Break thus far.

Habits die hard they say and I have grown attached to this blogging one...

We met with our third grade buddies in Ms. Everett's class to build gumdrop trees! 

Here are some of the final creations! We had tall and small trees, round and full ones, even a Christmas tree monster!

Other exciting things this week: 

• All the sweet gifts from the kindest students around!
• A cool assembly celebrating Mrs. Lovitt's retirement. 

Our last Monday Meeting of the year consisted of making cards to send. We voted on St. Jude's Children Hospital. 

Ms. D's Weekend (one week) Snapshot

New home=total Christmas excitement! 

My family went to see Rouge One. Here is Papa J chillin' with his 3-D glasses on. 

My new glasses came in! I know there will be some happy students who affectionately mentioned they missed my old, bigger glasses. 

Part of my new view at my house. I have been living there a week now! 

My favorite new view...hot tea and the Christmas tree!

My uber-talented cousin handmade this cutting board for me! It's stunning! Did I mention he's only 15?

All these years and I had no idea my Aunt could play the piano! 

We gave my cousin a doodle book and it is incredibly awesome! 

Papa J got sleepy, therefore he also got punked. 

The Week Before Christmas Break.

It may be the week before break, but we worked hard to fit some good stuff in this week!

We learned about Teddy Roosevelt (TR) this week and are working on a Spanish-American War comic to tell the story in our own words. Ask for a cool TR fact from your kiddo! 

We played inequality bingo to review for our test this week.

Thursday we reviewed some properties and made physical examples with ourselves and other materials around the room. 

This one was super cool and easily made into other examples. Mrs. Brevard also came in to help us out too!  

Link was also a visitor to our class! 

Other exciting things this week: 

• A super cool play on Friday 
• Lots of laughs 
• Mrs. Thomas singing "Man of Constant Sorrow" like Elmo 

Ms. D's Weekend Snapshot 

I am officially moved into my new house! Lots to unpack, but still found time to catch up on some reading and watch a few episodes of Gilmore Girls. 

Batman, Tasty Treats, and SAW.

What another great week filled with tons of learning!

This week we watched the Newsies to wrap up our immigration, industry, and Progressive Movement studies! I always expect the moans and groans when I say the word musical, but we all quickly get into and I usually hear a few of the songs a couple of weeks after we watch it! My favorite part this year was that my homeroom was obsessed with the fact that the main character was played by Christian Bale a.k.a. Batman! They loved that Batman was a newsie before he was Batman and that this was his Batman training. Every time his character did something awesome, about half the class would guttural whisper, "Batman." We made connections as we watched with our thematic viewing guide. Click here for a taste of this amazing and fun musical!

We also started the Spanish American War. After some pre-knowledge, we started a historical scene investigation (HSI) where we did our best as detectives to discover what happened to the U.S.S. Maine and why! Ask your student to share with you! 

We studied inequalities this week and how to graph them. To assist us, we enlisted the help of some fruit loops (open circles), cocoa puffs (closed circles), and twizzlers (lines over our solution set). Ask you student to show you how to graph an inequality on a number line!

We played a solution set game where we all wrote an integer and if we were a part of the solution set we did one thing and if we weren't we did another.

Other exciting things this week: 

• More lost teeth! 
• Free seat Friday!
• Excited PRIDE students!

This awesome recyclable ornament was made with Mrs. Janney in art! How awesome is this?!

Here is our classroom tree that students temporarily added their recycled material ornaments too!

Our Monday Meeting included the reading and making of the Grinch! We all wrote ways to be a positive friend and helped the Grinch's heart grow!

One student made it to 2nd on a game in iReady this week out of all the students using and playing on this program!

Our SCA sorted and packed food for the Christmas program. We had fun "shopping" to fill our boxes!

Ms. D's Weekend Snapshot: 

Most of my weekend was spent getting moved into my new house! Here is my lovely new couch and almost completely decorated tree!

YMCA and DC.

As promised, here is our heritage wall! 

These are the beautifully and wonderfully created Captains of Industry posters. Extremely proud of all of their creations! 

Did you know Carnegie gave away most of his fortune after he retired?

Did you know Native Americans used oil to stop their wounds from bleeding?

Did you know that JP Morgan bailed out the US Treasury by loaning them $62 million?

Did you know that Rockefeller locked some of his employees in a mine? 

Here we are playing Modeling Equations Four Corners. This is the toughest section of our equations studies and boy did we rock it! Students are doing the YMCA as they wait patiently for others to answer the model question and travel to the correct corner. We did the disco, dabbed, macarena, sprinkler, and so much more!

 Other exciting things this week: 

• Another lost tooth!
• The mannequin challenge (video link coming soon)!
• Cupcakes!

Ms. D's Weekend Snapshot: 

My weekend started a little early at the National Council for the Social Studies conference in DC with some other teachers from the county. We had a blast! I can't wait to share the things I learned over the weekend with everyone! 

Standing in VA on the giant floor map from National Geographic!

Senator John Lewis who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A powerful man with a powerful testament to the fight for justice and equality in our nation today. 

I met one of my favorite authors and she signed my favorite book she has written!

Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, speaking about his experiences during the Civil Rights Movement and his fight for equality today. I can't wait to share his story with you! 

The Lincoln Memorial at night! I have always wanted to do this! 

Scenes from around DC at night. Top and going around in a circle: National Christmas tree across from the White House, Lincoln Memorial from the reflection pool, The Hamilton restaurant, the White House with lights wrapped around the columns, and the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial. 

Thankful.

I can't even begin to tell you how thankful I am to have these kiddos in my life! I know it's that time of year, but I am grateful for them day in and day out. They make me a better person in this world and challenge me to give my all. This week is all in pictures! 

We did an Inventor's Lab where we took various materials and made tin can phones! We tried out ribbon, yarn, tissue paper, and pipe cleaner to see if we could make a phone that really carried the sound waves from our voices. The purpose of this lab was to help us experience a piece of what inventor's go through and then what they need to take their invention to the next level and turn it into a business and industry. 

"I can hear you now!"

Some of the materials were much harder to work with than others!

We also worked to discover ways this process would be easier such as using machines, different materials, more time and money, etc.

Mrs. Underwood even joined in the fun!

We worked super hard on our equations vocab this week, as well as to balance them!

Other exciting things this week:

Look at these sweet kiddos doing a civic duty and picking up the trash that got scattered all over the soccer field!

Ways we can be kind! 

Ms. D's Weekend Snapshot: 

I went to Ripley's Aquarium and the jellies are my second favorite thing! You can actually pet some now!

This guy cracked me up! 

My first favorite...penguins!

They had an AMAZING Pearl Harbor exhibit with interactive touch screen maps, complete WWII timelines, excellent simulations, and my favorite POTUS: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Ms. D the Riveter

My sweet sister and aunt at the tallest, most beautiful tree in all of Pigeon Forge. 

Shark tank selfie!