It's CRUNCH time!

Image from here.

I admit, I've been very worried lately.  With each passing day, we are closer to the end of the school year and I am panicking!  There is still so much to do and time is running out!  But, I will stop doubting myself and MAKE IT HAPPEN!

This has been an insanely busy week in hockey movie land!  If you had walked into my room this week, you would have seen MANY things going on!

Gatorade:  My students are VERY observant!  I've shown them hockey clips here and there and they have seen the players drinking Gatorade on the benches.  They decided the players in our movie need Gatorade bottles as well.  I provided them with pictures of Gatorade bottles as well as a whole bunch of random art supplies and they got to work:

I don't know why I don't have more pictures of them in action!  They've made close to a dozen Gatorade bottles!  They are working well together and are encouraging each other along the way.

Lockers:  I had a group of fourth graders come down.  I showed them pictures of the locker rooms.  We looked closely at the different sections of those lockers and decided on dimensions for our lockers.  The first day they worked on this, they measured and cut out their lockers.  They also drew the lines for the different sections.

The second day, they painted the lockers a light brown.

We will finish working on the lockers next week!

Fans in the stands: One of the pieces of scenery we need are fans in the stands.  We came up with a way to make sure everything was as even as possible and they got to work!  They made the lines for the rows and even made stairs!

After making the rows, they started drawing fans.  They didn't just drawn fans though!  Like I said, my students are very observant - they also drew food stands, bathrooms, signs, and other things that I am still discovering!

Side note:  Fourth graders are also making fans in the stands!

Aside from drawings the fans, I'm also incorporating real fan footage!  Once again, The Kindergarten Smorgasboard inspired me with his blog entry on green screen technology!  Between that entry, and something one of the third grade script writers said when she came to critique the script, a BRILLIANT idea formed in my brain:

Use green screen technology to record other people in the school cheering!  Check this out:

Both classes made the signs. I purchased a green screen from Amazon.  With some help from my incredible father in-law, we built a frame for the green screen out of PVC pipe.

We had a dance at school just over a week ago so I put the green screen up and took video of the students and their families cheering! This past week, I opened it up to all the classes in the school.  I had a pretty good response!  Lots of footage to use in our movie!

Sponsors:  Awhile back, the students really got into the advertisements that go around the rink.  They told me on multiple occasions that we needed to have advertisement posters around our rink.  I took a Capitals game day program (with Oshie on the front,) that my friend Eric gave me and picked 15 sponsors from there.  I printed out the logos and my students got to work:

I am SO impressed with how well my kids made these posters!  They were very proud of their work!

Before I close out, if anyone from the Caps organization is reading this, PLEASE view my video!  If you have connections to anyone from the Caps organization, please send that video their way.  Thanks!

To see the process of our project, visit the links below.

Hockey Entry #1

Hockey Entry #2

Hockey Entry #3

Hockey Entry #4

Hockey Entry #5
Hockey Entry #6
Hockey Entry #7
Hockey Entry #8
Hockey Entry #9
Hockey Entry #10

Thank you for visiting!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
~Stacey~



I Love the Caps

Images from here and here.

I *unfortunately* know disappointment. I’m a lifelong Redskins fan. (No comments from the haters please.)

 

While I’ve supported the Caps my whole life, I didn’t really start watching games until I met my husband. We go to a few games each season. We watch games on TV (although not always together!)

 

I began watching more games and learning even more about hockey after my hubby pointed out TJ Oshie to me during a game we went to and you all know how I feel about him.  

Image from here

Just like with the Redskins, I feel tremendous sadness and disappointment whenever the Caps are eliminated from the playoffs. However, I feel extra sad about the Caps losing Wednesday night. Why is this year different from all other years? (I know, sounds like a Passover question!)

 

The Caps have brought a source of enjoyment and to my classroom. We have bonded so much over our love for them.  My students have not only learned so much about hockey, but learned so much about the Caps! 

• The majority of my students can tell you every player's name and number. 
• Some of them even know which position they play or where the players are from. 
• My students can interpret game stats quite well. (They ask about this several times a week!)
• They have begged me to take them to a Caps game. Since I can't do that, they beg me to show them hockey clips on YouTube. 
• Several of my students watch the games with their parents. 
• One of my students will be signing up to join a youth hockey league. (He is my student that LOVES TJ Oshie and all things hockey related.)
• My students chose hockey to be the topic of their movie.

 

Since my students are SO invested in this project, I wanted the Caps to win more than ever! I almost broke down when telling them the news. They were sad. One student asked, "When does hockey season start up again?" (Yay hockey fans!)

 

I can't even begin to describe the emotions I've been having. I know to some it's just a game. To others, hockey is life. To me, hockey is a learning experience for my students that they will NEVER forget. #CapsFanForLife

To see the process of our project, visit the links below.

