Magnet Racer STEM Challenge


Daily Life, Fourth Grade, Science

One of my favorite STEM activities is our Magnet Racer challenge! After studying magnets, students get to build their own magnet-powered Lego car which they then try to navigate through a series of obstacles. Building and testing takes several days, and students experiment with different size wheels, wheel bases, magnets, and of course, their car design! I set up a variety of stations on the floor which mirror the final obstacle course. They can test as often as they’d like, and decide which type of magnet will work best for them to “drive” with. On the day of the final […]

Severe Weather Project – Pyramid Dioramas


Cooperative Learning, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Science, Third Grade, TpT Store

This year, the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes got together to do an end of the year project which we named Biome Bonanza. We put the students into mixed grade level groups, and had each group choose a biome to study. Once biomes were assigned, the 5th graders researched the biome itself and created a trifold, the 3rd graders each chose a country within the biome and put together a country report and short powerpoint, and my 4th graders studied a type of severe weather in the biome and created a pyramid diorama. Then, they had to work together

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Student-Led Portfolio Conferences


Assessment, ELA, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Math, Printables, Reading, Science, Social Studies, TpT Store, Writing

November is a time for Parent-Teacher conferences, which I must admit are not my favorite. I spend so much time trying to think of everything I need to say to a parent, organizing my ideas, gathering work samples and finding just the right way to phrase some of those difficult messages. And inevitably, the minute a parent leaves or an hour later it hits me… the one thing I forgot to tell them! Spring is another conference, but this time around students are leading the way. Over the next few weeks I will spend time reflecting with my students, sharing

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Graphic Organizers


Fourth Grade, Printables, Science, Social Studies, Third Grade, TpT Store, Writing

Moving to third grade this year, I needed some different graphic organizers, and it was one of those projects I kept wanting to do, but never got around to… creating a new set of graphic organizers!  Now that school is out, it was an easy summer project to get started with! I’m sure I will add more as time goes on, but it’s a good start! Click to view the file in my TpT store or in my Teachers Notebook store. So here it is, a compilation of 22 graphic organizers, covering story writing, research, comparisons, timelines, the 5 W’s

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Simple Machines


Science, Third Grade

We have been working on a simple machines unit, and so far we have learned about all of the simple machines.  We looked at one simple machine each day, reading a short book and then doing some hands on exploration.  Lastly, the students filled in a graphic organizer to help them remember what each simple machine does.  We will be working on the Edheads website this week, and students will need to track their progress as they work through the games.