Weeding

In effort to clean up the back of the building, Mrs. Forsyth and Miss Hegstrom organized a schedule for the fourth graders to weed the existing landscaping.  On Thursday afternoon our class went outside to help.  Everyone worked well together and shared gardening gloves.  Many wore one glove so they could give the other to someone else.  Once we came outside they all began to quickly pull out weeds and put them in the buckets.  

That was until bugs and worms were discovered!  

 Everytime a worm or bug was discovered all I heard was, "MRS. KNOKE! MRS. KNOKE! LOOOOOOK!" I had to keep reminding them to leave the worms alone and continue weeding.  Each time a bug or worm was found they moved it here:

When our time was up the weeds were dumped into a pile and the children ran around in circles until they had to line up to go inside. 

Happy Mother's Day!!!

 I hope all of our moms had a wonderful day and that you enjoyed what your child put together for you in class.  I thought I took a lot more pictures of your children working on their gift, but I guess not. 


Anyway here are some pictures of the making of the bookmarks.


Here are two examples of the "before" shots we took one day after testing.  The background is a mess, but it didn't matter since each picture would be cut out.

After gluing each picture onto cardstock and carefully cutting them out, I ran into a problem.  How was I going to cut out the middle of each picture, for the children who clasped their hands together, without bending the picture or ruining it?  

I brought home all the soon-to-be bookmarks and then sorted them on the coffee table.  

Here is a pile of the students that held up one hand, so they were easy to cut out.

And here is the pile of clasped hands that I needed help with.

Soooo... I asked my husband to use a razor to help cut out the center of these pictures.  He used a razor and piece of scrap molding to carefully cut out the middle.

Finally, everyone was ready to be laminated, cut out again, and hole punched for the ribbon to be tied.  I hope you liked them!  I would also like to add that when my husband was helping me, he never asked what this was for.  When I finally told him I thought that was really weird of you to not ask, he then said, oh those are your students??  Seriously?!

Last Day of Testing!!!

One Day Down!

Last Friday was the day before the big testing week.  Students were given a baggie of candy with a list of 7 Great Ways to Prepare for the Test!

Desks were separated and students worked on some pages in their NJASK math books.

Any instructional posters or charts were removed from the walls or covered up.

And I read aloud Testing Miss Malarky.

It is an adorable book that exaggerates the stress of state testing.

On this page the boy comments about how is teacher is acting differently and biting her nails a lot.

After each bedtime story his mom gives him a worksheet to complete.

The art teacher is teaching students to fill in the bubbles neatly and the gym teacher is teaching students yoga.  He says "Your mind and body are one with THE TEST." Haha

Finally after the testing the students celebrate.

But nobody is celebrating more than the teachers!!!

Yesterday, after the first day of testing students were treated with brownies!

One day down...four more to go!!!