Hockey Entry #1

Hockey Entry #2

Hockey Entry #3

Hockey Entry #4

Hockey Entry #5
Hockey Entry #6
Hockey Entry #7
Hockey Entry #8
Hockey Entry #9



Hockey Hijinks

 

Image from here.

It's a great day AND a great week for hockey movie fun!  (Although we didn't do as much as last week due to testing and other activities.)

Here's your weekly update! :-)

Jersey Mania: Last week, the students designed their own jerseys for our two teams.  On Monday, I took all of the jerseys for my class and mounted them on bulletin board paper.  The Stars are on one color paper and the Capitals are on another color paper. Each of the first grade classes received two different color stickers.  They are going to put one sticker on their favorite Stars jersey and one sticker on their favorite Capitals jersey.  The same thing will happen with Mr. Racosky's class, but the other fourth grade classes will choose from those.  Then we will take our 4 winners.  One of the two jerseys per team will be our actual jersey.  The other design for each team will be our spirit wear!

More Authentic Math: In addition to working on their jerseys last week, the students also started the process of solving a problem:  How many chairs can we fit in the room we'll be using for our movie theater?  We continued our journey in answering that question this week.

On Monday, I took my class to the room we will use.  Each student had a template that was made by the group that came up with it.  I reminded the students of our end goal.  I then said, "Last week, you all learned that you could measure three parts of the chair.  What were they?"  As I was drawing a chair in a flipchart, they told me the answers. (Height, length, and width)  I told them they were going to measure two of those in the room with the template.  One of my girls told me we were not going to measure the height.  I asked her why she thought that and she exclaimed, "We don't need to measure how high up the chairs will go!"

Next, the students had to collaborate and communicate how they were going to measure the width of the room.  I didn't give them any other directions or any parameters. Some students started putting them in a row across right away.  Some students put them in random spots around the room until they saw the ones up front and decided to move them.  After their templates were down, I told them to look at what they put down - some of their templates were right next to each other and some had a little bit of space in between.  They needed to talk and decide which way they were gong to have it.  They decided to push the templates right next to each other.  They counted how many templates fit across (17) and I recorded it on the board.  I told them, "Ok, do the same thing to figure out the length."  This happened so quickly, I didn't have time to take pictures!  They came up with ten chairs for the length.

They ended up skip counting by 10s 17 times to figure out the answer.  I then threw in area and how they could have multiplied - which I modeled for them, but told them they would learn that in 3rd grade too! :-)  *Their eyes always bug out when I teach them something they will learn in another grade.  It's so adorable!*

I used ActivInspire to create a model of the room for them - exactly how they made it.  I left a little aisle by the door.  I asked what they noticed about the model.  They quickly said, "At the movie theater, they have more than one aisle!" I asked them what they thought we should do. They quickly and eagerly responded with "Remove rows from the other side!"  After some discussion, they told me we should take two rows of ten away.  I asked how many that is and they responded with twenty.  We then did some subtraction. (170-20) I had them tell me how to solve the problem.  

After I took the two rows away, I had them tell me what else they noticed about the aisles.  "They aren't the same size on both sides!"  "What should we do class?"  They told me to take another row of ten away.  (More subtraction!  150-10)

Then they observed we should have a middle aisle!  They decided to take two rows of ten away from the middle.  (140-20!)

There is still a lot of math left to do to solve our problem.  We will continue this next week!

Script Writing:  Our two classes took our initial story and expanded on it.  We added lots of details - feelings, actions, and some dialogue.  Before we started doing that, I went through the story and wrote questions at various parts.  "What should they be doing to show they are ready?"  "How will we know they are sad?" "What are some of the things they can do during practice?"  All of the students had great ideas. 

We had help from other students in the school too!  A fifth grade boy is on a youth hockey team.  He came down and told us what goes on at hockey practices.  We also had help from 3 third grade girls.  Their class has worked on composing an original opera this year.  (Their teacher does this every year and the process and outcome is AMAZING!)  These girls are the script writers.  They read through the script and how it marked up with questions, comments, and suggestions!   It was truly amazing!  One of the girls said several times how much she loved our story line!  One of my girls said, "They're smart!  They should be in our movie!" :-)

I almost forgot: Our players now have their last names and their numbers!

We still have a lot to do before the project is complete,  but we are continuing to work hard!  Just like the kids in our movie, we aren't going to give up!  We're going to give it our best shot!

Thank you again for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed our update!

As always, you can find my previous entries about hockey here:

Hockey Entry #1

Hockey Entry #2

Hockey Entry #3

Hockey Entry #4

Hockey Entry #5
Hockey Entry #6
Hockey Entry #7
Hockey Entry #8
 

Enjoy your weekend! :-)

~Stacey~