Mathematical Monday: Blowing Bubbles to Learn About Circles

Today I am linking up with I Heart Recess  for Mathematical Monday to share one of my most favorite math activities that we do all year long! I have done this activity the past two years and I... my kids love it. My math coach told me about it last year and I now have brought it to my new school and done it with my TAG students and some of the fifth graders. It is so much fun!

 

Educators like to have pi day and to use food to study circles. I love pi day too, but many schools are changing to where you can no longer give students food. Because of this, this is a great alternate or additional activity to give your students some time to have fun with circles on a hands on way. Not only do they have a blast, but boy your desks will never be cleaner!

Materials Needed: liquid hand soap, straw for each student, measuring tapes (the ones that tailors use), a cup or measuring cup, and cleared off desks. 

I make up a bucket of the soapy solution (just some liquid soap and water (Dawn works well)) and go ahead and pour some (a small cup or measuring cup works well) on an area where all students can see so that I can model the activity. I have a straw and put it down in the middle of some suds(it is important that you water is very sudsy). You want to make sure that you are holding the straw straight up and down. Then, you should blow lightly and a large bubble will appear on the desk. Once the bubble pops, show students how to measure the diameter and how you expect them to record it. 

Once your expectations are set and students are aware of how to do it, set them off! Put a scoop of the bubble solution on each desk. They will want to spread it around and then go ahead and start trying to blow bubbles. 

This is one of my fifth graders blowing his bubble, they get really big!

Another excellent bubble blown!

 This student  is measuring her diameter, you can see the ring of suds that they measure really well int this picture!

Important Things to Remember:

1. Make sure the straw is straight up and down when you try to blow.

2. Make sure you are sticking your straw into some suds.

3. If you already have a bubble partially  blown and want to make it bigger, put the straw straight up and down on the desk and drag it over to the edge of the bubble. Once it is touching, you can start blowing to make it larger. 

4. Make sure you keep track of what side of the straw has been touching the desk and what side you have been blowing with. Nobody wants to taste the soap! 

5. If there are not many suds on the desk, they can use their hands to scoop all of the mixture back to the middle of the desk.

6. A 5 minute practice bubble blowing session (without measuring the diameter each time) is always fun a good way to make sure students are ready to go. 

I have done this activity with two fifth grade classes. Both times it has been very successful, but there are always a few students that say they can not get a bubble. For these students, I demonstrate on their desk and then take a scoop of just suds from the top of the mixture to put onto their desk. They normally get it right afterwards. It will be a hectic lesson for you, your job will be to scoop more sud mixture onto their desks and they will always be asking for it. The hard work pays off though, with an excellent lesson and a ton of fun!  After a certain amount of time (I generally give them 5 minutes of practice and 10 minutes of blow and record time), have the students clean up. I then have them do the actual calculations with the circumference formula to find the circumference of the their bubble circles. Largest circumference gets a prize! 

I definitely recommend doing this activity with your students if you study the area or circumference of circles. It's a ton of fun. Just make sure you practice a bit with the bubble mixture before the lesson.

Happy Teaching Y'all!

The WHOLE Child

What a weekend! This weekend has been jam packed with so much and I am thankful to finally have some time to myself today to relax. Our students have been working extremely hard with the addition of one of our new music teachers to perform the musical, The Grunch. Friday night was opening night and all I can say is WOW. Many of the students that were performing are students that I get the opportunity to work with each day. It was amazing to see them in this different light and find out about some of their other talents and to see them in action!

One of the students that I teach in math and reading starred as the grunch. He is academically gifted, but also gifted creatively. It was wonderful to see him do his thing! I honestly could not stop smiling the entire time and may or may not have teared up at the end. 

Saturday, my wonderful big sister from my sorority graduated from George Mason with a Masters in Special Education. I am so incredibly proud of her! 

Here she is, relishing in her accomplishment! So proud!

