Thursday, July 11, 2013

Design a Planet!

When I taught 5th grade years ago one of my team members created a wonderful set of task cards for students to imagine and design their own planets. This was a perfect creative writing and art activity to finish up our study of space and to keep students motivated and engaged at the end of the school year. These task cards were lovingly hand written by her and that year I typed them up (this was before I discovered pretty fonts and cute borders). Well, after that year I moved to 6th grade, leaving her behind in 5th. The 5th grade team continued to end the year with this project and when I returned to 5th grade last year I was excited for this project. I knew my kids would love it, and they did! I had one student in particular who, all year. struggled to stay focused and get assignments completed on-time. Once we started this project he was immersed and didn't want to stop. It was even an incentive for him to get some of those missing assignments in!

I allowed students to be as creative as they liked, but teachers could easily add more parameters to the project. We had a variety of planets inspired from things like Minecraft, school supplies, Justin Beiber, shapes, pets, and even a disco ball. Here is a last minute photo I snapped of their planets (this is only one component of the project) before sending them home.


I re-typed the task cards again this year and prettied them up a bit. With permission from my teammate I'm posting these on TpT for others to purchase. I've encouraged her to set up her own TpT store, but although she is tech savvy, she doesn't feel as confident as she should. I'm excited to split earnings with her because she did an amazing job coming up with these super tasks for students!



And don't forget to link up with your Pinterest Top 10 for Next School Year! The link party is up until the end of the month. Browse your pins and post about the cream of the crop, then link up here. Then check out the other posts for more awesome teacher blogger's pins!


Thank you to those that have already linked up, I've loved looking at (and re-pinning) your pins.

6 comments:

  1. Hello! I love your blog! Those Design A Planet Projects look awesome. :) I definitely want to have my 5th graders do the project this year... I wanted to let you know that I nominated you for the Liebster Award. Head over to my blog for info on how to accept the award. I can't wait to follow you throughout the school year and get to know you better!

    - Jo Anne
    Teaching in Cardigans

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  2. I love the Design a Planet projects! I see that Jo Anne has nominated you for the Liebster Award! Well, I just nominated you in my most recent post so now you have two nominations! Congrats! I look forward to following your blog!

    Lori
    Life in Room 24

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  3. Love love love this idea! Congrats on your award nomination :) Your blog is so cute - can't wait to follow it this year!

    Lauren
    The Sweetest Thing
    Follow me on Bloglovin'!

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  4. I just nominated you too for the Liebster Award! I guess that makes three nominations!

    Erica
    Shepherd's Shining Stars

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  5. Looks like you are REALLY a superstar! I nominated you for a Liebster award! How awesome must you be :) (I guess as awesome as the upper grades are!)

    Dallas
    http://www.nerdynerdynerdy.com/2013/07/11-questions.html

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  6. Thank you! We did this in my 5th grade class and never got a chance to finish. I went looking for it and here it was. Thank you!

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