Earthquake in Japan

Showing 1 area where the earth moved and left a gaping crack.

Last week there was a terrible earthquake in Japan. The earthquake was an 8.9 on the Richter scale. I have lived in California most of my life up until 12 years ago when we moved so I was used to earthquakes. But the worst one I ever remember was when I was 30 years old. It was my birthday and we were woken up by the swaying of the house and the noise of the glass doors crashing together. We all jumped from our beds screaming and ran to the appointed place; our doorways of our house, supposedly the safest places to hide because they would be strongest during a quake.

Cars and airplanes literally littering the place.

My brother in law Steve was staying with us at the time as his wife was sick in the hospital with cancer and we were helping watch their 2 little kids so he could spend time with her in the hospital. And I remember my husband was on a business tripso it was embarrassing running out in my nightgown and steve in his pajama pants and here we were with all these little kids between us in these 2 doorways. But we all survived with nothing worse than a bunch of books knocked off the shelves and our brick block wall fence in the backyard got a big crack in it and some bricks fell off from the top of the fence. Not a big deal. I think that quake was a 6 on the scale.

Homes displaced and on fire.

One shot of the tsunami that engulfed the areas.

I cannot even imagine a quake as big as the one in Japan was, 8.9. That would actually shake your bones.  We used to go with our kids to the Los Angeles Museum of Science and Industry. There was an earthquake exhibit in there where you went into a simulated "house" and then you stepped up on a pedestal inside the house where an earthquake was ready to happen. I Remember standing there waiting for like 10 seconds with all my kids and then suddenly you would hear all this rumbling and the whole room would shake like heck. It was a 7.5 if I remember right. It was super scary.

Massive earthquake and tsunami destruction



Water whirl pooling and destroying.

 So I can just imagine how terrifying it has been for these people in the pacific islands who have had tsunamis and fires, scares with the nuclear power plants, and missing loved ones. The whole thing is just an awful, dreadful nightmare for them. I have been seeing many pictures of destruction that are coming over the wires and it is simply incredible. Everyone goes through terrible traumas in life once in awhile. But this is one that I actually feel so guilty because I'm so glad I am not living through it.  Not only would it be horrid to deal with the loss of your home and neighborhoods, cars and belongings but then maybe somebody in your family is suddenly missing to top it all off. And where do you go? What do you do for food and water, by now I'm sure it has run out even though they are a very prepared nation.



Part of the airport left destroyed.

 I was thinking about my family and how we have had 72 hour kits for like the last 25 years. At one point when I got into them and redid all the cup-o-soups and granola bars and fruit snacks, I noticed that my youngest son's had a tiny little diaper in his. That tell show old he was when I first put the kits together! Now they are all married and out of our home. I'm sure there is still something in those kits that wouldn't be appropriate. But thinking about a crisis of this
magnitude those 72 hour kits would be a drop in the bucket of what would be needed to survive what difficulties they are facing over there in some of the worst areas of all.  I hope and pray that they are comforted by their families, by being together as communities, and by their faith and anything else that helps them along the way. God bless them all.

New dramatic video: Tsunami wave spills over seawall, smashes boats, cars

Mardi Gras with Kids

IT'S MARCH 8TH   HAPPY MARDI GRAS EVERYBODY! 



Happy Mardi Gras!



We are starting our study of mapping and the 7 continents and 4 oceans of the world.  As part of this study we look at some areas of the 4 corners of the United States.  I like to teach the kids something about each continent, but something about the North, South, East and West of our country too. Nothing speaks about the South like Louisiana. And one of their holidays they are most known for is Mardi Gras.




Now I think it is a crazy New Orleans holiday too, but I think it is fun to use it as a cultural springboard to discuss the new term "King Cake"  and craft a mask and maybe write a story about a boy or girl who found the little plastic baby inside their own King Cake.

King Cake....who's gonna find the baby inside?

