The last day of school is especially bittersweet this year..........

End of the Year Awards & Gifts

I am SO excited to use these end-of-year awards from @notsowimpyteacher!
This is also my first year trying out the Summer Pen Pal kit from @thesprinkletoppedteacher - I've attached writing paper, a pre-sharpened pencil (with a cute little flag), and a stamped envelope to the pen pal letter - I'm hoping to hear from lots of my kids this summer!!
Panera, Pizza Hut, and CeCe's pizza donated gift certificates for free kids meals, so I tucked those in their gifts as well.
Finally, a new pair of sunglasses for each kiddo, because summer is bright and so are their futures!!

My students safety and privacy is my NUMBER ONE concern when blogging, so at the beginning of each school year, I send home this "permission to blog" form:

Florida Map Model Projects

This is one of my FAVORITE things we do for Social Studies - the map model project! After we learn about Florida's geography, students create these 3D maps that include major cities, landforms, bodies of water, and attractions. I always encourage the students not to go out and buy materials for their models, but to be creative and use items found around their house. I always love seeing the artistic, creative results!!!

Science Stations

Whenever possible, I try to do science stations with the kids. It does take a lot of planning and prep time, but it is totally worth it and SO much more effective than just reading about concepts in a textbook. Here are a few examples of what we've done this year:

Matter Stations:

Students tested the principles of gravity (weight), volume, density, and mass.

Properties of Minerals Stations:

Students rotated to four different mineral boxes and tested the properties of color, cleavage, luster, streak color, hardness on the Mohs scale to identify each mineral in the box.

Magnetism:

Native Americans of Florida Paper Bag Mini-Project

I borrowed this idea from Fourth Grade Frolics a few years ago and have been using it ever since - the kids love doing it and it's a fun way for me to assess what they've learned! I created a rubric to go along with it, which is available for free at my TpT store.