ESY 2015.....Week 3!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week with activities from our third week of summer school!~ It is FLYING by!

 

 

 

We made play dough this week. It was messy and fun!

This is our step by step instructions, we ended up reducing the amount of water because it was WAY too sticky! We still needed to add more flour, it was definitely a work in progress.

  

 

 

There was lots of running to the sink to wash or wipe hands off on wet paper towels, and then they would dive back in. Lots of language (ew....this is gross....ick....mine is tooooo sticky... more flour please...).

A couple of days later, it needed MORE flour, so I'll have to study on this recipe a bit more.

I considered it a SUCCESS as a lesson!

 

 

 

 

 

This week was all about Pirates!

I found this pirate puppet on Teachers Pay Teachers!

You can get him from GreenAppleLessons.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this awesome, amazing and "funnest" pirate science idea on Pinterest!

 

You can see it on

http://fun-a-day.com/pirate-science-fun-exploding-treasure-chests/

 

The above picture shows the ingredients used.

 

Pour the mixture into ice trays with some treasures in the center of each and FREEZE

 

 

 

Some of the treasure....

The recycled squirt bottles are filled with vinegar.
The kids squirt it on the ice cube.....
and wahoooooooooo!

Magic!

Check out Fun-A-Day.com.

 

 

The books we focused on this week.....
Sounds (a Big book)
Twenty-Six Pirates
and....
another pirate book that I cannot think of right now!

I forgot to take pictures of them this week!

 

Our yard is growing like crazy!

The fires are slowing down in the state and it has been raining often.

 

 

We LOVE it!

 

Hope your summer is going well also!

 

 

Later,

 

 

Paula

ESY...Summer School....Week 2

Here's what we did the second week of ESY.

 

Reading

Art Projects

This easy and cute turtle idea is from Glittering Muffins.

 

The kids were very creative! I thought they would make some dots and be done, but they made designs!

We had time to do a 2nd craft this week......

Make an island and add a palm tree. This idea is from Glued to my Crafts.

 

1. Read a book about the beach or an island. We read Pete the Cat at the Beach.

2. Trace and cut out both hands on green construction paper.

3. Cut about 1/3 of a paper plate off for the island. (Save the cut off piece).

4. Cut blue tissue paper into squares. Glue onto plate for the ocean.

 

 

5. Glue and sprinkle sand for the beach. Also you may glue small shells or sea stars.

6. Glue hands onto top of brown tree trunk made from brown construction paper. Trim the piece of the leftover plate and glue on the back of the tree trunk.

(You can skip this part if you use tagboard)

 

7. After the sand dries, staple the tree onto the plate.

 

Science



Materials:
Growing Sea Life characters (from Oriental Trading)
clear cups or glasses for each student
magnifying glass
Worksheet

 

They really studied their animals closely!

After the first day, they noticed the animals were more "spongy" feeling.

 

 

 

I made a little worksheet for them to use. They circled the color word and wrote what kind of animal they had picked.

 

They traced around it each day to see if the size was different.

 

This project turned out to be even more fun then I anticipated!

 

Other Activities

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are keeping busy at ESY and having lots of fun!

 

 

Later,

 

 

Paula

Linking with Doodle Bugs...Week 1 of Summer School

 

Link up here!

I'm a couple of weeks behind on sharing our ESY activities, and want to present them in order, here is what went on
the first week ....

1. Our Reading

 

• The Deep Blue Sea (colors, predictable text)
• Under the Waves (nonfiction)
• Over in the Ocean (rhyme)
• The Octopus Song

2.Art project

 

 

Deep Blue Sea

Great project! It takes two days.

First: paint the entire paper blue, don't leave any white. (well some friends have trouble with this)

 

Second: glue and sprinkle sand. Apply sea animals.

3.Science experiment

Salt Water

 

We did an oldie but goodie experiment.(I forgot to take pictures)

 

Materials:

2 clear glasses/cups of water

3 raw eggs

salt

 

1. Display the 2 glasses of plain water.

"Are these the same or different?"

 

2. Show the eggs.

"These are not cooked."

Demonstrate by cracking open 1 egg into a separate container.

 

3. Gently place one egg in each glass.

" What happened?"

See if someone comes up with "they both sank."