In our study of the South, we will mention that  Louisiana is where Hurricane Katrina happened in 2006. And how lots of Americans went to help out where they were needed when people had their homes flooded. We will talk about what a hurricane is  and compared and contrasted Tornados versus  Huricanes in bad weather.  Steve Spangler the Science Guy has a cool 2 liter bottle tornado demo. It is on his website.  The link is HERE

Cute story about a Hurricane...

Tornado lessons are fun with visual aids....

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en/Resources/Item/35975/ This website has a great math powerpoint using terms from Mardi Gras for standard measurement questions. We have computer  too so it will be fun to get on there and play it.  I like that kids in my class will become exposed to all thestandard units of measurement even though it is not required core anymore.




 We will make our own 12 inch "kings  feet" to go with the book I read called "How Big is a Foot" about a king who needs to figure out now to measure a new bed for his wife and they use his "feet" as a measurement tool. We then add them together to make 3 feet into a yard. Then we will hang the decorated  "feet" and "yards" from strings in the ceiling for our Mardi Gras decorations. The KING'S FEET  story kind of goes along with the "King Cake" too. There's a method to my madness....hehe....

Elementary grade Measurement Lessons are easy with this book....



King's Cake

 Here's a picture of our "feet" and "yards" all decorated up and hanging from the ceiling. We did this activity in table groups of 3. It was lots of fun and I think it helps them learn the vocabulary for standard units of measurement....inches, feet, yards.....


We used these 12 foam "feet" I bought at a Teacher Math Seminar a few years back.....

 




They traced them, used rulers to put 12 inches on each one....




We added toes to each one of course.....



Then we got in groups of 3 and glued our 3 feet to a "yardstick" made from paper strips.

Here's our "King's Feet" and Yardsticks all hangin around the room....



This is a King Cake....ours were invidividual cinnamon rolls from Rhodes Rolls
frosted and sugared with the baby bear hidden inside..

 
 The student with the baby inside their king cake gets an extra set of  Mardi Gras beads.  I just used a baby bear pick I had leftover from a baby shower I hosted last year. So funny to see the winner scream when they got the baby!

Little King Cakes.... This was before I baked them...then we ate them before I took a pic

Here are our yummy "little" King Cakes. I used Rhodes frozen cinnamon rolls and let them rise. They were perfectly big for all the kids to eat. I hid a little "baby bear" pick inside one of them for the "mardi gras baby".  It was a lot of fun. When they were cooled I frosted them with icing and green sugar.

Mini "KING CAKES" for First Graders..I only had green sugar....mmmmmm!

J found the little baby bear inside his cinnamon roll. So he got the extra cinnamon roll and a "Celebrate" crown to wear all day. It was a fun snack for the day.


After our daily seatwork the kids did masks instead of centers





They turned out very festive looking!



 And here are our masks......don't they look cool? I passed out feathers, sequins and cardboard metallic mosaic tiles for the masks.  The kids colored them with markers, cut them out and cut out the eye holes, and then just did their own thing for a center. For the noisemakers I put macaroni into paper plates and stapled them on the back of this circular design I made on cardstock and had copied. The masks and noisemakers turned out pretty festive.  

I did my own mask design but I found a free design from Skiptomylou.org and the link is HERE She did a pretty cute one that is downloadable and printable. Just embellish however you want to for "bling".  We used feathers, pom poms, sequins, etc.

Noisemakers out of paper plates and macaroni stapled to the back of the jester.

And the "feet" and "yards" hanging all over go right along with our measurement unit we are doing in math.
I think when kids do an art activity and they've read a story about "feet" and "yards" they will have that unit of measurement pretty much in memory. Art, music and stories, are all such good ways to internalize vocabulary you want the students to remember.  Happy Mardi Gras!

A Week of Bright, White Smiles!

February was Dental Health Month and in my classroom I usually do a small, 3 day unit on keeping our teeth healthy. I had so many cavities as a kid that it is my personal mission to help other kids by teaching them how important it is to brush morning and night, and to not eat too much candy and soda pop. 

