Family Unit

I passed out on the couch after school and took a 3 and a half hour nap and I feel rejuvenated and wide-awake...so it's blogging time! :)

A few weeks ago we did one of my favorite units: all about families! We talked about our families and discussed how families are made up of people who love us and all families are different. Of course there are MANY great children's books on families out there, and I wanted to share a few that I read. One of my favorite authors is Laura Numeroff (author of Give a Mouse a Cookie) and she also has several books about families. We read What Mommies Do Best (What Daddies Do Best) and What Sisters Do Best (What Brothers Do Best). She also has ones on Grandmas and Grandpas and Aunts and Uncles. Each book is two books in one! :)

We started out the first week sharing who was in our family and drawing a picture of our families. We also wrote stories about what we do with our families but I forgot to take pictures of those. :(

We also did a class book that I made called "We Like Our Families" about why we like our families. The kids had such cute responses!

I like my family because they feed me.

I like my family because they take care of me and they love me and they give me food, water and air. They help me when I get hurt.

I like my family because they kiss me on the cheek.

I like my family because they love me so much.

During the second week, our weekly poem for shared reading was called "Families." It was a cute finger play and the kids loved it ! I made matching fingers to put on the poetry pocket chart (you add one finger each time you talk about a family member) and my teammate pointed out that the mother line hand looks like the loser sign. OOPS! The kids never noticed though. :) In their poetry folders they drew their families and circled sight words.

In math we made family addition sentences by writing down how many girls and boys were in our families.

Our final project was making family trees! I had everyone make trees with construction paper and cut out triangles for the girls in their family and rectangles for the boys.

We are just about to finish up our Jobs unit so I will be sharing that next! Our Fall Break starts after tomorrow and we get two weeks off! (A HUGE perk of year-round schools) :)