BJU Press Blog

Student Appreciation Day!

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We had something new at our school this year—Student Appreciation Day! After all, without our students, we wouldn’t have a school. And the parents often make many sacrifices in order to send their children to our school. In a small way, we just wanted to say thank you. (Watch a video of the day’s highlights.)

One of the best parts for me was getting together with the other third-grade teachers and making these yummy (and cute!) owl cupcakes.

homemade cupcake that looks like an owl

Our lead teacher got this idea from Pinterest, and it is so cute. We simply made the cupcakes the day before so they were nice and cool. Then we iced them and added the open cream-filled chocolate cookies for the eyes. For the ears, we cut a leftover cookie in two and placed the pieces above the eyes. Then we used hard-shell chocolate candies to make the centers of the eyes and the beak. We discovered that generic cream-filled chocolate cookies separate more easily than the name-brand cream-filled chocolate cookies. When you’re separating over 150 cookies, that becomes an important factor! Since we are studying birds in science, the owl cupcakes fit right in. We topped them off with a little flag that said, “Third grade’s a hoot!” The kids loved them! I wish I could say the same about my carpet!

Does your school have a Student Appreciation Day? What fun things do you do on that day?

September Is for Reading Books and Hugging Grandparents

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I love to read. It’s one of my favorite things to do—that and spending time with family, like my grandparents. What could be better than an afternoon spent with a book or a beloved grandparent? Because both of those are important to me, I was excited to see that September celebrates them. In addition to being Read-A-New-Book Month, September is also the time to celebrate National Grandparents’ Day! Need a little inspiration to celebrate these holidays? Keep reading for some ideas.

image of a stack of novels

As an educator, you can use books for just about anything. If it’s a rainy day, let a few students choose a favorite book to read aloud to the class. Or when your class seems to need some quiet time, have the students read silently at their own desks or in a specially designated spot in the classroom. One of my favorite things when I was in school was the teacher reading to us. It was usually a book I hadn’t read, so with my teacher’s help I was reading a new book. And discovering new favorite stories!

But how you can you and your students celebrate grandparents? Since grandmothers and grandfathers treasure just about anything their grandchildren give them (aside from empty candy wrappers), it’s great to make something that they can keep in a scrapbook or photo album. You could have your students write about a favorite thing that they’ve done with a grandparent—like picking apples. They can also write down stories that their grandparents have told or draw pictures to illustrate them. Give your students some nice paper (construction  paper or cardstock) and maybe even stickers or stamps to dress up their work. Then invite them deliver their masterpieces to their grandparents. (You might want to send along some tissues in case their grandparents tear up.)

Are you excited about September? I sure am! I hope that you have a happy month and enjoy the beginning of autumn.

Loving the vivid fall colors,
Carolynn

What are you looking forward to this month?

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Star Worker!

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Grading papers is something that can take up a lot of time. Everything is going smoothly until you come to that paper with no name or maybe one that is missing an answer or two. Figuring out who those papers belong to can be a major time waster and handing papers back to have them completed can really eat into your day.

For the past several years, I have used a system that lets my students enter a drawing for a small piece of candy. Every time they turned in an assignment, they could fill out a slip of paper and drop it into the box. On Friday I would draw five winners. The catch? In order to be eligible for the drawing, they had to have put their name and number on all their papers and have filled in all the answers for the day. If they missed one of those items, they couldn’t enter the drawing the following day.

That system worked pretty well for me, but this year I decided to go with something new. It’s called Star Worker. I purchased the ad-free version of the Random Name Selector Pro app (by Walsall Academy) for my iPad®. When entering the names of the students in my class, I also added the name Star Student. Each child has his number on a star chart.

image of a star worker board

It stays there every day he has his name and number on his paper and also fills in all his answers. I then use the app randomly throughout the week to choose students to call on. If Star Student comes up, the next student chosen is the winner. If his star is still up on the chart, he can pick a reward card from our rewards bucket.

I downloaded a template for the reward cards from Christi’s blog on the Ms. Fultz’s Corner website. She uses a similar system called Top “Pop” Stars. (She has some great ideas!) I chose the ideas that were best suited for my class.

The best part is that if the kids do miss a name, number, or answer space, no worries. They can get back on the Star Worker board by simply having a day of no misses. They can also write ten of their spelling words to get back on immediately. I’ve never seen kids so eager to write spelling words before!

How do you encourage your students to give you completed papers?

First Time’s the Charm!

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We just finished chapter 1 in our BJU Press science book—studying cold-blooded animals. And we finished it off with an experiment about the body temperatures of cold-blooded animals. (Watch a video that sums up our experiment!)

We worked in groups according to rows. Each row had two paper lizards. Students colored and cut out the lizards for their row. Then we went out into the courtyard and placed one lizard in the sun and one in the shade. We laid a thermometer down on top of each one to show the lizard’s body temperature and then recorded the temperatures. After a few hours, we went back out and checked our lizards. We discovered that the lizards in the shade had a much lower body temperature than the lizards in the sun.

We have such a great God! He made it so that each animal has exactly what it needs to survive in the conditions where it lives. A lizard that is too hot can move into the shade. A lizard that is cold can warm up by moving into the sun. At the end of the week, we made videos about our experiment, using 30hands.

30hands is an app that allows you to upload pictures from your iPad® and record on each one.  You can also draw on the pictures if you choose. The students in each group told about what they had done. It was their first attempt at using 30hands, and I think they did a great job.

I sent the videos off to the parents, so they could enjoy our hard work. Now on to the next chapter . . .

What experiments have you and your class enjoyed? Any using technology?

And the Darkness Came After the Rain

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Almost everyone looks forward to the first day of school. Kids have all their new supplies. Usually they also have new outfits waiting to be worn. Lunchboxes are packed, and backpacks are ready. Then the first day arrives.

We had the usual exciting first day. It rained. Thankfully, all the students had a great attitude even when the rain caused us to have indoor recess. I’m not too sure about the teachers though! I recently heard the statement “‘I love it when it rains because I just get to spend more time with the kids in the classroom,’ said no teacher ever.” But we made it through the first two days with indoor recess.

On the third day, we were hoping for the best. And then ten minutes after we arrived at school the electricity went out. Two days of rain and then darkness—not exactly what we were hoping for. But I think the kids handled it pretty well. We were without power for about three hours and still covered math, reading, and Bible. We even managed to use our iPads® in math. The chapter 1 lesson reviews addition. So to practice the concept of adding with multiple addends, we used Educreations Interactive Whiteboard.

Educreations is an app that allows students to work problems out on a whiteboard and record what they are thinking. I love it! The students chose a problem and worked it out for me, telling me how they arrived at their answer. (See how a student solved her math problem.)

With Educreations you can actually know what your students are thinking. It helps you narrow down what area(s) your students may be struggling in. What teacher wouldn’t love that?

Have you used Educreations before? What other tools have you found helpful for giving you insight into your students’ learning?