5 for Friday: Thanksgiving Break!

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I made it!  Today is our last day before a full week off for Thanksgiving break!  I am loving my new job (minus the commute), but let’s face it… it’s time to recharge!  Here’s a very Thanksgiving inspired [5 for Friday] post.
 

 
 
I think I can stay calm for 8 more hours!
 
 
This week we had our district-wide STEAM challenge.  This was my first experience with STEAM, and I have some mixed feelings about it.  I LOVE the idea and the type of thinking/reasoning it can help students develop, but there are definitely some modifications I would like to make before we try it again.  Our district had us build background for one day on towers (not long enough in my opinion) and then complete the challenge the next day.  I think the kiddos would be more successful if the challenge tied into the current curriculum or we had longer to build background.  But, as I said it was a fun experience and the kids loved it!
 
We started out our research day with a guest speaker (the mister) coming in to do a lesson on what towers are.
 
 
The kiddos had some time to practice building towers out of blocks.  We watched the Cat in the Hat “Termite Towers” to help come to the conclusion that our towers needed a bigger base and some kind of tape/glue/etc. to help them not fall over.
 
 
The day of the actual challenge each group was given 50 Dixie cups, 92 cm of tape, and scissors.  This is when it really hit me that we needed more time researching towers and having hands-on experiences making them out of different things. 
 
 
We made these super simple plate turkeys on Monday during our “Rockstar Behavior” party.  The kiddos with great behavior of the last 6-weeks were invited to the party.  I love these because the only thing you need are paper plates, water color paints (or crayons/markers), googly eyes, and orange construction paper.  So simple and the kids loved it!
 
 

 
We are finishing up this cornucopia craftivity today.  I believe the original patterns came from Teacher Created Resources.  Now that the fruits have dried after painting, the kiddos are going to cut them out and glue them to the cornucopias.  One of my favorite things this week has been trying to teach the little ones to pronounce “cornucopia,” it’s too cute!
 

 
I feel like this whole post has been super craft-oriented… but here’s one more!  This one is a math activity from my [Thanksgiving No Prep Packet].  We moved onto addition this week, but I still wanted a little review for counting/number identification.
 
 
And with that I am off to have a great day with my little ones!  I hope you have a great Friday, and if today is your last day until December – Happy Thanksgiving Break, if you still have some days next week – keep pushing and Happy Friday!


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