Open House Photos - Charlotte's Web Theme

I always like to do a theme for Open House.  I've recently blogged a bit about some of my former themes (Wizard of Oz, Mystery/Detective).  This year, we are very absorbed with the novel, Charlotte's Web so it seemed like the perfect choice.

A few of you had mentioned that June seemed like an odd time to have an Open House.  It kind of is.  In the past, we have always hosted the event in April.  Lately, we (the grades 3-5 teachers) have found it to be very challenging to balance prep for the event and prep for the state testing so we decided to make it later.  Testing didn't end until mid/late May and so Open House was scheduled for June 3rd.  I really liked the timing of it in some ways.  We had worked so hard cramming in the last two units of math for the test, that it was nice to just be creative and work on project-based activities.  The downside was that we were coming off of a gloriously sunny Memorial Day weekend and our mindset is NOT on hanging up new work.

Still, everything turned out fantastic.  I really enjoyed watching my friends create their masterpieces.  Watched is the key word because at this point in 3rd grade they amaze me with their ability to work independently.  

Below is our (to quote Charlotte's Web) Magnum Opus...Our Great Work.

Venn Diagrams comparing Wilbur and Charlotte along with a spider and pig made from Model Magic
The Diary of a Pig Books - This SO needs it's own post.  They are amazing!!!  I'll write about them in a few weeks.
Character Trait paragraphs: We brainstormed a list of character traits for the characters in the book.  Each child wrote a paragraph about the character and used details from the text to support the trait choice.  The illustrations were done in KidPix.

Watercolor barns accompanied by Acrostic Poems about the setting of the story.  I heart water colors.  I always have the kids draw in pencil and then outline in black Sharpie before painting.  They look amazing when they are done!

Another view of the watercolored barns.  On the counter is a bio poem written by each student with a photo of him/her attached.

Below are some random views from around the room.  One thing I did this year as a first was 8.5x11 inch black and white photos.  I LOVED this.  I simply printed a shot of each child on the computer and mounted it onto black construction paper.  They were beautiful and so easy to do.  I think they captured their personalities too which was cool.