Transparent, Translucent and Opaque

This is a poster I made when I was teaching about properties of light. It shows a solid object (the yellow string of yarn) being placed behind different types of paper (transparent, translucent, and opaque). I cut out rectangular samples from different paper sources: clear cellophane packaging for transparent paper, waxed paper for translucent paper, and colored card stock paper for opaque paper. 

Here's a quick activity that students can do to compare the degree of transparency among these different types of paper: Use three similar flashlights, a rubber-band to secure each sheet of paper over the face of the flashlight. Turn of the classroom lights to get the room dark enough, then flick on the flash lights simultaneously to shine at the wall. Your students can try this with other types of paper like tissue paper, transparency paper, recycled paper, etc, and sort these types of paper on in a table or sort them in a continuum that goes from transparent to opaque. 

Have fun!

Check out these Super Math Centers!

Are you intimidated by the thought of creating your own math centers? Fear not! Laura Candler from Teaching Resources and Corkboard Connections Blog is hosting a Linky Party of super Math Centers. So Stop by and get free math centers, teaching tips in creating centers and you'll learn the secret to successfully having math centers in your classroom.

Here's a center of my very own... You'd never guess that you can so so many activities with the nets of 3D Shapes. In this one, I created activities for the nets of Cubes for Grades 3 - 5 (Some may be applicable to Grade 2 as well). Enjoy!

Homophones Matching Game... Just Play Like Dominoes!

What is a homophone? Easy! There are different definitions of homophones in many dictionaries. I stick to the basic rule: If the prefix ‘homo’ means ‘same’ and ‘phone’ comes from the word ‘phoneme’ which means ‘sound’, then the term ‘homophone’ means ‘same sound’. This definition is simple and easy to remember.

Homophones can be found as pairs or triplets. Think of write, right and rite - that's a triplet. The doubles are more common, such as peace/piece, stare/stair, cent/sent, cereal/serial, whether/weather, patience/patients, sweet/suite, etc.

I have prepared a set of 50 Homophone pairs in these Domino Cards. You're welcome to check them out. I love making games, and if my students are addicted to them, then yours will be too!

Earth Day Words

It's Earth Day! Look at this beautiful Earth Day word wall! I just had to take a picture to share it with you. Words like recycle, solar power, and wind power were a great addition to the usual words like plants, animals, birds, and fish. I love that it carries the theme of 'going green'.

Celebrating a Milestone!

Don't click on the image, the real button is on the right >

I have finally reached 200 blog followers (on Google Friend Connect). I am very happy about that. So I'm just sharing my good news here. Thank you to all of my followers, you are very much appreciated!

Do you know about Teachers Notebook?

Here's something that I think all teachers should know about. It's a site for teachers called Teachers Notebook. As a teacher, you can use it to find resources and every time you make a purchase you get points which accumulate and can be redeemed for great stuff, like an Amazon or Learning Resources gift card. 

You can read more about the site here.  If you are really creative and you have lesson plans or learning centers of your own that you would feel would be valuable to other teachers, you can upload them to Teachers Notebook by opening your own store. You can set your items at a reasonable price or give them away for free (or both)!  I upload my own classroom resources there, it' very easy to do (once you get the hang of it). The site is loaded with the works of many great teacher-authors and it also links to their teaching blogs. You can click here to see my freebies and paid resources on Teachers Notebook. And I would be so very grateful if you could 'favorite it' by clicking on 'Add to favorite shops'.  I recommend that you sign up for their weekly newsletter, it has exciting news each week... and links to the latest freebies! And best of all, Debbie and Steve Esemplere, the creators or Teachers Notebook have just added even more fantastic stuff like a member forum and giveaway promotions, just for teachers! They also remodeled the look of the site, it is sooooo very cute! Check out the pictures below...

Out with the old...

...and in with the new! Say hello to the new look of Teachers Notebook!

Here are a few close-ups...

Can you tell that I'm so very excited about this? I know that more teachers will find that they can save time by finding what they need online (it's the way of the future) because they'll get what they need instantly via instant download and it costs a lot less than buying a workbook from a book store!

Suffix Card Game...

Do you need a fun way of giving your students practice with suffixes? I created these cards for my students third graders. Each card has a different suffix, examples of root word + suffix, an illustration of the word and a definition of the suffix used. There are a total of twenty-four cards in the set.

 

It is available for purchase right here at my blog store, at Teachers Notebook, or you can get it from my TpT Store. (Check out my freebies while you 're there, a third of my TpT Store is free!).

The picture above shows some of the cards from the set.

Simple and Free Butterfly Crafts

 

These are so easy to make! Just give each of your students one sheet of colored paper and a lollipop. Children working in pairs must each have a different color of paper.

Here are the steps for the students:

1. Fold your paper in half.
2. Draw a large heart and cut it out so that you have two identical hearts.
3. Wrap and glue the pointy bases of the hearts around the lollipop stick. These will form the butterfly's wings.
4. Exchange the remaining scrap of paper you have with your partner. This will give you a new color to add patterns to your butterfly's wings.
5. Draw circles on the scrap of paper and cut them out.
6. Stick the circles on the wings to make spots.
7. Done!

Older children can add more details of their own to their butterfly like adding eyes and a mouth to the lollipop to make a face. This craft can be used for Valentine's Day or for Spring. Just chose the right colors of paper for the theme that you are using. Click here to download a free printable Google Doc template of this craft.

You can also download it for free straight from my TpT Store. Just click on the TpT icon below.

When Parents Need to Live and Let Learn!

Have you ever ever encountered a parent who thinks that their child is so helpless that they are always trying to do the child's work for them? I'm dealing with one in my class right now. But I didn't realize that it seems o be a growing problem until last week. A fellow teacher at my school and I were chatting  and she shared her experience with me; she gave her students an assignment in which they had to create a report about wetlands in the country, providing pictures and information and so on. She also provided a rubric.

When it was time for the students to present their reports, a funny thing happened. The students with the most beautiful, detailed, well-crafted reports got lower marks than the students whose reports did not look as impressive. Why? Because the teacher was wise enough to 'interview' each student about their assignment - How was the information gathered? What is a wetland? Name two examples of wetlands in... - Based on their answers, she was able to determine which students really knew their stuff. Apparently, some parents have a tendency to want to 'take over' the child's assignment and they do not realize that it is the child that really needs to do their own work in order to really learn.