Spring is hatching!

We've been studying Easter this week and with that said, I was able to throw in Oviparous and Not Oviparous animals.  If you haven't figured out by now...I'm notorious for throwing a multitude of things together and knocking out lots of curriculum standards in one swoop! ;-)  ha ha Yes!! For help, you must check out this corresponding unit at {Chalk Talk}.

We read the book Chickens Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller and sorted animals that do and do not lay eggs.

We also have been working on hatching this little guy!  (Picked up at the Dollar Tree) He has finally come out of his shell and is getting BIGGER by the day. 

Check out the chicks we made, too.  This art activity goes great with Easter AND oviparous animals! :)

 We sequenced an "Animals from Eggs" story.

 And made our own class book! 

A chick hatches from an egg.

 A bird hatches from an egg.

 An octopus hatches from an egg.

 A spider hatches from an egg.

 A dinosaur hatches from an egg.

 A turtle hatches from an egg.

We also made tie dyed eggs using coffee filters, markers, and a spray bottle.

Happy Easter! ~Miss E

Non Fiction Writing Idea

I just love stalking browsing blogs and finding great printables I can use in my classroom.  I hope to figure that out and post some cool stuff one day. Maybe a summer goal?!? Anyways, I found this WONDERFUL nonfiction book at A Place called Kindergarten and it correlated with our reading series unit, not to mention writer's workshop - so I HAD to print it and use it with my students.  How about that...killing 2 birds with 1 stone?  Score!  Check out what we did...

We've been reading and identifying lots of non-fiction books with our "Amazing Creatures" unit. We read a book called Beetles by Edana Eckart and began filling out our writing ideas. 

We know that Nonfiction writers research topics to write about and we were able to research and find facts on beetles.  
*Some glow in the dark
*They eat many things

*Some glow
  *Many colors

Nonfiction writers label their pictures - a skill we're working on in writer's workshop.  Here are some of our illustrations and labels. 

You can also find fun facts in Nonfiction books. Here is what we found out about ladybugs!

I was pretty pleased with how they turned out and uber thankful for the freebie!  Hope you enjoy, happy weekend. ~Miss E

Dino Week

Whoo hoo!  We are having so much fun studying dinosaurs.  We've started out each morning by engaging in a little "Chit Chat".  I just love chit chatting with my class.  It gives my students an insight on what's to come and gets them excited to learn.

On Tuesday, we had a visitor come and bring real bones!  We enjoyed touching and learning about human bones and afterwards, we made comparisons.  Here is a Venn Diagram we filled out, comparing dinosaur bones to human bones. Students even watched a brain pop video on fossils. 

Afterwards, we made our own fossils and studied them like real palentologists do!

 Can't forget about a little art project.  We made our own dinosaurs and added spikes.

 More to come... ~Miss E

Proud of it!

It's official and I'm not ashamed to say....I'm a teaching blog addict! bah ha ha ha Head on over to this {blog} and diagnose yourself! :) 

~Miss E

A Peek at the Week...

It's Dinosaur week and I've got a lot of fun posts coming...but in the mean time, I wanted to give you an inside look at our Math and Literacy Work Stations we started today.  

Literacy Work Stations:

Roll a Word:  I'm probably OVER using this station ;-) but it's such good practice for those high frequency words.  Students roll the word, say it to their shoulder partner, and record it on their graph.   When they meet with me, they'll review the words and tell me what word they had the most/least of.

Stamping: This week, students are using dinosaur stamps and an illustrated background to create a prehistoric scene.  Students must color their picture and either write about their scene or label it!

Poetry: Same as always - just a new poem! ;-) Students must cut/glue the poem in their poetry journal, highlight words they know, and illustrate it.  I'm loving this students' long neck dinosaur, pterodactyl, and stegosaurus.

Writing/Word Work: Students are cracking "dinosaur eggs" to discover words.  They must sort the words and write them under the correct word family!                                              

Listening: We're listening to All Aboard the Dinotrain and filling out our story report.  (I forgot to snap a photo of a completed one...oopsie) A favorite for all....my students REALLY love this book and were excited to listen to it today!

Math Workstations:

Number Sense: Students are arranging number cards by 2s, 5s, and 10s and recording the missing numbers on their number sheet!  Find a great resource for this {here}.

Geometry: Students are creating pictures using tangram pieces and recording the pieces they used on a graph.

Money Matters: Students are "Coin Investigators" this week!  I have hidden coins around the room with facts and students must search the room, match up the coin on their paper, and record the fact!  This cute printable and others can be found {here}.

Time/Measurement: Students are arranging the "Days of the week" on paper and having fun with this magnetic calendar.  A great review for the end of the year!

Enjoy! ~Miss E

Plant Week!

This is one of my favorite weeks.  I just love spring and teaching my students about new things.  It's certainly been a busy one!  So far, we've read multiple "plant" books.  Here are a couple to name a few...

After reading Sunflower House, we filled out a sunflower chart using descriptive words.  My students are learning (in reading) that descriptive words use your senses.  What did the flower look like? What did it smell like, etc?  Here is what we came up with.  The words in red are our labels and the words in black are our descriptive words.  My students insisted we label the parts of our flower. (Insert proud teacher smile here _____)

After we brainstormed, students transferred their words onto a web. This will be used later on in the week during Writer's Workshop.

We even created our own plant diagram and labeled the parts we learned!

We've charted things a plant has, needs, and gives. 

And students have worked to create a Kinder"garden" in our classroom.  What's a plant week without planting a few seeds? We will care for our plant and make observations about it's growth over the next few weeks.

Can't forget about poetry.  Here is the sweet little poem we're learning in Poetry Station. It's to the tune of "I'm a little Teapot." 

Little Seed

I'm a little seed,

In the dark, dark ground.

Out comes the sun,

Yellow and round.

Down comes the rain,

Wet and slow.

Up comes the little seed,

Grow, grow, grow!

As always, students must recite the poem, glue it in their poetry journal, highlight high frequency words, and illustrate it.  Here is an example of one, such great detail!

Bloom where you are planted! ~Miss E

Ocean Week - Part 2

We had a great week learning about the ocean and all the wonderful creatures that inhabit it.  Thanks to one of my sweet students for bringing in shark teeth to share with the class.  After reading multiple non fiction books on sharks, my students were fascinated by these teeth and couldn't wait to pass them around and get a closer look. 

We continued the rest of the week, much of the same.  Students listened to nonfiction books about sea creatures and helped me complete multiple webs with facts we learned.  We also watched a few Brain Pop videos. 

Each day, students would glue their di cut at the top of their foldable and list 1-2 facts about the sea creature that they found intersting.  Students would refer to the web we created during our whole group discussion to gather their facts.  Prior to this study, we had a talk about bullets and how you often bullet your paper to help the reader easily identify facts.  Notice my students use of bullets below and how many of them tried to color coordinate them to the color of their sea creature! ha How I have created mini me's!

Now, on to plants and spring next week.  Planning on planting our own seeds and making observations as our plants grow.  We'll also put together this diagram and illustrate the parts of a plant!  (This is an example from last year) Stay tuned.  ~Miss E