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!

 

 

 

 

Five for Friday (January 17)

 

1. Phew! It has been a week! Things teaching have been great, but things family have been CRAZY! Last week my mom got the stomach bug and, long story short, ended up in the hospital for 3 days. She's recovering now, but still not 100%. This experience has taught me that nurses are one of the unsung heroes for our civilization! The crap they deal with (sometimes literally) is just overwhelmingly insane! If you know a nurse, please give them a hug for me!

 

 

2. We read Snowmen at Night last week. Such a fun book! We practiced retelling, discussed fiction/non-fiction, and looked for rhyming words.

 

 

On Friday, we made snowman out of  1 part Elmer's glue and 1 part shaving cream. When it dried, the snowmen were puffy and kind of felt like Styrofoam. This week at writing station, my students wrote what their snowman could do at night and used scraps of paper to decorate their snowmen. Aren't they cute?! I differentiated by providing 2 different writing papers for higher and lower students.

 

3. This 9 weeks, we teach persuasive writing to our kindergartners. We started this unit by talking about facts and opinions. I used this cute pack from TPT to do fact and opinion sort.

 

 

After that, we took an opinion poll. My kids voted on the best food. We did this another day with the best pet. On the 3rd day, they were begging me to do it again!

 

 

After voting, I introduced the almighty opinion word...BECAUSE!!!! We talked about how important it is to give a reason for our opinion and practiced verbally giving reasons. Taking time to talk about opinions was a HUGE help instead of just jumping into writing them. Finally my opinionated little munchkins went to writing and did a super job!

 

4. Is anyone else ALWAYS looking for apps, especially apps that are kinder-friendly?? I tested out a new (to me) app this week and HAVE GOT to share it with you!! Puppet Pals lets kids make their own story by picking characters and settings, and then recording their narration...just like a virtual puppet show. It's super simple to use and I can't wait to use it with my kindergartners! The free version comes with fairy tale puppets and settings, but the pay version has a lot of different genres.

 

 

5. I took the day off today and came to my parents house. It worked out well so that I could be here with my mom after her hospital stay, but really I was already coming here to help them move (or at least pack). I got my tape gun in one hand and my cardboard box in the other! Hopefully I'll be more productive than theses guys...

Have a GREAT weekend!!!

Turkey Time!!

Happy Almost-Thanksgiving Break! This week is dedicated to all things TURKEY in our classroom. We started with a project that I've seen, but never tried before. What better place to share it than Tried-It Tuesday with Fourth Grade Flipper?!

We disguised Tom the Turkey to hide him during this Thanksgiving season. NO TURKEYS HERE! Just peacocks, princesses, policemen, and Santa Claus. 

 

 

I think this is such a neat project for kids to do with their families. I hope they had as much fun disguising their turkeys as I had seeing them being presented! Here's a close-up of an elf, a gentleman (love that description!), a princess, and Santa Claus.

We have also done some turkey informational writing this week. First we researched interesting turkey facts @ Live Science. Did you know that only male turkeys gobble??

 

Then we made a "Turkeys have..., Turkeys can..., Turkeys are..." chart. These are my ABSOLUTE favorite ways to begin informational pieces. It's such a clear and simple graphic organizer for young writers to use.

 

 

Then students wrote 3 facts about turkeys and finished them off by coloring a turkey "holding" their papers. Cute, huh?

What a GREAT looking bunch of birds!

Our last turkey project was a Thankful turkey. In my eagerness to leave school, I forgot to take a picture of the finished project, but the basic idea is pretty common. Kids write what they are thankful for on the feathers of the turkey. Nothing new, but it's new to my kindergartners  =)  Anyway, we started by making a list of things we are thankful for. Here's the list...can we say diverse, and a little random??

Well that's all for me. After an hour of technical difficulties, this post is finally post-able  =)

Workshop Wednesday Linky: Persuasive Writing

 

I'm linking up with Jivey today to talk about persuasive writing. Down here in the great state of Georgia, we have reading/writing frameworks provided by the state. They talked about the OREO method for organizing persuasive writing:

                          O-State your Opinion

                          RE-Give Reasons and Examples to explain your opinion

                          O-Restate your Opinion

This graphic organizer really helped my firsties understand and remember the basic principle of writing persuasively! Here's a link, but I can't take credit for making it. This is from the Georgia DOE.

 

Some great books I like to use to teach persuasive writing are:

The Pigeon Books-They're short and HILARIOUS! The kids love them. We read them throughout our unit introducing persuasive writing and talk about the reasons the pigeon gave why he should get to do each activity.

 

  

    



 

I Wanna Iguana-Another persuasive classic! Alex has to persuade his mom to let him have a pet Iguana. He gives her lots of reasons why he should have the pet. After reading, we write a letter to our parents tell them reasons we should have the pet of our choice. It's a good time to talk about the parts of a letter as well! A cute book to read along with this is the short chapter book Lulu and the Brontosaurus. Very funny! Keeps the theme going of wanting a new pet.

 

  

 



Hey Little Ant-I saw Jivey mentioned this book, too. It's great for persuasive writing because you hear 2 points of view: the ant and the little boy that wants to squish the ant. There are a lot of good readings of this on youtube, BTW. After reading, my kids wrote a persuasive piece arguing to save the ant or squish the ant (complete with an illustrative banner declaring their opinion to save or squish!). They were so cute...I wish I had taken pictures. Here's a rubric I used to assess their ant writing.  

 

 

I hope I've persuaded you of some persuasive writing ideas!  =)



Writing with a Side of Freebies

One more week of school! I can hardly believe it! Unfortunately for my kids, they have a teacher who believes in working until the veeeeeeeeery end, so we are staying busy. Mostly, we've been writing. I feel like this is a great way to provide closure for the year. Today, we reviewed all of the things we've done in 1st grade, and they wrote about their favorite part. I get so tickled when they write things like "I love math when my teacher gives me HARD problems." So. Cute. I have quite the little group of authors this year because they were SILENT for a loooooong time while they wrote.

Yesterday, we reviewed persuasive writing. I made this freebie to help: Persuasive Writing: What's the Best Season? We've been learning about the seasons all year, so this provided a good science review in addition to writing practice. I hope you can use it!