Teacher Savior: A Rice Cooker

Would you like a quick, healthy meal to keep up your energy for this crazy time of year?  Then check out how I use a rice cooker to make a quinoa, veggies, and rice bowl!

Sometimes we get so focused on finding ways to be productive at work that we forget to try to find ways to be productive at home as well.  You've heard it before, "You can't pour from an empty cup".  So, make yourself a healthy, filling meal that will be ready in no time!


Makes 1 serving

Ingredients:
1 cup Quinoa
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup Shrimp (I used frozen)
2 cups Normandy-Style Veggies (broccoli, squash, carrots, cauliflower)
1/2-1 tablespoon Butter or Ghee
McCormick Perfect Pinch seasoning to taste


Directions:

1.  Put quinoa and water in bottom of rice cooker.
2. Put steamer basket above quinoa and water mixture.  Add veggies and shrimp.
3.  Use the "quick cook" setting on your rice cooker.  This should be done in approximately 20                minutes.
4.  When the cooker is done, put 1/2-1 cup of the quinoa with the veggies and shrimp in a bowl and stir in the Perfect Pinch and Ghee.



Presto!  You have a healthy meal + leftover quinoa for another time!



Do you use a rice cooker to make your meals?  I'd love to hear how!

Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division Equality or Inequality Sort

Would you like to teach/review addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division equations?  How about differentiating between equalities and inequalities?  Then check out this post on my Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division Equality or Inequality Sort!

Students first solve the equations, which helps them practice the basic functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division).  They then decide whether the equation is equal on both sides of the equal sign or an inequality.

You can let the activity by self-checking by providing students with the answer key or reserve the answer key and make the activity a formal assessment.

If you'd like to pick up this packet, click here.


How do you teach/review equations and basic algebra?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

Plastic Eggs and STEAM

Do you have a ton of plastic eggs left over from Easter?  Would you like to put them to good educational use?  Then read this post about how I use them in STEAM activities!


Math & Science Activities

Activity 1:  Play-Doh and Egg Towers
Skills:  Angles, height, measurement
Believe it or not, there's so many different angles and ways to build an egg tower.  Challenge your students to build the highest tower and use a ruler or meter stick to measure and make it official.

Activity 2:  Half-Shell Egg Towers
Skills:  Measurement, stacking, balancing

It's more challenging than you might think to balance the half shells of the eggs!  Have students make the highest tower possible and measure with a ruler or meter stick to measure the height.

Art & Science Activities


Activity 1:  Drip Painting
Skills:  Gravity, color-mixing

This painting activity from Learn, Play, Imagine is inspiring!  You can talk about the reason the paint falls through the egg (gravity).  You can mix colors and talk about primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.

Activity 2: Stamping Letter and Words
Skills: Spelling, Circumference, color-mixing

In this stamping activity from I Can Teach My Child,  you can have students cut out large letters or words out of plain paper (or cut it out for them if they don't have the proper skills).  Then have them use half the egg to mix colors and stamp all over the paper. You can measure the circumference of the stamp circles and talk about the different primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.

Technology. Engineering & Science Activities

Activity 1: Egg Catapults
Skills: Angles, building using simple machines, angles

This egg catapult activity from Science Buddies is great for older students.  The project guide gives step-by-step directions on how to build the catapult and launch the eggs.  You can measure the angle of the catapult and measure the distance the eggs fly.  What a fun activity!

How do you upcycle your plastic eggs?  I'd love to hear how!

Try Two-Voice Poetry and Figurative Language in Song Lyrics for National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month!  Are you ready to do something fresh with your poetry unit?  Then my Two-Voice Poetry Packet and my Figurative Language Using Song Lyrics packet !


Two-Voice poetry is so inviting for students of all ages.  There's something so inviting about working with a partner to create poetry.  This Two-Voice Poetry Packet can be used at a poetry station or to help the whole class write a two-voice poem.  It includes:

Teacher instructions including:
~Book suggestions

Student instructions including:
~Graphic organizer
~Suggested Topics
~Example Two-Voice poems

Upper Elementary Two-Voice Poetry book suggestions:

Upper Elementary or Middle School Two-Voice Poetry book suggestions:

If you or your students like songs and lyrics, try my Figurative Language Using Song Lyrics packet!

This packet includes:
~A teacher direction page
~A student direction page
~A lyric sorting page
~5 pages of lyrics
~A color-coded answer key

This is an activity in which students are looking for similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and personification in various song lyrics.  They sort the lyrics according to what type of figurative language they represent and then draw a representation of their favorite lyric.

Do you have any mentor text suggestions for two-voice or figurative language in poetry?  I'm always looking for more ideas!

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Toulane-Velveteen Rabbit Reading Comprehension

Are you ready bunnies, read-alouds, and reading comprehension?  Then read on to see how I incorporate them in my The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane/Velveteen Rabbit Packet!

I love, love, love Kate DiCamillo!  One of my favorite books by her is The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Upper elementary students love this book just as much as I do.  In case you're not familiar with the book, it's a fantasy book about a stuffed rabbit that becomes lost at sea and journeys around trying to find his way home.  It's a great book to talk about perseverance and the fantasy genre. I always like to read this book just before spring break because it ties in nicely with the season. 

Another of my favorite rabbit books: The Velveteen Rabbit. While these two books have completely different plots, they are similar in many ways. They both are of the fantasy genre, have a rabbit as the main character, and involve the loss of a favorite toy.

I like to read Edward Tulane as a class, and then split into pairs/small groups to read The Velveteen Rabbit.  

I created a  comprehension packet  for use with the books that incorporates the following skills/subjects:  

~Compare and contrast 
~Science (habitats/ecosystems) 
~Research (online and print resources) 
~Writing (conventions/editing/adjectives/creating mental images) 
~Comparing fiction/fantasy to nonfiction texts 
~Making inferences  


Do you love these books or similar titles?  I'd love to hear about your favorite rabbit books!