Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Mini Pumpkin Donuts

I LOVE Fall! I am so in love with Fall that I want every single day to go by as slooooooooow as possible.  Living in Arizona for the last 5 years has completely blocked Fall out of my mind.  It is still 100 degrees there right now!


I remember thinking that Arizona had Fall weather from November - May (now this isn't completely false) but there is a smell in the air and a crispness in the wind and a color to the trees that make Midwestern Falls the absolute BEST!

To get into the spirit, I made some scrumptious mini pumpkin donuts in my super cute mini donuts maker that I scored from my brothers "Goodwill Pile."  You know what they say... one man's trash is another man's treasure! And she sure is a treasure!




I made a box of Pumpkin bread from Trader Joe's thinking it was gluten free,,, whoops, it wasn't! So, I took those to work to spoil my co-workers.  Then, I was super jealous of the aroma, so I made my own, homemade, gluten-free mini pumpkin donuts!

Jealousy is a sickness and I needed to get well soon!

Mini Pumpkin Donuts:
(makes about 50 mini donuts)

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup gluten free flour
1 TBS flax seed
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 TBS honey
1 egg
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/3 cup water

Mix it all together and I scooped 1 tablespoon into each donut compartment (holds 6 at a time)
Let cool and enjoy!

If you don't have a handy dandy donut maker, I would love to hear how other people used this recipe! It was so delicious, I almost ate all the batter before the donuts were even cooked!











Author's Purpose

Our Reading Street Unit 1 test is coming up next week.  I was looking for something that would spice up our day and be valuable to the students learning - the 2 most important aspects of teaching!

I decided to stick with the typical "P.I.E.E." to teach about persuading, informing, entertaining, AND expressing emotion (you can't forget that extra E!).


Whenever I incorporate an activity... I mean CRAFTIVITY.. into the classroom, my goal is to make it purposeful.  I ask myself, "Is this craftivity going to take longer to teach or to make?"  If the crafting takes longer, I feel like it is not beneficial to the education of the kids - no matter how cute it is!  HOWEVER, I have found a lot of tricks to making a cute craft meaningful, you just have to sneak in the teachable moments whenever possible.

PIEE Author's Purpose document - click here!


Each student was given the pie outline and the cover sheet.  In the center of the "frosting," we defined what Author's Purpose was - "Author's Purpose is the reason an author writes a text."  Instead of just giving them the definition, I challenged them to think of it on their own (which many students already knew, whew!).  If there was a struggle, my Plan B was to have them research it on their Chromebooks.


We made a list of our "key words" when it comes to author's purpose.



We went through the activity step-by-step.  Each student had to write a couple sentences persuading me to do something.  To inspire them, we watched this YouTube video and it brought back MANY memories from my childhood! :)  They listened for the key words in each clip.



We have been studying hurricanes in science for the last 2 weeks.  So, to tie in our science curriculum with our "inform" column, we wrote informational facts about hurricanes.  The students used a search engine called KidRex.  They found a great article on Weather Wiz Kids that listed amazing hurricane facts.





Entertain was one of my favorites to read as I walked around the room.  I definitely have a classroom full of unique individuals!


To express emotions was slightly challenging for some students.  I now know my goal for them is to dig deeper into their writing and pump up their sentences with descriptive words.











Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Spirit Week 2015

Rockstar Day!


Pajama Day!

School Spirit Day!



Crazy Day!




Storybook Character Day!
The Magic School Bus kids!


The Magic School Bus In the Arctic
and
The Magic School Bus Goes Fishing

Word Hunt and Writing Activities

Sight Word Hunt


Students wore sight words on their foreheads and had to roam the classroom to located each sight word on the list.  Before they could connect the student name with the sight word, they had to read the sight word out loud to each other.






Such a great activity to build listening and speaking skills along with confidence in their sight words.



Class color day and the student on the right got into the spirit with his face paint!  To create the worksheet, I made 2 columns on Microsoft Word and on one side typed the students in my class and on the other typed relevant sight words. Super simple and very fun!



Sticker Writing:

Each student was given 1 sticker to stick on their paper.  Then, they had to come up with a creative picture that incorporated their sticker.


Students had to write a list of nouns and verbs from their creative picture.  Finally, they created sentences using the sentence frame to match their picture.  A rubric was included on the worksheet to give them accountability for their writing.




Sentence Puzzles:

Each student wrote a sentence using Noun + verb + finisher.


Then, they cut each piece of their sentence apart.

(it was pajama day!)


Once the sentences were cut, we bagged them, and mixed them up.  The students read through a friends sentence and had to create a complete sentence.