These hippos turn out cute...notice the 20 baby teeth and the "tusks"



 So I kind of combine it with a nutrition lesson and we talk about things that are healthy to eat all the time, and things you can have as a special treat once in awhile.  We start off like usual, reading a few books on the subject. Here are a few of my favorites. We also get the Weekly Reader or Scholastic News and it usually has a February Dental Health issue to read. We read one of those every day. Some have just animal teeth. We put up some vocabulary words like primary teeth, molars, dental floss, cavity, 32 Adult teeth, etc. and put the definitions in the pocket chart to play with for the week. Then we do a few fun worksheets to fill in the blanks and some math to find the hidden messages. We sing some songs too.

BOOKS TO READ:

The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist 

Arthur's Loose Tooth 

The Tooth FairyTells All
Make Way for Tooth Decay
The Tusk Fairy
The Lost Tooth Club
Tooth Trouble

This little tooth fairy box I made using the tutorial on Martha Stewart's website LINK HERE

For the tooth fairy box in the picture above I just made the Martha Stewart design a lot smaller. It is easy to do. Kids can even make it, although it takes too much time. It's a good parent project though. And the kids would love to take their teeth home in it when they fall out at school. :)

Class bulletin board...The kids listed facts they learned on the "tooth"

ART/CRAFTS

This gray Hippo  has a big mouth full of 20 baby teeth. His 4 tusks are made of marshmallows. We put a Shel Silverstein poem on "How to Make a Hippo Sandwich" on the back as well as hippopotamus jokes. That's always fun reading jokes to each other.... I always combine art with shared reading. Shared reading can be songs or poems or jokes, that type of thing....just to practice READING together as a class!

he haw the kids laughed at most of these...some they didn't get I think !?

We glued this poem on the back of our Hippo Art...

Another of my favorite arts is watercoloring on a Tooth Fairy blackline.  We add glitter to her wand and wings,  then cut her out when she has dried. We back her with pastel butcher paper in yellow, pink, light blue and lavender. Then we write her letters asking questions.  It's always a hit.

These will go in our portfolios....

WRITING:

Brainstorm as a class what you'd like to ask the Tooth Fairy. My students have usually lost at least one tooth so they know what it's all about. We then write letters to the fairy and go through the whole writing process, editing and rewriting on "Tooth Fairy" paper. We are going to see if she writes us back...do YOU think she will? We are leaving the letters on top of our desks for the whole weekend....we will see....

Letters to the Tooth Fairy...very nosy indeed!  hehe

When we came in on Monday...We got fairy letters back! 

Well, after we wrote letters asking the tooth fairy questions we left them out on our desks all weekend. And guess what? She came and visited over the weekend sometime.

I think this was Em's  fairy...very cute!

Allie did such a great job! I loved her painting!

And she left little letters in tiny envelopes to the kids. She was so sweet to answer all their questions! It was totally cute seeing the kids all excited to have a tooth fairy letter!

We graphed how many teeth we had lost, and then flossed our own teeth

Some had lost 8 teeth and some had lost NONE!

FLOSSING

That red thing is a big set of wind up clacking teeth, floss and a giant toothbrush.

Past years I have found individual flossers at the dollar store with like 30 in a package for a buck. Then I use 2 white pillowcases and have 2 kids put them over their heads. Then I use a rope to go between them as they stand very close together representing 2 teeth. It is funny for the kids, they all want to take a turn being a tooth. Or you can do the same thing with white styrofoam egg cartons. Using the bumpy backs as teeth the students use white yarn to go between the egg holders to"floss".  Then I pass out individual floss to practice.  After lunch they can see what kinds of "materials" they floss from their teeth. Mmmm.  

We read the Dental Health Weekly Readers and Scholastic News all week!

BRUSHING

Some years we have a dentist in our class and they come in or send someone to teach brushing. Sometimes I just have to use my clackety clacking teeth model and a giant toothbrush. Some years Crest has sent me fun sticker charts and individual stickers and sometimes individual toothbrushes and tiny tubes of toothpaste. They haven't done it the last 2 years. Maybe it got too expensive. So sometimes I look at the dollar store for toothbrushes to go home with a chart I make up and some stickers to go home encouraging  weeks of perfect brushing for a fun certificate.

