Leap Day Sale

Aloha friends!  The end of February is here and with it comes planning for those next few months of Spring activities.  This month is an extra day longer than usual so I am having a Leap Day sale today and tomorrow.


Everything is 20% off! Stock up on all those items you need in the coming months.










Happy Leap Day and Happy Shopping!!


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Thinking About President's Day

Aloha everyone! Hope you have had an enjoyable short week thanks to President's Day.  It has literally flown by with all the hustle and bustle in my classroom.



In honor of President's Day we did spend Tuesday morning learning about our two famous presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

I started with a discussion on what students knew about President's Day and why we celebrate.  I had one boy who knew that February 12th was Abraham Lincoln's birthday.  That was about it on their knowledge of this holiday.

I read these books to the students.


I'm pretty sure I have had these books for at least 15 years.  I ordered them long ago from Scholastic.

After we read each one we brainstormed important facts about each of the presidents.


All of the facts came from the books except the part about the money.  We have been working with coins and one of the students mentioned that George Washington was on some money.  Another student then added that Abraham Lincoln was on a penny.  I pulled out my magnetic money kit and we found them on coins and bills. The students then copied these facts into their journals.

Our school has been training this year on how to use and implement Thinking Maps.  Instead of using the typical Venn diagram to compare and contrast I decided to go with a Double Bubble Map.
The kids loved saying Double Bubble.


I drew their names in two bubbles and we started from there.  I chose students to read through their facts and find similarities and differences between the two.  I wrote them out onto the map.

While I was writing on the board the students were following along and creating their own map with me modeling.


I did prepare these by drawing the two large circles before we began.  Much easier to get them started.


The students had to write one more difference and similarity for George and Abraham on their own.

I thought they did a great job and all of them really enjoyed creating their own map.  We decided to color code each side.  Red for George and blue for Abraham.  Red and blue make purple so we outlined the middle in purple.

This activity was not only informative but the kids learned so much creating their own maps.  The goal of Thinking Maps is to have students automatically making their own maps to organize their ideas.

I'm really looking forward to teaching my about the other maps in a variety of subjects.

Did your class do anything for President's Day this year? Always love to hear what others do in their classrooms.


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Valentine Day Fun

Aloha and Hau'oli la Aloha!!


I am so happy that our Valentine celebration was on a Friday this year!  My class has been working hard and I have also been out of the classroom a lot.  I didn't get a chance to do any crafts or activities for Valentine's Day during the week.  So we had a Valentine Extravaganza.

We started the day making Valentine card holders.  I had students trace a large heart on a piece of 12x18 construction paper.  They chose either red, pink or white.  I stapled the heart in a few places to another sheet of paper and then they cut it out.

 Then they hole punched around it and "sewed" it together with yarn.

They decorated them and then I wrote their name in cursive and they added glitter.


Next we made some cute heart animals.  I had a few examples I had made.
The students then decided on what they would make.


They all came out really cute!


 Next we did some candy heart graphing.  I have not updated this in FOREVER!
This is from AIMS circa 1987!! Am I dating myself?!


Finally we exchanged Valentines.
The banana was from my principal.  Loved getting something healthy!
I made those cute Star Wars Valentines for my class.


My class spoiled me with tons of goodies.  I am going to stash some in the
freezer for those chocolate emergencies!


I am slowly recovering from my chocolate overdose. I spent the  afternoon
relaxing a bit with a fun gift I received for Valentine's Day.


Anyone else really enjoy these adult coloring books?

How was your Valentine celebration? Are you recovering from a chocolate coma as well?
Hope you are able to recover and enjoy your 3 day weekend!!


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Five For Friday

Aloha! Who's happy it's Friday?


It's been a pretty good week, but who can't be happy about Friday!!!

I haven't linked up in awhile with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching and thought it would be fun to share a few pics from my week.



We started off the week with a fun writing activity using M&M's and Skittles.  
I gave each student 5 M&M's and 5 Skittles. They tasted each and
had to decide which was their favorite.  Of course they loved it!

We also started our Magnet unit this week.  
We experimented with different items
and then sorted them into Magnetic and Non-Magnetic 
pockets in our science journals.
In social studies we are working on Economics.  
We learned about Natural, Capital and Human resources.  
This activity was great for students to see how 
producers use all of these resources to make and sell their products.
This week I also went to a 2 day training on the other side of the island.
This is a view from the Pali Highway.  So beautiful! 
Kaneohe is where our training was, which is about an hour from where I live.  
It's always nice to get to other parts of the island.
I spent Thursday and Friday in a Thinking Maps training geared for K-2.
I gained lots of ideas and will be taking them back to my team to share out.
There are so many ways to use them in all areas.  
I look forward to implementing some new ideas right away.
 My youngest daughter is in 6th grade.  This is her last year with me at my school before she heads up to the middle school.  We pulled over on our way home one day to watch some whales spouting.  We actually couldn't see them once we got on the beach because the waves were pretty big.  We still had some fun taking selfies and snapping some pics of the waves.
I am really going to hate driving alone to school next year.  
Who will listen to me ramble on about waves, surfers, whales and tourist traffic?!

I hope you had a fantastic week as well. Head on over to Kasey's blog to check
out some of her cute February activities.



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