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Spring in an Upper Grade Classroom

March 26, 2016 By fancyfreein4th

I don’t know about you, but my class has Spring Fever! With the chatty Cathy’s, the need to Spring Clean their desks and the struggle to stay focused with the ever looming Spring Break coming the struggle is real!   Today I want to share some of my favorite Spring Time Activities.

For us, the reality of the SBAC is ever present. We test in the beginning of May. I love this cheap and fun Test Prep review idea that was shared by Jennifer Findley from Teaching to Inspire. She has a great post about how she adds some fun into her classroom using those beloved plastic eggs, and she has a freebie included!

Next week, I am definitely going to be using this idea to review some Math and Grammar concepts that we have been practicing. I know I will have tons of these little eggs left over from my own kid’s Easter Baskets!  

Here is an idea for an awesome Spring Bulletin Board idea- one which I will be doing right after Spring Break. In a writing center, they will be creating their own little instagram’ish book using these Spring Break Grams.

They are expert at making these at this point of the year because we have made Summer Grams and Winter Grams!  They get to pick their top four activities that they did over their Spring Break, write about them and create a picture that goes with each memory. They LOVE sharing these and they look great stapled all together as a little class Scrap Book of Spring Memories.  
I have one more for them before the end of the school year is up, End of Year Grams. I am planning on having them work on it during the last week of school to keep them engaged AND still writing. They will reflect on all of the fun memories they had over the school year and create a little memory book reflecting them.
Rinding on the coat-tails of Poetry month, I will be a using this as another Spring Center. 

As a class they will be creating a Figurative Language Garden with these Figurative Language Flowers. It makes the PERFECT Spring bulletin board! Each student makes one flower showcasing one of the various figurative language techniques: alliteration, metaphors, smilies, personification, onomatopoeias or hyperbole.

At this time in the school year, I used these as an informal assessment, grading their rough draft sheets for spelling, conventions, grammar and use of the figurative language.

Here are two Spring Math Center Ideas, both dealing with equivalent Fractions.  Egg-cellent Improper Fraction Mix Up helps your students show their mastery over equivalency.

Alson dealing with equivalency, students make these adorable ice cream cones. They need to find 2 scoops that fractional equivalents to each cone provided. They do this in partners or triads and it makes my mouth water! 

 For Science we are learning about Extreme Weather.  I LOVE Ideas by Jiveys Paired Text about Natural Disasters! The students are SOOOO engaged and enthralled in these articles. Centers are a hit, with everyone on task. By this point of the school year, they are all experts in Jivey’s awesome paired texts.  If you haven’t checked them out, run, don’t walk- to her blog and check.it.out.

Another center I have is a leveled library of independent texts for them to read and practice outlining notes, which is a skill they struggle with.

…. and as an added bonus ALL of my “I Survived” books have been checked out.  It is really a win-win! After this, we move onto Electricity- and that is hands down my FAVORITE thing to teach in Science! More of that to come later!
     Last, but not least is a Spring Freebie for you!  April’s Fools Day is right around the corner.  I made this impossible word search for my class last year, impossible because they cannot find ANY of the words on there.

I passed it out and said told them that whoever completes the puzzle first gets FIVE homework passes! The rules are, they have to work alone and quietly.  They never worked so hard in their life. I was dying holding back my laughter and once I told them it was a prank, they all laughed and shouted, “Mrs. Henry!”.  I had students from last year ask me if I was going to do it to my new class and I said of course.  Grab this Freebie here.

Well, that’s all friends. The school year is not over just yet and I hope you can use some of these ideas in your classroom to make Spring a fun month of learning and growing!

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I love being a teacher. I am aways challenged and get to be creative (especially these past 11 months). I feel at home at my school, and I’ve missed it so much since working at home. My district is in a zip code that is highly impacted with COVID-19, and we have felt the effects tremendously. Everyday, I am amazed by how resilient my students have been since their little world’s 🌍 changed on March 13th, 2020. It’s been one, wild ride, reinventing teaching, trying to stay motivated, trying to keep them engaged while feeling supported and seen. Yet,  I’m hopeful this chapter soon will end. Amidst all of the unexpected and difficult things that have happened this last year... there’s still a lot of good out there. Look at this 💛 glimmer of hope and goodness. My uncle and Father in Law just made a class set of desks for my students (plus 30 more for other kids at my school). They used their stimulus money to give back to my school community. This desk will be their own special spot, and memory of the time we learned from home. I’m feeling really grateful and I can’t wait to see past the masks and imagine the smiles that my students will have when they pick these new family heirlooms up on Friday!
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