Couldn't help myself! :) Had to share the awesome gift basket we made for her! Everyone laughed that the staple remover was included, but those things are a huge deal! As expected, no one even though twice about the inclusion of the Fireball. Guess everyone knows that sometimes adult beverages are needed ... a nice addition to the occasional week of work. ;) 

You are probably starting to wonder why on earth my post was titled "The WHOLE Child".  Don't worry, i'm working on it. At Christina's graduation, I had the honor of listening to Melissa Porfirio, the 2014 Virginia Teacher of the Year, speak. She shared her story with us and you could have heard a pin drop in the Patriot Center. Honestly, many commencement speakers leave you thinking about how thankful you are that they are done speaking, but she was amazing. I was completely entranced.

She told us the story of her childhood; her parents abusive relationship, wondering if everyone would still be alive when she woke up, and how school was an escape for her. She lived in a "trailer park" and in her town if you lived in there, you were expected to not make much of yourself.  The people who lived there were called "Village Rats". She was identified as a high student and hid where she lived from everyone throughout school. She was successful and loved how she felt at school, even though each night she was dealing with so much at home. She had a science teacher in middle school that was her absolute favorite.  One day, another student in class was acting up. and the teacher said "What do you want to become, one of those Village Rats?". That day, the teacher that she admired so much lost her respect. To hear her teacher talk about people like her that way made her lose faith in her teacher, her school, and herself. School was no longer a place of comfort and the repercussions of that teacher's words stayed with her into her adult life.

Her message was this, look at the whole child. Don't throw it around as a buzz word, actually do it! You should "never underestimate the impact you will have on a students life". I believe that this is true, a child named John Cuervo is the reason that I went into teaching. But additionally, she wants us to remember that although the current focus is on DATA and RIGOR "we must not forget the power of RELATIONSHIPS". Your relationship with a child can change their lives. I think in the day to day it is easy to forget this, but we cannot. By thinking about the whole child and supporting them in and out of school she makes differences in lives each and every day. 

When I reflect on myself and if I truly look at the whole child, I know that I do try to do this every day. Just like seeing my students in their musical and the conversations we have each day I know that I am taking a step in the right direction. However, I think that many of us can do more and that if we do we will be helping them succeed. Sometimes we just get caught up in all of the hustle and bustle and forget to really take that time. Hearing her speak has inspired me to make sure that I will put more of an effort in to know my students outside of school every day in the future. 

How do you think about the whole child? What do you do to make sure that you are supporting them in all aspects of their lives?

Happy Teaching Y'all! 

Success in Secondary Linky Party!

I'm feeling quite ambitious today and am spending a relaxing evening at home after going to opening night of my school's musical (and it was amazing! More to come about this later this weekend).  Found 4mula Fun today and am already obsessed! So many great ideas that I need to borrow!  While there I read about their Success in Secondary Linky and couldn't resist. :)

It's nice to find some cute stuff for the older grades. I teach elementary talented and gifted so I teach higher material but with younger kids. Obsessed with her products... my TPT "to buy" list is getting way to long now!   

If you are a Virginia teacher you may find my SOL checklists helpful. Currently I have them made for second through sixth grade standards in math. My goal this summer is to get them for the other subjects as well. I am obsessed with mine and have shared it with other teachers at my school and they love it too! I must admit that I created it to be used from the beginning of the school year, but I restarted mine at the end of the year. I like it to do quick checks with  my class and see what skills we still need to work on. In honor of this being a secondary linky party, feel free to grab my sixth grade checklist below(Click the picture)!

Also, if you are looking for some practical uses for dividing with decimals, check out my Great Toilet Paper Debate activity. We all know that the big word floating around the teaching world is rigor. That being said, we need to find real world applications for math. Honestly, I just wanted to know what brand of toilet paper to buy. But somehow my question turned into an activity that allows students to do internet research, lots of computation, and finally some problem solving and critical thinking to make a real world decision about what brand of toilet paper they should buy. Check it out below!

