Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We had a great time on Read Across America Day. I got my students Dr. Seuss hats from Staples and we made mustache sticks to celebrate the release of The Lorax. The kids colored them, cut them out, and glued them to an orange popsicle stick.

 

We did goldfish graphing in honor of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish!

 

We watched the cartoon version movie of the book at the end of the day. Some of the kids said they were going to see the new movie this weekend.

 

They wore the hats and red shirts while our superintendent, Dr. O'Malley, read Oh, the Things You Can Do That Are Good for You! by Tische Rabe.

Kids enjoyed playing games on the Seussville website...

and singing "Dr. Seuss, We Love You" in music class!

It got the kids super geared up for MY birthday on Monday! Come back and read tomorrow's post for some exciting birthday news! :)

Check out my Pinterest board for more Read Across America / Dr. Seuss ideas!

Just in Time, Abraham Lincoln!

I know it's kind of late to be posting about Presidents' Day, but things have been crazy between conferences, report cards, and getting ready for Read Across America Day and our author's visit from Patricia Polacco. It's about two months away, but I wanted to get my students ready for her visit, so I killed two birds with one stone. Last week I read them Just in Time, Abraham Lincoln! This week they will be reading some of her other books in literature circles.

If you're looking for comprehension questions, check this freebie out! It has 15 comprehension questions and one open-ended essay.

In addition to all sorts of other President-themed activities, we visited http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents to learn about and write 3 facts about two presidents each. Two presidents x 22 students = 44 presidential fact pages! We also wrote about three things we'd like to accomplish if we were President or one thing we'd accomplish and three things we'd do to accomplish it. We decided that it would be a pretty tough job!

We also took the White House virtual tour.

I showed students pictures from my visits to the Washington area a few years ago.

Can you name the following monuments, statues, and buildings?

Ford's Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth

(closed for repairs when I was there)

The House Where Lincoln Died

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery

Eternal flame and graves of JFK and his widow, Jackie

Visit the White House National Park if you're in the Washington, DC area!

Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island

I just got an email from Scholastic telling me that they are holding a LIVE virtual field trip to Ellis Island

on Thursday, March 29 from 1:00-1:35 pm ET. My class is definitely participating and I hope you can too!

 If you can't wait until then or want more information, check out their lesson plans or activities for kids.

You can also take their virtual picture tour.

Imagine yourself as an immigrant. My first two classes immigrated from South America. Many of my current students and their parents came to the US from Asia.  I have encouraged them to enter the "Dear Homeland" Letter Writing contest for a chance to win a trip to Ellis Island and to share their experiences.

Wonderful Weather

It's a beautiful February day here in New Jersey with a high of around 60 degrees. I have actually never used "beautiful" and "February" in the same sentence because it's usually freezing with snow winding down during this time of the year! We had snow really early on October 31, which was way earlier than usual, and an inch or two during one January day. That's it. It's been pretty weird weather, but I am not complaining!

I have been using a fabulous interactive website from EdHeads that helps kids learn about weather symbols and weather maps. It has three difficulty levels and is a lot of fun! Topics covered include temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit, cloud cover, humidity, high and low pressure, precipitation, and cold and warm fronts. More advanced students can even make predictions about how quickly a weather front will move by doing some simple multiplication.

Visit the EdHeads site by clicking here!

Download my Weather Word Wall and Bingo Game here.

Weather Instruments and Layers of the Atmosphere

We have been learning about the layers of the atmosphere and why each is important. We found these pictures to be especially helpful.

The atmosphere is divided into five layers. It is thickest near the surface and thins out with height until it eventually merges with space.

1) The troposphere is the first layer above the surface and contains half of the Earth's atmosphere. Weather occurs in this layer.

2) Many jet aircrafts fly in the stratosphere because it is very stable. Also, the ozone layer absorbs harmful rays from the Sun.

3) Meteors or rock fragments burn up in the mesosphere.

4) The thermosphere is a layer with auroras. It is also where the space shuttle orbits.

5) The atmosphere merges into space in the extremely thin exosphere. This is the upper limit of our atmosphere.

We wanted to know how meteorologists know what each layer is like.

The Virtual Balloon simulates a how a weather balloon is used to collect data in the atmosphere. Students can collect information on air temperature and air pressure at different altitudes in the atmosphere. We learned that the temperature can change to get colder and warmer in different layers. If you're looking for a fun but challenging activity, have your students graph the altitudes of each layer.

Make sure to click the settings button to change the number of flights per game, data samples collected per flight, and if you really feel like a challenge, change the location and season that you collect data from!

We really love the "Weather Words" song clip because it teaches all about the instruments.