Tuesday, March 23, 2010

shapes UP in the spring and go fly a kite!

by karen #1965 3rd grade teacher now i am a third grade teacher...and i gotta get those 3Rs in...Reading, and wRiting, and aRithmetic...well this is about aRithmetic...so you see.we were studying polygons...i mean i taught it...we showed some videos...i sent a study sheet home for parents to work with kids...and dang if some kids still thought this shape was a polygon.....some of you looking at this blog may think...awww...such a lonely heart...BUT A LONELY HEART IS NOT A POLYGON...
so i thot...hmmm...art is the answer...go i got these kids to tearing shapes into polygons like so...

once again, my room would qualify for the messiest in the school...(side story...now i have a mini trampoline in my classroom...and the weirdest thing happens...as soon as we get some music going...and get the art juices flowing...i start seeing kids move over towards the trampoline and sneak  a few jumps...and that is so rule breaking...you only can jump 10 jumps on the trampoline at the beginning of the day or the end of the day...but...for some kids...the creative juices start flowing and bouncing right under the kiddies little feet...sometimes you just gotta turn ur head and be happy they are happy)....now folks..not using scissors can freak them out...i said TORN PAPER folks!...so i have one of my most artsiest students getting jiggy with the scissors...look...

now...the funny thing is...i didn't even notice...i have been told that i am not very observant...but i sat there and watched miss artsiest cut with those scissors and i was like, "oh, miss artsiest...that is so cool...love it.."...but miss artsiest usually doesn't follow directions and mrs. 1965 didn't even notice...so who cares...of course, mr. math brain noticed...and brought it to my attention...he understood the polygons before i even taught the lesson...i love him, though!

so we cranked out the kites...a polygon here...a polygon there...

until we had some flying polygons...

i think this was a VERY simple activity requiring little prep and little input...and it benefited all...and matisse would be so proud!

so......for the benefit of mr. kite, there will be a show tonight on a trampoline (the beatles, sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band, 1967)

happy march 23, 2010!

2 comments:

  1. Those are really cool! I like the idea! If you have a trampoline in your room do you by chance have a slim good body album in there too or maybe a richard simmons dvd????? LOL 10 bounces....neat way to use a brain compatible classroom with left and right brain kids!

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  2. thank u anonymous...i prolly got a jane fonda stuck in a manilla folder somewhere...

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