 

4. Take the eggs out. Add a good amount of salt to one glass.

"How are the glasses of water different?"

 

5. Place eggs back into the glasses.

"What happened?"

"What do we know about salt water now?"

 

I love this experiment! It encourages lots of language and has the "WOW" factor.

 

 

 4. The Beach (Sensory Play)

 

Fishing!

 

 

 

Mud!

 

 

A couple of boys took my Ms. Frizzle quote seriously!

 

 

They had a grand time. But then.....we adults put the lid on the tub and left it for 4 days...when we returned....

Mold!

So that tub of sand has been retired.

I'm looking for more ideas to replace it

and keep the fun going.

 

5. Station Activity

 

 

Adapted book. Match pictures as we read the book.

 

Happy 4th of July!

 

 

 

Paula

 

Station Rotations....Under the Sea Style!

For ESY our classrooms usually have a variety of students who work at many different levels. This is just one of the cool things about getting to teach in the summer! It is a challenge and gets the teaching brain cooking.

Once I know I am hired for ESY, I choose a theme.

When I receive information about the students, I compile their objectives into categories:

• Math skills
• reading and writing skills
• behavior and social skills
• communication skills

I pack what might be needed ( I always over do this, I'm trying to reduce the number of boxes but it's hard).

If the theme is a new one for me, I go to Oriental Trading, they ROCK!

After "regular" school is out, I spend a couple of weeks doing what I want and the third week planning for summer school.

I purchased my own laminator....and....it is the best thing ever! I don't know why I waited so long!

(PSSST....also the film is so much better then the film we have on our school laminator)

My brain requires time to sort out how and what I want my classroom to look like. I know teachers who just open the boxes and they are ready! I envy them, but I would be hysterical if I tried to do that!

Most of the time, after the first week of ESY, I relax. Our team (usually 2 assistants and myself) figure out ongoing problems as they occur and everything goes just FINE!

I work with the most amazing people! I have been teaching ESY 8 years and have never worked with anyone who wasn't fabulous!

I'm getting off topic......

this all leads to the  STATION ROTATION part of our school day!

 

The theme is "under the sea".

 

The stations are named to match.

(stations have matching visual-see previous post)

 

Visuals are crucial!

 

Velcro helps us be flexible!

 

Groups are assigned....3 to 4 in each. (hopefully no more)

 

and given a necklace to help remember which group they belong to

 

 

Groups are divided into

starfish

turtles

jellyfish

 

3 groups....3 adults....each of us wears a necklace also and travels with our group.

 

In the past, adults have been assigned a station and stayed there.

 

Traveling with the group works better....if kids need help transitioning someone is right there.

 

I ring the bell when it is time to move.

 

We change around their groups because someone always wants to be something different...

("awwwww....I wanted to be a turtle.")

 

This way I can say

" You will be a turtle tomorrow."

 

 

by the way, the necklace pictures are stickers from the awesome

Oriental Trading.com

 

 

 

That's it for now!

 

 

Later,

 

 

 

Paula

 

Five for Friday...ESY classroom

Linking with Doodle Bugs Teaching! Join us here!

 

 

It has been a busy couple of weeks. We started Summer School AKA Extended School Year, Alaska is on fire and there was a pretty good earthquake last week that I didn't even notice!

 

So here is a tour of our classroom for the summer session.

The theme is

 

ONE

Under the Sea

 

(group area)

 

We draped an old blue and white sheet from the ceiling, it gives the room a blue hue.

TWO

The Beach

(sensory play station)

 

THREE

The Palm Tree

(reading and writing station)

 

 

Four

 

The Light House

(math station)

 

 

FIVE

Turtle Time

( Chill out spot)

 

 

(thank you Brenda for the loan of the amazing turtle!)

 

A student can request turtle time anytime he or she is feeling a need to get away. There is a card they can pull and hand to one of the teachers. The teacher sets the timer for 3 minutes. They usually are ready to leave before the timer goes off.

They can lay under the table on the towel or can put the turtle on the floor and lay on it. Some of our friends need more time and stay until they are ready to join the group.

At first, it was used a lot! Once everyone had tried it out, they got back to work.

The rules:

1. Only one student at a time.

2. Finish your work/project afterwards.

 

I'll share more about our schedule, rotations and art projects  in the next post.

 

Later,

 

 

Paula