If kids want they can add to my Lost Tooth stories when they lose a tooth in class.

MATH AND SCIENCE   CAROUSEL

A carousel is a strategy where each student visits a learning activity for a short visit (8 to 10 minutes) doing the activity on a "Theme Day". Ring a bell after 10 minutes and kids move to the next station in a round robin fashion. Kids love it. Then a few of them can be left out all week for centers.

1.  Roll a Tooth -Take turns rolling a die and fill up the 32 teeth in the mouth with mini marshmallows. , 
2.  Tick Tack Toe with teeth counters. Play with a partner.
3. Graphing. Talk about your graph with the teacher using ONLY math words (greater than, equal, least etc.).Then Graph your favorite toothpaste or teeth lost. 
4. Flossing -practice flossing on the egg cartons with yarn. Then floss your own. Brush the model teeth.
5. Check out the 3 types of stains on the hard boiled eggs... coke, grape juice, brush off with toothpaste 
6. Math - Add up 3 numbers on the 3 cards. Write an equation.   Use the giant smile as a counter vehicle if you need it to do the adding. We used paper folded 4 times into 16 square.

A math game, make equations using 3 number cards...use the teeth for counters

Above is the math game....put the counters on the teeth as you go...then count it up...

I made the counters from 1 piece of 99 cent foam...it was easy.



Another game...See how many of each number you roll...by graphing it!

 For Center 3 You can use little erasers from Oriental Trading to graph.   They are only 3.99 for 24 and that would last for years for game counters or graphing counters. See them HERE.This year I ran out of money so I just went to Michaels and got some white foam for 99 cents and simply drew teeth shapes one night while watching TV. I might also try dry lima beans with little faces on them next time. :) The fun part was when they had a pretty good sized graph I'd wander over to that center and ask... "Now tell me about your graph using math words like, equal, greater than, less than, least, most, how many more, how many less." They are getting pretty good at describing the class graph. We try to change it every week.



I think my one sheet of foam made like 60 little teeth counters/graphers...



Here is a finished graph by Trace and J. and they descibed it to me perfectly.

CLASS GRAPH - HOW MANY TEETH HAVE YOU LOST?
 I always have my GRAPHING pocket chart up so it would be a fun to graph their favorite toothpaste flavor and see which one is the class pick. In the past I have cut out the front of boxes of toothpaste with their colorful labels to put in the pocket chart. But this year we have graphed how many teeth we each have lost. 
  

A "Just for Fun" center...Tooth Tic Tac Toe

The girls really got into the game....

Center 2 - The fun Tick Tack Toe game  can be found HERE at About.com.  It was made by Beverly Hernandez. It's very cute. I changed the counters to some cute tooth stickers I had in 4 colors that I liked better. I backed them with cardstock and had the game and counters laminated.

Center 1 - It's a math game where you roll a dice and count out the marshmallows to place on 32 round circles in a mouth.  I found it at A to Z Teacher Stuff in a fun unit called "Let's Talk Teeth".  The link is HERE and Susan Payne is the author. There are lots of fun poems and chants also on this cute unit website. There is a cute poem entitled "The Tooth Fairy Came Last Night" I am attaching to the backs of our tooth fairy art projects. It will be fun for the kids to read and fill in the blanks with coin money.

These eggs pretty yucky when you pull them out of the coke & juice!

Center 5 -  Looking at the experimental hard boiled eggs we put into Coke, Grape Juice and one in plain water. If you do this a day in advance like we did,  it is a fun center for kids to see how food "stains" our teeth and for them  to try to "brush" away the stains.  You could also use some permanent marker on white bathroom tiles. I also have my red, plastic, clacking teeth they can practice brushing with my giant toothbrush. That is always fun.  

The kids are trying to brush the stains off with toothpaste...it was hard...they said.



Each Center has several books on teeth for fast finishers to read while they wait for me to ring the bell. This is always a fun week in school.   

And isn't it cute how excited they get to have their pictures taken? They are super cute in 1st grade.