Baking Weekend!!!

So I got a call from a bakery in the town over for an interview (YAAAAAAY!!!) and they want me to bring two different kinds of cupcakes with me to the interview. I'm going home this weekend to visit my amazing momma for Mother's Day and we are going to have a weekend-long baking party!!! I'm so excited! I will be taking pictures while we make them and posting the recipes (of course!) for all of you to see! So be tuned for that! I should have it up by Tuesday or Wednesday.
I know I'm going to make a devils food chocolate cupcake with marshmallow frosting and graham crackers as the garnish (my delish s'mores cupcake) but I'm not sure what else to bring to the interviews.
Have any of you created an amazing cupcake creation?! I would love to hear about it!!! Send me your title, recipe, and a picture if you have it and I may just feature it on here!!!

Happy Baking!
Sarah

Great Ideas!!!

As you all know, I am still in college to become a teacher. Yesterday in my science methods class, my teacher was talking about different classroom management ideas. Here are the ones that I wrote down because I thought they would work great in an early childhood classroom (or any elementary school classroom for that matter!!!) Hope you enjoy it and get some great ideas!

Monkey Students

1. If a student wants to raise their hand and keeps going OH OH OH! stop the lesson and explain that there are no monkeys in the classroom. This will put a silly spin to the lets raise our hand like a nice kindergartener, 1st grader, etc. 

Armpit Mouths

2. If your students are having a hard time staying quiet while they raise their hands, give them the idea that they do not have a mouth in their armpit! Again, this adds some humor to telling them what to do but they almost might feel a little bit embarrassed by raising their hands and blurting out. They don't want their friends to giggle at them if they have a 'mouth in their armpit' so this will help that behavior!

3. I'm Going to Wait

The phrase, "I'm going to wait" makes the students responsible for their own voice. They will feel guilty about speaking or their friends will notice you looking at them and say, Hey! She is looking over here!!! Be quiet! Make sure to make the comment at a whisper or at a normal talking level so that you are not adding to the noice. This will also help them be quiet because they have to lower their voices or turn them off if they want to hear the instructions.

4. The Buckets:

If you are having a problem of respect in your classroom or being nice to each other, read the book Have You Filled A Bucket Today? By Carol McCloud. The book talks about filling each others buckets (in a sense being nice to each other) and by doing that, you fill your own bucket as well as the person you were nice to. If your students are being great listeners, you can talk to them and tell them that they just 'filled' your bucket and how much that meant to you. It will teach them that doing good makes them feel good and that they will get praised for it. It calls attention to being nice, not being naughty which is how some students get their attention.

This isn't something about classroom management, but something that should inspire you! This video is about an elementary school principal in Nevada who is helping her school and community in the best way possible. Try to help each student in your classroom, you never know what their home life is like, or even if they have one. Just know that if you give a child a hug at school, it could be the only one they get all day. You CAN make a difference in the life of a child.

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFiE_PgDdA

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhwdnRwHa0s&feature=relmfu

I hope you really enjoyed this video. It makes me want to be an educator like her when I am out of college.

Happy Learning!!!

Ms. Sarah

Mealworms!!!

This lesson is for a 1st Grade Classroom but can easily be done for Kindergarten or made harder for a 2nd or 3rd Grade Classroom

Okay so for one of my classes, I have to go into a classroom and teach science lessons. My first lesson is all about mealworms and how they mature. So before the lesson even started, I went to my local pet store and bought a meal worm for each student. They were super cheap (28 for $1.15) so it is a lesson you can do time and time again. I also bought little cups (make sure they come with lids or else they WILL escape once the mealworms turn into beetles), wheat bran (generic bran works fine), and one potato.

To introduce the mealworms, I kept them a secret. This increased the time of the lesson (helps if one of your previous lessons ran shorter than you thought it would) and also increased the excitement of the students. I asked them science inquiry questions such as:
  -What do you think these are?
  -What do you think they do?
After I introduce them, I ask them what they think they eat, drink, where they are found, and any question that they wouldn't know the answer to (this helps them think of multiple answers, even if they aren't right or reasonable!)

Then I have them go back to their tables and each table gets a cup with a small amount of wheat bran, a small chunk of the potato, and a mealworm per child. I then had them draw what they saw.
     ***If you are doing this for an older classroom, have them write a sentence or two describing what they saw and/or drew***

Once they have had about 10-15 minutes to draw, I had them come back and hypothesize what they will turn into.

I then put two of the six cups of mealworms by the window, two on the counter out of the sun but in the light, and two in a dark and quiet closet.

Let the students look at the mealworms each day or quietly feed them. Make sure to give them a new piece of potato each day or every other day. When you notice a change (be sure to look each day so your students will get to see them!) Here are the mealworms in the 2nd week of observation.

This is the counter ones. The mealworms by the window are mostly dead (fried actually), and and the ones in the closet are mostly the same as the counter.

Skin of a Mealworm! They are transforming!!!

This is a mealworm before they transform!

Potato with a skin on it!

This is the most advanced mealworm of them all. I am excited to go in on Monday to see what this one looks like!

Thank you for taking a look at this science lesson!

Happy learning!!!

Ms. Sarah