Graphing Fun and Tried it Tuesday

Hi there.... I don't know about any of you, but today felt like it should have been Thursday to me.  I'm not sure if it was because we were back to -20 this morning or if it was the indoor recess, but it certainly was hard to get going today.  With that being said, my kiddos and I had a great day!  It started out slow for me, but great as well... I mean how can you not smile at this cutie?  She's not a very big fan of the cold, and with it being -20 this morning we had to go with a coat and booties.  If we wouldn't have done so, she would have gone on three legs and refused to move. Not that the clothes are much better, she runs away from us- at least it keeps her protected.

Meet Ellie... Our 'Puppy Kid'

So now to school-- today my kiddos were finishing up their math review on measurement.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, the unit covered so many things.  We were talking about weighing things in different units as well as comparing their measurements, measuring with a ruler to nearest 1/4 and 1/2 inch, measuring liquid volume, telling time, figuring out elapsed time and finally graphing with pictographs and bar graphs.  The kiddos were spent and their heads were spinning.  So this week we did an activity to spark some creativity.  As a class we came up with different questions to ask each other.  The only rule was that we couldn't ask the same question twice.  We wrote up our questions as a survey and then all answered them.  Students then took their own question from the survey and organized their data.  They had to organize it in a tally chart or in a function table.  From there they could choose how they wanted to share their data with the class.  They could make a pictograph or a bar graph.  I think that they turned out really good for the short amount of time that we spent going over graphs. They worked so hard, and I was impressed that they took so much ownership into this project. They really enjoyed it.

Finally I'm linking up this week for the first time with a blog that I'm new to for Tried it Tuesday! Check out the blog, it's called Fourth Grade Flipper.  I've spent a lot of time going through the links, and I'm so impressed with the new things people are trying at school and at home.  I'm hoping to be inspired to do the same!

I've used exit or entrance slips in the past in my classroom, but have not used them in awhile.  It was just something that I set aside, but always kept on my brain.  So I decided to make a 'parking lot' for exit/entrance slips and today was my first day for putting it to use.

I actually made this at the beginning of the school year, but just as other things come up it didn't get put into the routine right away so it wasn't used. I pulled it out today and students loved it, They compared it to a game show, which I thought was funny.  After our daily work this morning a review question on area and perimeter came up.  So before they headed off to specials I handed out a post-it to each student, and had them tell the different between both.  They could use either words or pictures or both.  :)  When they were done they put their post-it that matched their number and went to gym. Most of them did great, however there were a few that mixed up the vocabulary words.  So this afternoon during centers I pulled those few students to do a practice activity to practice with them.  I'm glad I brought this out and hope to use it again later this week.

Hope you had a wonderful day!  Thanks for stopping by!  :)