board. (Thanks, mom, for helping with this!) Then we hung some crystal ornaments that my mom had from the sign. 

Check out our OLAF!! 

Here is our SVEN setting up right before the event started!

My amazing 2nd grade team as...

 Olaf, Anna, Sven and Elsa

 Did I mention there are trophies?! The students use voting tickets to vote for the team with the Best Theme and the Best Tasting Chili.  Our chili was quite tasty but we were clearly going for the best theme....

AND WE WON!! Here we are with our trophy!

It was the first time our 2nd grade team had won in the nine years we have had Chili Cook-Off. I have an entirely NEW team too so it was so neat to have us pull together and win!

It was definitely a lot of work that we could not have done without the help of our Parents! Our 2nd grade parent who helped with our booth decor and our OWN parents! My mom made my Anna costume and my team member's mom made her Olaf costume!

 Myla was super excited to finally meet "Elsa"!!

Such a fun night!!

We are already looking forward to next year's 10th Annual Chili Cook-Off!!

Biography Presentations!

Going back in time about a month to recap some of our latest highlights!

We have been learning about Famous Americans and their accomplishments this nine weeks. After learning about Benjamin Franklin, Amelia Earhart, Robert Fulton (he invented the steamboat!) and Helen Keller, each student chose a Famous American to research. They would need to create a timeline of their life and give a 3-5 minute oral presentation. Oh, and the best part? They would get to dress up like their American! I was blown away by their "costumes" this year!

Here is our letter home to parents that we sent after we explained the project to the kids.

The kids were so excited to get started. Most of the work was done in class. They brought in 8-10 events from their research to make their timeline. We gave them 3 options: poster, Prezi, or Kidspiration. Since our classroom set of computers and Macs were limited, I was worried they would all choose one of the technology options. But it all worked out. We had every computer and iPad in use but there was a good size group who chose to make a poster.

 Working hard...

It took the kids four 90 minute class periods to complete their research and timelines. They each had a timeline rubric to refer to that I explained on our first day. 

When they were finished, they had a checklist to complete to ensure they had all the requirements!

Here are a few of the Poster Timelines!

I wish I could show the kids' Prezis, which is like a glorified PowerPoint, but actually way cooler, but they created and saved them with their own account. I plan to add them to their portfolios on Google Drive.

After timelines were complete, the kids prepared their oral presentation. I let them use notecards  to prepare their speech, which they thought was pretty cool. I didn't want them to have to memorize their speech but I didn't want them to read it straight from the cards either. This took some practice. We asked the parents to help with this part at home. :)

By the 4th day, most of my class were wrapping up their oral presentations. Some had even timed themselves on the iPad to make sure they met the time limit. I decided to pair them up to present to each other and give feedback, and we called it a "Peer Review." They loved this!

Here is one of their Peer Review sheets. :)

On the day of presentations I welcomed some Famous Americans in my classroom! There were 12 that presented the first day. :)

Aren't they amazing??

A few close ups...

 Milton Hershey

George Washington

Amelia Earhart

Robert E. Lee

Squanto

Molly Pitcher

Albert Einstein!

I was super impressed with the kids' presentations! They are uploaded to each child's personal portfolio so their parents can view them anytime. 

For Open House, which I will share about in a separate post, we created an "aura" using the app, Aurasma. Parents were able to hover their iPad or smartphone over their child's picture which links directly to their presentation video. Super cool. Gotta love technology!!

Overall, it was a great project for the kids. They really learned so much about their Famous American and being able to share that knowledge at this age is so important.

ONE DAY SALE!!

To celebrate TPT's 3 million members, there is a sale!! ALL of my products are included in the sale at a 20% discount! Just enter "TPT3" at checkout to get a total of 28% off. 

ONE DAY ONLY!!

Go straight to my store by clicking HERE!

ENJOY!

Our Wonder Wall

Have you ever been in the middle of a lesson when a child asks an interesting question, somewhat related to what you are teaching but you don't have time to discuss the answer? Or you really want to leave the question unanswered so the kids can research it on their own? Of course you have. In the elementary classroom, this comes up often. 

A few weeks ago, we were studying Natural Water sources and distinguishing between fresh and salt water. Then the question came up about glaciers. Are glaciers made up of fresh or salt water? I asked the class what they thought and there was quite a discussion and debate. I enjoyed watching them hash it out but then I came up with the idea of a "Wonder Wall". There is so much that we wonder about and I want the kids to learn to use their resources and find their own answers. We attach our questions on the top part of the poster with a sticky note. During our morning workstation time, students can use computers to research their answer or go to the library to check out a book on the topic. When we learn the answer, we move it down below and leave it posted for awhile. 

So far, I've only used this with Science but could see this working with other subject areas too.  I haven't taken a picture of the poster with the answer yet but I plan to. A day later 2 of my students discovered that glaciers are, in fact, fresh water. End of debate. 

The question we have now is "why is manure a good fertilizer?" They are still researching this one! Stay tuned...

Who misses outdoor recess?!

I do, I do!! We have had a long streak of indoor recess due to our chilly temperatures and I'm ready for it to warm up so these kids can go play outside! Last week, after 2 days of watching movies, we decided to spice it up a bit and do a few Just Dance Kids videos so the kids could dance around. It was greatness. The kids sure did get their wiggles out.

Last Thursday, we had expected a light "dusting" of snow but ended up getting a little more than that. The snow that fell caused problems on the roadways, especially our neighborhood streets. Our district decided to close school early beginning with high school at 1pm, then middle school and finally our elementary school released 20 minutes early. After the early release announcement, we did have quite a few parents pick up their kids even earlier.

By the end of the day, I was left with this sweet group of girls!

One suggested we have a "girl party."

Excited to go play in the snow, even though it melted too quickly to really play. 

We hear there is another winter event headed our way this week, which means more days of indoor recess. Looks like we will be doing some more dancing. :)

Lights…Camera...Contraction Action!!

Here is my latest…

A preview :)

Our 2nd graders are starting Contractions next week and we will be using this complete unit to review and teach this concept!

What's Included?

-9 full-color teaching posters (scroll through as a "PowerPoint" or print and display

-Contraction Song (to the tune to Mary Had A Little Lamb)

-5 different skill sheets and activities

-Contraction Hints Chart (a great resource for students!)

-3 Ready-to-go Station Activities: Contraction Match-up, Contraction Memory, Contraction Sentences

-2 page Contractions Assessment

You can get this unit HERE!

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First Post of the New Year! (and not really "teacher related")

Wow, it's now 10 days into January, lots going on in our little world so there has been little time for posting.

Time to play catch up!!

We had a fabulous NYE party….here are just a few pics.

 Not the best pic but we had little party favors with Hershey's kisses and fortune cookies.

Our Cupcake Countdown Clock!

Saw something similar on Pinterest, of course. The idea was to move the hour hand each hour. Only moved it once before our guests started eating them!

Extra cupcakes had these cute toppers.

We had the mock "Photo Booth" which was quite a hit.

Fun Night!

 Even the little ones had fun with the props!

I had found this app Insta Booth where you can easily do Photo booth type pics. It was a free app and very easy to use. Here are few of our pics!

I liked how I could simply modify the templates to make the strips exactly how I wanted them. 

I could see this app being fun to use in the classroom. :)

You can find the FREE printables for all of the cupcake toppers, photo booth props, banner etc HERE.

I do plan to update my New Year's Eve Printables to say 2015 sometime in the future. 

This was too fun not to do again. :)