Plant Time!

Plants, plants, plants! This week has been all about plants in Room 104. We started with this schema chart (the cute design was stolen borrowed from the amazing Cara at First Grade Parade)

I love how schema charts show our learning is always
growing and changing!

 

If you haven't seen these schema charts yet, they are an awesome activity similar to KWL charts. We start a unit with kids telling their schema--what they think they know about the topic. I include everything the kids say, even if I know it isn't right. As we learn about the topic and find out some part of our schema is wrong, we move that post-it to the misconceptions area. Anything new that we learn goes in the new learning area.

 

We read Seed to Plant...a very kinder-friendly non-fiction book. We added our new learning to our schema chart. The next day we read Jack and the Beanstalk and compared the 2 types of books.

 

 

 

Beep, beep, beep! Email alert! Jack emailed us! He had a question about how to plant his magic beans and needed our help!

 

 

That prompted these "how-to" writings explaining how to plant a seed.

 

 

 

 

Then we used our writing to plant our own beans. The boys planted lima beans that had been soaked in water for a couple of hours and the girls planted dry lima beans. The kids unanimously predicted the wet beans would grow faster and taller. We're going to chart their growth over the next few weeks.

 

 

Today was cactus day. We read a few pages from a non-fiction book about desert plants and the kids talked about what they saw. Then we watched READING RAINBOW!!!! WHO DOESN'T LOVE READING RAINBOW?!?! Anyway, they have a VERY informative episode about the desert and the Saguaro cactus.

 

 

We then worked on retelling the main idea and details with this super-simple circle map.

 

 

The kiddos used this circle map to write information about the cactus. To add a little artsy-ness to it, we glued rice to the cactus to show its spines.

 

 

Here are some examples of the finished project. Cute, huh? (I found this template somewhere on the web for free, but now I can't find it again!)

 

Tomorrow is tree day and next week is fruits and veggies. I think that will tie in well with Earth Day next Wednesday.

Five for Friday (April 25)

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!! I'm linking up with Doodle Bug for...

 

one- My most exciting part of the week was not at all school related. Me and the hubby went to see Lion King the musical yesterday at the Fabulous Fox Theater here in Atlanta!!!! I had heard it was great, and it certainly lived up to those reviews. The costumes and props were just breath-taking and so creative! Merry Christmas to us!

 two- This week ended our plant unit. We had already talked about plant parts and plant needs, so this week, we talked about plants in different habitats. We made an informational book that turned out ADORABLY! If you like it, you can get it for free in my TPT store.

 

three- We read Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed and made our flower to go along with it.

We drew the flower with a black crayon, and then glued on tissue paper. We glued on a lima bean at the bottom to be the aforementioned tiny seed.

 



To end the unit, my students wrote as many facts as they could think of about plants. They sure remembered a lot! This one is my favorite...I love how she spelled "nutrient!" 

 

four- Happy Earth Day! We did a lot of chatting about recycling this week and ended with this poem:

 

 

Then we made these cute flip books. Under each flap they illustrated a line of the poem.  





I found this poem on TPT (for free!)

five- My school is really trying to promote learning math facts, so we've developed the Math Olympics. It's supposed to be for 2-5 graders, but my kiddos are such math whizzes, we decided to get in on the action. Students complete a math fluency sheet in 1 minute (there's +, -, x, and /). If they correctly complete all of the problems on the first sheet, they earn a bronze medal sticker to put on the wall. Then they move to slightly harder math facts for their silver and gold "medals." They earn the last medal if they can complete the fluency test faster than an administrator. My kids have gotten really motivated to study their facts (especially since I've told them this is SECOND grade work!) and I had my first kid race an administrator today!!

That was my week! I hope you have a nice, restful weekend!

Sneak Peek at my Week (April 21)

We are standardized testing this week. Even though my kinders don't take the test, it affects our schedule and means my para-pro is gone to proctor all morning (NOOOOO!!). Somehow, we will try to carry on!

Science:

After reviewing plant parts and needs, we're going to focus on different plants that grow in different places.

Tuesday: Forests-We're going to research the layers of the forest on PebbleGo and begin an anchor chart. Then we'll begin our habitat book.

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Wednesday: Deserts-We're focusing on the cactus! After reading non-fiction books, we'll add to our anchor chart and habitat book. The best part? We're going to draw a cactus in our book and then add rice to it to look like the prickly part. Inspired by this pinterest pic:

 

Thursday: Oceans-We're focusing on kelp and phytoplankton. We're going to research a couple of websites and then make a class PPT. I found some pictures, and they have to sort the kelp from the phytoplankton, and then pick a pic of each to add to our PPT. I've never done a class PPT, so I hope it works!

Reading:

Our whole group reading is going to focus on Earth Day and recycling. We will watch a free BrainPop video on recycling (LOVE Moby and Annie!) and read some recycling books.

Our Class is Going Green!

Recycle!

 Then we will do some sorts on what items can we reused, reduced, and recycled (found in these TPT freebies):

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We'll also do this adorable flipbook which goes along great with out science lessons about oceans, deserts, and forests (don't you love when things just work out like that!)

 

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Finally we're going to make headbands! Who doesn't love fancy, luxurious head-wear?!

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Math:

Testing is making our math time a little wonky, so math is short and sweet this week. We're going to be reviewing word problems and practicing addition fluency. Need a good math app to help with fluency? Try CodeSquad!!! The kids are absolutely in love with it, and up to 4 kids can play on 1 iPad. Check out this video to see how cool it is!

 

Writing:

We have been reading folk tales and fairy tales the last few weeks. This week's writing is going to focus around The Jolly Postman who delivers mail to all of the characters from these books (if you haven't read it, it's adorable!). For writing, we're going to discuss how to write things like letters and invitations.
 

The Jolly Postman

Here's a great and simple template I love using it to teach friendly letters:

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I hope my week gives you some ideas for your week! Click below to link up with your weekly plans!



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Hey! Speaking of Mrs. Wills, she, Mrs. Jump's Class, and Kreative in Kinder are hosting an AWESOME giveaway for math products! Check it out by clicking on their links below!