Check out this great giveaway! It ends Friday!

Check out Second Grade Sugar and Spice for an awesome giveaway!

http://www.secondgradesugarandspice.blogspot.com/2012/02/100-follower-giveaway-25-tpt-gift.html

Dr Seuss Prediction and Graphing Pack on TPT

Check out my newest TPT item! A Dr. Seuss themed prediction and graphing math pack! TPT Store

Let me know what you think! I would LOVE some feedback. I am still SO new to this. =)



Buggy for Second Grade Giveaway

Check out this awesome blog and giveaway! Buggy for Second Grade

As promised....

Here are some pictures of our guided art from this week. They did SUCH A GOOD JOB!

I am thinking of doing one this coming week in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. Maybe Thing 1 or Thing 2? We shall see!

Pot of Gold Guided Art

Today we were able to squeeze in one of my students' favorite things.....Guided Art! Today's topic was St. Patrick's Day and in honor of St. Patty we drew a pot of gold and a rainbow. Check some pictures of the kids hard at work:

 This is my drawing projected onto the board. Try not to laugh too hard at my artistic ability =)

 Such concentration!

I did not have a chance to hang the drawings this afternoon (pageant week!) but as soon as I do I will post pictures of the WONDERFUL drawings.

TPT Now Open!

I just posted my first item to TPT! Go check it out : Fractions Packet. I hope to be adding more FREEBIES in the coming days! Please let me know what you think- especially what I can improve on!

Guided Art Time!

This year I have been doing guided art classes with my kids. What I do  is I choose a picture from somewhere (usually I just google clip art for whatever subject I am interested in) and we draw the picture together. We did a really cute snowman for December/January (sorry no pictures :( ) and a groundhog for February. I am looking now for a picture to do for March. I am thinking possibly a leprechaun or maybe a rainbow and pot of gold.....Stay tuned to find out!

Such cute little groundhogs! I really do have some talented artists in my class. =)

Water, Water, Everywhere!

Today we had a fun treat! Volunteers from the Blount County Water Authority and the Birmingham Water Authority came to our school and did a presentation about groundwater for the fourth graders to give them a little background information for our Groundwater Festival field trip in April. The kids really seemed to enjoy themselves! They asked really great questions and knew a lot of the answers posed by the volunteers. We learned about water conservation, the dangers of pesticides, and the fact that tap water is cleaner than bottle water! (An eye-opener for me since all I drink is bottle water.) Hopefully, they will retain some of what they learned until April! Fingers crossed =)

Here are some pictures from the presentation.

 Such good listeners =)

 Nail biting suspense!

 model of the ground water

R-E-S-P-E-C-T....find out what it means to us!

For the month of February, the character trait that we are focusing on is "Respect". Today I let my kids create their own skits about being respectful. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with how well they turned out! They were so good that we invited the other fourth grade class out to the hallway to see our performances. Here are a few pics of the different skits! (Sorry for the quality, the only camera we had available was the one on a cell phone!)

 In this picture the girls are being disrespectful by snatching the the boys' ball.

 For this skit we learned that it is not nice to push people down!

Like I said, they all did such a good job! I pretty much just gave them free reign with the activity so that I could see what they would do. (This is the first time that we have done something like this, but I promise it will not be the last!) Two of the groups even went so far as to include a definition of respect in their skits. I am so proud of them! Way to go guys!

Can "circle time" work for 4th grade? We shall see!

Today I had an epiphany (or I just lost my marbles, either is possible) during science class. Why not have circle time during our science and history discussions to give the students a break from sitting in desks? I  tried it during the last half of our science class today and I think I may be on to something. ;) The kids seemed easier to engage and were actually better participants! WOOOHOOO! I also told the ones who didn't participate and wanted to disrupt the ones who were trying to learn that they would be dismissed out to the hallway and would have to make up the missed material during PE or specials the next day. Will it work? Only time will tell!

Love is in the air... and sugar is in the kids!

Valentine's Day in fourth grade is CRAZY! I don't know about all of you, but my kids CAME IN hyped-up on sugar. They were so hyper that one little boy asked me if "today was gonna be a party all day" day. I told him no because I had the best of intentions. I honestly thought that we could stick to the plans that I had for the day; unfortunately, it was not meant to be. We did finish our ARMT practice test for math, but that was pretty much it. Hopefully, they will have come down from their sugar high by tomorrow so that we can play "catch-up" from today. Happy Valentine's Day!

Greetings from the Fourth Grade!

Welcome to Fourth Grade Frenzy! My name is Jada Tolbert and I teach 4th grade at Appalachian School, a small K-12 school in rural Alabama. This is my 3rd year of teaching and all three years have been spent in 4th grade. I love what I do and I now feel comfortable enough in the position of "teacher" to share some of my experiences and things I have created to use in the classroom. Hope you enjoy! =)