Caramel Apples

Tomorrow is Halloween! Yippee! Like I have said before, I love the holidays for all the fun activities you can do. Today we made caramel apples. They were absolutely delicious.

The students were asked to bring in their favorite kind of apple washed in a baggie I provided. I brought a crock-pot from home and placed the caramel to melt on low. The room smelled unbelievably scrumptious. When it was time, we all gathered around the crock-pot. I dipped the apple in the caramel one at a time. They then rolled their apples in crushed peanuts (make sure no one has any allergies to peanuts). The echoes of "yum-yum" made me very happy. I knew they were having a grand old time. I also found out that a couple of my students had never tried caramel apples before.

This is the reason I still believe in "fun" activities. I take so much for granted, and so many of my students do not have these experiences. So if it means I have to give up my lunch to provide them with these memories, let it be.

Tomorrow we will be making "boogie juice". I know my students are eager to experience that. I know, I know, sugar overload...but lots of fun! 

Frankenstein Pudding

Some of my fondest childhood memories were the cookery activities I would do with my family and at school during the holiday season. There is so much content that needs to be covered in the day, so much more being pushed in (mind you the school-day is not getting longer), and little to no time for activities that are plain fun.

My students usually come up to the room for lunch time. With Halloween just a few days away, we decided that we would make our Frankenstein Pudding faces during lunch. We used vanilla instant pudding, 1 package of Oreo cookies, and green food coloring.

Very EASY Steps:

1. make the vanilla instant pudding in a large bowl
2. add food coloring
3. have students crush 2 Oreo cookies (without the filling) in a baggie
4. students draw a face on their cups using a Sharpie
5. fill up their cups with pudding
6. finally they add their hair (Oreos)

 Sorry about the half eaten face, I forgot to take a picture before they began to chow down.

 The faces were so cute. The "hair" on top was too funny. They really got a kick out of that.

As you can see from the photos, they had lots of fun. Many times I tend to forget that being in 5th grade doesn't mean they no longer care for silly activities. They are young children with very high expectations on them. This activity was their "massage". We are now trying to figure out an easy, yet delicious, cookery activity for November. Any ideas?

BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS!

As a child, books were hard to come by. I always dreamed of having my own bookcase filled with my favorite books. I come from a working class family that had very limited resources for such "luxuries". My parents had very little formal education in their home countries, BUT they did understand the importance of a well-rounded education. Every Friday, one of my parents would take us to the library for read aloud time followed by some kind of art activity. I LOVED Fridays. The idea that I could "borrow" books, have time to read them, and be entrusted to take care of them was very bewildering to me. As I grew up, I began to purchase my own books. I have so many books now, both at school and at home, that I have a hard time finding space for them. I now have to rotate books by holidays, themes, and my favorites. I may not spend money on expensive purses, but I do buy every month from Scholastic (I try to follow the limit I have set for myself--some months I do better than others).

Why go down memory lane? Well, to sum it up, I LOVE books, reading, and more books. This is the reason for my post today.  I came across this website called We Give Books. This organization is dedicated to delivering award-winning books so you can read and share beautiful stories with children in your life both at home and at school. There are literally tons of FREE ebooks you can choose from and filter by author, genre, and age group (the highest age group is 10 y.o.). It is very easy to join and did I mention it is FREE!

Books opened up a whole new world to me. It was my escape many times. Above all, I have such wonderful memories of books that were read to me both at school and at my local library. This hunger for books that I still feel, is what I hope to instill in my students at school.

A great book to read to your students this October is Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex. It is a monsterized parody of Goodnight Moon by Margret Wise Brown. There are so many activities you can do with your students:

• compare and constrast 
• create a goon and describe it
• write your own version of Goodnight ____?____
• discuss the elements of a parody

 Simply click on the picture below and start reading.

Let me know what you think. How would you use it with your students?

                  

Class Dojo App

I recently came across this app called Class Dojo. It is a free behavior management app for your iPad or iPhone. It is supposed to be a very easy way to keep track of my students' behavior and engagement by awarding them points and immediate feedback. Individual student behavior forms are available to print or email to parents providing parents information about their child and allowing parents the opportunity to be involved and engaged in their child's progress. It is supposed to save you time--one click is that is needed to record behaviors and and participation right in class with one click. Students can even enter the site, see their own data, and change their avatar. It sounds great and I can't wait to try it out this week. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Check it out for yourself and let me know if it worked for you.

Monster Slime

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays--it's spooky, it's exciting, and you there is so much candy! This year more than ever, I am being very conscientious about doing as much science as possible, and Halloween is a perfect month for science galore! We are definitely going to cover all the state standards through our Foss curriculum, BUT I also believe in science for fun, motivation, and for the inquiry it brings to young minds. My kiddos love science, and so do I.

Today we made monster slime.  I came across this idea while looking for slime. Kim, over at all things simple, has step by step directions on how to do it. It is sooooo easy and inexpensive. I bought the food coloring, bowls, and glitter at The Dollar Tree. The borax I got at my local market for about $6.00, and there is plenty left over to repeat it more than once.

By constantly doing experiments, my students are becoming very comfortable with the 7-Step Process to scientific investigations.  We talked about the reactants and the products. We discussed how we went from mostly liquid materials to a solid. One group did not get the consistency they desired and we inquired into the possible reasons why. They repeated the steps, were happy with their results, and wrote about it in their conclusions. The class even offered suggestions on what other ingredients we could add to the slime--scent, texture, degree of sliminess. We have therefore decided to do it again for November with a little twist. We'll keep you posted.