Mrs. H Meets MOBY!

Mrs. Halloran spent a few days at the Orlando Convention Center at the Florida Educator's Technology Conference (FETC). This is one of the largest ed tech conferences in the world and she was SOOO excited to attend and get her "nerd" on! :) She got to see lots of new and exciting things coming out as well as get lots of ideas and resources to use in the classroom. Her favorite was getting to meet a class favorite,  MOBY from BrainPop.com! She brought back LOTS of prizes and "gadgets" for all of her students. She even got invited to one of the tech company's VIP dinners where she won an iPad mini!!! WOOP!!! Kids AND teachers love technology. Mrs. Halloran can't wait to go back next year!

 

Birds of Prey

Every year CTE students get to experience a special visit from a couple who travels to different schools to education students on Birds of Prey. Students learn about the different birds and their habitats as well as threats to their existence. Students get to see these real live birds up and personal as the guests walk around the room with the birds. They even let the birds soar across the room over our heads! All the of the birds were either born in captivity or injured and not able to be released back into the wild. The students really enjoyed seeing them and learning about them. The bald eagle was a favorite, he was injured by a gunshot wound to the wing and can no longer fly.

 

 

 

Snowmen Glyphs

Students completed a snowman glyph by answering questions about winter and things they like to do. Based on their answers they created their snowman with certain characteristics. For example: If you like to snow sled color the scarf blue. If you like to drink hot cocoa, give your snowman 3 buttons. After completing the questions and creating their snowman, students enjoyed finding other snowmen similar to their own. It was amazing to see some of the similarities! Such a fun activity to get our brains warm and toasty on a chilly winter day!

Hey Snowman, What's the "MATTER"?

Students arrived at school on a "chilly" January morning to find a VERY special visitor! A snowman!! We got right to work naming our snowman. Students worked in groups to brainstorm and decide a name that the group agreed on. Then groups presented their name choices to the class and we took a vote. Since three of the four groups had the very same name choice, the majority definitely ruled! OLAF it is!!! We took some time to observe our snowman, measure our snow man, make predictions about what we think will happen to our snowman throughout the day. Olaf started out as a solid snowman and we watched him change throughout the day, dripping away slowly. Olaf got the spend the night in the classroom and when we came back to school the next day, well, Olaf was just a puddle. Mrs. Halloran took Olaf, the puddle, home to demonstrate what happens after the "puddle" or liquid stage. This was SUCH  a fun way for students to observe the different states of matter in action!

 

Unique as a Snowflake

Winter in Florida isn't quite the same as it is in the rest of the country. We did our best to do some exploring and learning about what winter really is besides just cute snowmen, jackets and hot cocoa. We took a close look a what is an actual snowflake, how is it formed, how it helps the earth and what can happen when there is too much snow. The students were intrigued that there is an actual scientific explanation for the unique patterns in a snow flake. Since we didn't have any snowflakes of our own to inspect here in the sunshine state, we made some crafty ones of our own with some shiny silver glitter :) Students then wrote about all the different reasons they are unique. My class is certainly filled with some very unique and special little snowflakes!!

"Simily Selfies"

Our class can be silly as a selfie!!
What kids doesn't like to take a funny "selfie" now and then on their parent's phone? While studying what similes are, students wrote creative similes about them selves. I thought it would be fun to display their simile with their very own selfie. So, they each got to use Mrs. H's cell phone to take their selfie. I printed out their selfies and they wrote their similes underneath. These were fun to read while hanging on display in our hall way. We had lots of visitors checking them out and seeing what creative things they wrote about themselves.

Class selfie :)