Seed Dissection!

I love teaching science and one of my favorite units is Plants!  That is one reason why I am in love with my Plant Lapbook Unit!

I'm super proud of it! It's a complete reading unit, filled with reading selections, fold-its and quick checks! Ok, enough self promotion!  On to some fun stuff!

Like I said, I love teaching plants.  When we are learning about the plant life cycle and parts of a seed, I love to disect seeds in class!  It's super easy and so fun!

First, buy a bag of lima beans. You'll need some dry beans.  Then, soak some overnight in water. 

The kids are always amazed at how large the beans grow when they are soaked in water!

First, the students observe a dry seed. I usually let them use a hand lens, because it makes it even more exciting. :)

Now, the best part! Take off the seed coat, split the bean in half...

Guess what you'll find inside?

It still amazes me when I see the little seedling, or embryo, inside the seed!  

It is such an easy science experiment, but the kids always love it. 

I was going to make a recording sheet, but I decided to do a little search on TPT and guess what? I found an excellent freebie.  It was step by step and used great vocabulary!  Click here to check it out!

I am heading to the beach tomorrow (yes, I'm taking two days off woohoo!), so I might be MIA this weekend. I'm sure I'll be posting some of my happy ocean pictures on my Instagram. Be sure you follow me @adventuresinthird! 

Have a great week friends!

Teacher Appreciation Winner

I had such a great Teacher Appreciation Week! My little sweeties showered me with sweets and cute little cards.  I hope that you had a great week as well.

Now for some fabulous news! The Teacher Appreciation Giveaway that was hosted by some of my favorite teacher bloggers is over!

Thanks again to everyone who entered.  We truly appreciate every one of you who takes the time to read our blog! :)

Have a great evening!

Celebrating Writers!

I have fallen in love with teaching writing workshop this year!  I LOVE it!

We spent the last month working on poetry.  We learned about haikus, limericks, sensory, concrete, freestyle, alliteration and acrostic poems.  We read lots of poetry, talked a lot about stanzas and lines, and learned about lots of figurative language.

The students wrote and wrote and wrote throughout the month. Then it came time to publish. They loved publishing on the computer! They published some on our fancy paper too! They created covers and Table of Contents for all of their published poems.  Here are a few examples!

Last week we finished our poetry genre unit. It is our last big unit of the year, so I wanted to really celebrate! One of my favorite parts of writing workshop is celebrating at the end of every unit.


We had a poetry jam, complete with snapping and a poet chair! Each student chose their favorite poem to share with the class.

Then they shared some of their other favorite poems with friends.

What's a celebration without food?  So I ordered a tasty cake!

My friend Elisabeth helped me come up with something cute to write on it!

Some of the kids shared their thoughts about writing.  I heard lots of things like, "I used to hate writing, but now I want to be an author!"  One of my little sweeties said, "When you handed me that notebook, I thought no way! I am not filling that up with writing! Now I want to get a new one to write in during the summer."  

I was so proud of my kiddos, they have turned into little authors! 

How do you celebrate writing in your class?

Teacher Appreciation Giveaway

I hope that you have felt very appreciated this week! I am teaming up with some of my friends to show some more love!

One lucky teacher will win all of these FABULOUS prizes!

Stephanie's TPT Shop

Amber's TPT Shop

Elisabeth's TPT Shop

Elizabeth's TPT Shop

Lisa's TPT Shop

Christi's TPT Shop

Lindsay's TPT Shop

Julie's TPT Shop

Gina's TPT Shop

Kristen's TPT Shop

Wow! I wish that I could win! :) 

Enter below with the Rafflecopter! Contest ends Sunday night at Midnight. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fabulous Feedback and a Sale!

Have you heard? There's a Teacher Appreciation Sale starting tomorrow!

YAY! I love sales because there are so many things that I want. I just wish I knew what grade I was going to be teaching next year. Oh well, I'll still be stocking up on clipart, and things that could be used 3-5, because I'm sure I'll still be in a testing grade next year. (Thanks to Beth from Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for making that cute graphic!)

My store will be 20% off and you can get an extra 10% off with the code TAD13! Now is the perfect time to grab up anything in my store you've had your eye on!
Oh, and don't forget to add that extra code at check out, because I definitely forgot during the last sale! :)

As a seller, one of my favorite things about TPT is receiving feedback.
One, because it makes us accountable to the buyers to create awesome products.
Two, because sometimes we get feedback that really makes us smile!

So, the fabulous Christina from Buntings, Books and Bainbridge, started this great linky!

It was hard to choose from all of the fabulous feedback I've received over the past year and a half, but here are some of my favorites! You can click on any of the pictures to be taken to the product. 

They still bring a smile to my face! :)

Don't forget, if you have bought items and haven't left feedback, make sure you do that today!  Guess what? You receive credits for the feedback that you leave, and you can use those credits for discounts on future purchases! Hello?? How awesome is that??

So , know it's time to go fill up your cart, I know that I am! :) 

Visual Plans May 5th

It's Sunday and Rainy and I have spent a lot of time doing nothing.

I have 5 weeks left and 3 weeks left until our EOG. Where in the world has this year gone?  It's flown by but it has been EXHAUSTING implementing Common Core and everything else that was added on this year.

I didn't make visual plans for last week because I didn't finish anything from the previous week!  I was able to make some for this week!  So here they are!

Click here or on the picture above to download the file with all of the links!  :)

My Items that I'm using this week will be on sale for 15% off  from 6 PM-Midnight EST tonight! Just click on the picture below!

Be sure to check out some other great visual plans over at Mrs. Will's Kindergarten!!

Five For Friday- May 3rd

It's Friday! YAY! It has been a crazy week.  Cuhrazy! Since it's Friday, you know what that means!

1.  We have been hard at work writing poetry.  My kids have loved learning different types of poetry and writing poems in writing workshop!

They have really enjoyed publishing on the computer!

Yep, I wrote some free verse poetry too. What can I say? I love the Little Mermaid! It's my favorite movie!

2.  We played several Investigations Math Games this week.  We are on Unit 8, so we are practicing lots of different math strategies!  I'm trying not to think of that looming test.

3.  We started working through my Plant Lapbook Unit this week.  We aren't making the lapbook, we just glue the fold-its in our notebooks! The kids have loved it. I love hearing "I love learning science with you Ms. Polk!"  They are always so amazed when they see my name at the bottom of the paper.   :)

There favorite part of the unit, watching beans grow in fast motion on Youtube!

4.  Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post! Congrats to Suzy Q! She's the winner of my new Color Codes!

5.  I started posting on Instagram a few weeks ago and I am already addicted. Like seriously!  I've been taking part in a Photo A Day Challenge by The Pinspired Teacher.  So fun!  If you aren't on Instagram, you should try it! Totally easy. If you want to, follow me at @Adventuresinthird :)

Not to be a downer, but I have something else to share.

Today our school had a bomb threat. Yes, I teach elementary school.  It was written on a bathroom wall.  One of my students found it, so my kids knew what was going on from the beginning.  It's hard to explain to third graders.  The same thing happened yesterday at the middle school in the little town that I teach.  So a lot of the kids were already aware of that.  Our staff, students, and parents handled the situation very well.  It was indeed a hoax, but it was still a stressful, tiring day.  This world we live in can be very scary. Please keep our students and school in your thoughts.

Have a great week.  I plan on doing lots of relaxing! :)