Play-Dough Recipe

Homemade Play-Dough Recipe

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/4 cup of salt
• 3 tsp. of white vinegar
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• Food Coloring - use if you want too. 

1. Combine the oil, salt, flour, vinegar, and food coloring in a pan on the stove.  
2. Heat and stir constantly until it reaches play-dough consistency and is all clumped together. 
3. I found that I had to add some more olive oil to make it not sticky. 
4. Put it on parchment paper to cool down, and squish together to make sure that it is malleable. 

Performance Tasks

I can remember when I asked students at the beginning of the year what they were interested in, and they told me that they were interested in the mill and logging.  With that knowledge in my brain, I found the perfect opportunity to tie together their interest with a Performance Task and Unit!  For the past few weeks, we have been learning about writing stories.  We have been learning about point of view, characters, theme, plot, etc.  We have written our first narrative, learned how to implement dialogue, flash drafted a second narrative, and have actually written a third.  The third and final narrative was part of a Performance Task.  This task was simple.  Pretend that you are a person from back in time relating to Berlin History, logging, etc, and write your story.  Students could blog, write a narrative, write an interview, create props, video tape, tape record, etc.

For the past few days, students have been working on these stories.  They have revised, edited, and created a performance to be carried out on Thursday and Monday.  They were told to use historically correct information and to be creative.  The have done just that.  Their excitement is unbelievable and the hard work they have put in is amazing.  Tomorrow we start the performances, and I cannot wait to see their hard work!

Math Rockstars!

Ready for 5th Grade Math!!!

The final fourth grade unit that students needed to complete before being introduced to 5th grade math was Decimal Fractions.  This unit introduced students to the concept of hundredths, tenths, decimals, adding decimals, changing decimal and fractions back and forth, expanded form for fractions and decimals, place value, etc.  The students totally rocked this unit!  We started it on February 9th and we ended it on February 24th.  The students feel comfortable with decimals and how they relate to fractions now, and their data is so impressive!  We all feel so much more confident and ready to start the first 5th grade unit:  Place Value and Decimal Fractions. 

This week we are tackling Topic A, which teaches students about exponents, thousandths, and the place value system all the way to millions!  I feel confident that students will succeed in this unit.  Since we are completing 2 lessons a day, this unit should not take too long, which is great news for us.  

However, I do not want to ignore the knowledge that students have learned this year despite being in 4th grade math.  Students can add and subtract fractions, mixed numbers, and more.  This is huge since they did barely even know what fractions were before.  They also can multiply multi-digit numbers, they can divide using long division, they understand decimals, and more.  These are all vital skills that needed to be taught, and students have worked so hard on learning these concepts.  I know that I am proud of them, and they are proud of themselves too! 

So, let's celebrate what they know and tackle the new concepts with grit, perseverance, and positivity! Go 5th Grade!