Time to get some shut eye for this girl. My big is graduating with her Masters in Special Education tomorrow! It's going to be a busy day celebrating her accomplishments!

Happy Teaching!

Five for Friday! Linky Party

Decided it was time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for my first Five for Friday! Now or never, right?

It's getting so close! Can't believe SOL testing is upon us. Trying to keep doing creative things to reinforce the standards, but today our poor projector died! Guess it'll be a lot of centers since Smartboard review games are out of the question right now.

Love this Fraction Quilt Bingo activity from Margaret Matchet over at TPT. Used it last year with my fifth graders and this year with my fourth and sixth graders, they loved it! To make it even better, it's free and the "quilts" turned out so great!

We are currently reading A Wrinkle in Time right now. How have I never read this book before now? Some of the kids are saying that they don't like it or that it is too confusing, but i'm going to go ahead and order the next four books in the series. I have a feeling they won't be putting it down soon enough.

Especially when your day isn't going so hot, always nice to receive a little love! Got this sweet note from my principal yesterday, made my whole week!

And last but not least....

I won tickets from a local radio station, HOT 99.5, to go see the Lady Gaga concert that was moved to earlier this week. So glad I got to spend some time with my bestie before she leaves me this summer to go get her masters in Social Work.

Happy Friday y'all and happy teaching! 

This Year's Classroom

Last year I was fortunate enough to realize how important it was to make a room you LOVE. You spend so much time in your classroom that you need to make sure it is some place that you like spending time in. I was also presented an additional challenge this year, I get a half classroom. Thankfully it turned into a cozy little nook. I can honestly say that although we are almost done with the school year, I still enjoy being in it!  Take a peek!

The view of my room from the window. I love having fabric cover my desk, I feel like it makes the whole room come together more! The hanging talk bubbles are Accountable Talk Stems from Miss Sampson over at TPT. I love them! The Wonder Wall is an idea that I got after looking at many other teacher bloggers. Didn't get to use it as much as I liked this year, but next year it'll be in full swing!

 In this picture you can see my reading and math word walls, "Help Yourself Center" full of manipulatives, calculators, and other resources students may need, and our super cute bunting! It's hard to believe that a coworker got that bunting super cheap at a yard sale!

Finally, a place for homework to be recorded and to hold all of our "Productive Thinking" more to come about that soon! This picture is also Pre-Smartboard. I love my SmartBoard, but I can't help but miss all of that extra whiteboard space!

Hard to believe that in five weeks all of this hard work will be coming down for summertime cleaning. It took so long to put up! I thought that was supposed to be a benefit of staying at the same school? ;)

Happy Teaching!

What a Year... or Two.

When I was fortunate enough to find my first teaching job, I realized that I wanted to keep a blog to document all of the trials and tribulations that a first year teacher goes through. As you can see, I obviously did a fantastic job (my last post was September 2012 I believe). Ha!

My best friend, Lindsay for SPED and Sunshine's blog has given me some much needed inspiration to get back into this blogging thing. I wish I would have kept up with it, I always say that after last year I need to go ahead and write a memoir. Hearing about everything that I happened in my first year would definitely be a best seller.

Fifth grade was certainly interesting, I left last year thinking I would never teach again.  Thankfully, God made it all work out. He put my resume in my current principals hands and she called me. The rest is history! I am currently happily a Talented and Gifted teacher in a school in Northern Virginia. I am appreciated, valued, and love my job!

I am so thankful that god put this position in my hands and encouraged me to not give up on something that my heart is truly in.

Over the next few weeks I will be writing about everything that you have missed over the past year and a half and keeping you updated on the end of the year chaos that is happening. After that I will be updated for teaching tips for teaching our gifted learners and ideas for exceeding the Virginia standards.

You should also take a minute and hope on over to Sped and Sunshine and meet the FABULOUS Lindsay. Here is a picture of us from back in high school making a video for class. It was obviously a very interesting moment. :)

Happy Teaching!