Amazing Animals Part 1: Mammals

Well, we just wrapped up our two-week Animal Unit....and BOY, did we have fun! We started out in week one learning about what a mammal is and their important characteristics (fur or hair, live babies, breathe with lungs, etc.) Once again, I used an AWESOME unit from Deanna Jump about zoo animals. We started off the unit talking about adjectives to describe animals. We read her zoo animal book and then created our own class book. Here are a couple pages from it!

Each students got to pick two adjectives to describe animals and they had to draw an animal for each adjective. These students chose big/little and soft/furry.

We also did four of the seven animal crafts she created throughout the week.

First we did the adorable giraffes and the kids INSISTED that the "baby" giraffes be put up by our "mama" growth chart giraffe. :)

Next up we did lions, zebras and finally monkeys! (At this point I was crafted OUT so we just did the monkey head)

The monkey heads were super fun especially because I had the kids write what they would do if they were a monkey. I said I would have a party in the tress so of course, almost EVERYONE wanted to have a monkey party also. Here are some of my favorites:

If I was a monkey I would make a party with my friends and eat bananas too.

If I was a monkey I would eat a banana and hang on a tree with my friends. I would party up in the tree.

If I was a monkey I would jump up a tree and I would have a party.

After our craft extravaganza we read two books (one on zebras and one on giraffes) and then created a Venn diagram to compare and contrast zebras and giraffes. Our star facts were things we learned about all mammals. I just HAD to decorate the diagram with their cute crafts!

In math we did several animal math problems. My favorite was ordering animals because the kids drew such cute pictures.

I also asked my students to draw 3 mammals in their science journal and to label them. I absolutely LOVE their animal drawings!

This week was all about oviparous animals (animals that lay eggs) but I will blog about that in a few days....I know you can't wait! :)

Fairy Tale Fever!

Well, last week in addition to insects, we were also studying fairy tales during reading. We had a literacy night a few weeks ago with the theme "Fairy Tale Fever" so I wanted to make sure my kids were exposed to different fairy tales and their elements. We read Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast...and many more! We found that the books I had were VERY different from the Disney versions. :) Especially the Little Mermaid....she was blonde (NOT a red-head) and named Melody (NOT Ariel) although she had a red-haired sister (to which my kids screamed OH! THERE'S ARIEL!) Also the ending was extremely lame....basically the sea witch was like umm..."Here's your voice back. No one is scared of me with your sweet princess voice." And they all lived happily ever after. Wow. A;-)

I used most of my activities from the Happily Ever After Unit from Primary Perspective . One of the first activities I did with the kids was have them write what they would wish for if they had a magic wand. Sadly I sent home their artwork before I could take pictures, but I thought I'd share a few of their wishes with you:

"I would wish for all the girls to be princesses and all the boys to be princes."

"I would wish to be turned into a squid." (This kid is OBSESSED with squids)

"I would turn myself into a fairy and fly with my friends."

"I would turn into a T-Rex and chase everyone."

I love how pretty much everyone wanted to turn into something else. It is absolutely HILARIOUS to watch them play in our pretend play center. They LOVE pretending to be doctors, cooks, moms, dads, kids, puppies, fire fighters, waiters, salesmen...or anything you can think of. I have a few future academy award winners on my hands.... :)

We also did a fairy tale journal everyday last week. We are still finishing them up this week. I wanted to share with you some of their art work though. It is SO precious.

We talked a lot about vocabulary that described different fairy tale characters especially when we discussed the difference between "good" and "bad" characters and how sometimes a character could do "good" and "bad" things. For this activity, my students got to pick a fairy tale character and draw them inside the frame. Around their drawing they copied words from a list to describe that character. The first drawing is Little Red Riding Hood and she was described as anxious, joyful, calm and playful. Red went through a roller coaster of emotions! The second drawing is Cinderella's fairy godmother. She was described as playful, joyful, calm and sweet.

After reading Beauty and the Beast, we talked about how most fairy tales start with a similar beginning of "Once upon a time..." I LOVED these two drawings. The one on the right is done by my little artist...he is SO talented. I mean check out those details! Is he really in kinder??

The kids loved my voices in the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Especially my troll voice. It was very scary. :) Hah! For this fairy tale we talked about how there are "good" characters and "bad characters". We also talked about how many fairy tales use the numbers 7 or 3. (7 dwarves, 3 pigs, 3 bears, etc.) I love this kid's drawing of the goats. Apparently these goats were multi-colored!

Here is a couple pages on the Little Mermaid. We talked about how fairy tales usually have wishes in them and the kids wrote that Melody wished to have legs. We also talked about how fairy tales often have royal characters. The kids wrote that Melody was a princess.

Hope you enjoyed seeing more of my kids work! We have just started our animal unit so There will be plenty more to share soon! Stay tuned!

We're going buggy!

I am really wanting to try and keep this blog updated more. I also want to start showing more of my students' work! It's so adorable I can't help but share it! :)

These past 2 weeks we have been studying insects and life cycles in science. We have done a lot of adorable insect crafts from Deanna Jump's Insect Unit.

Here are our awesome butterflies! :)

Next we did fireflies! :)

Here's some of my cuties getting their praying mantis crafts ready!

Here are the finished insects! :)

And here's a peek into a couple science journals...I asked them to draw a life cycle and label it. I love their spelling! :)

Coming soon....Fairy Tales! :)

Ten Things I Have Learned from Teaching

I've been OBSESSED with teacher websites lately and a lot of them have been posting 10 things they have learned from teaching so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon....

10. You are ALWAYS hungry for dinner before 5 (because you eat before 11 AM) and you are ALWAYS tired on Friday nights.

9. A teacher's job is NOT over at 3:30 when the kids leave. In fact, it is never over.

8. Sharing is a life-saver....don't re-invent the wheel! Borrow from your colleagues and other teachers you know! Don't forget to use google....so many ideas and free stuff out there! USE IT!

7. Always over-plan and be flexible. The activities you think will take a long time never do and the ones you need to finish up quickly seem to take the longest.

6. There will be kids and parents who don't like you (maybe even HATE you)....but there are WAY, WAY more who LOVE you so just let it go. :)

5. You will make mistakes. Daily. Learn from them and grow!

4. Never walk into a teacher supply store expecting to only pick up one or two things....that never happens.

3. The kids ARE learning....even if you think they aren't.

2. Kids DO say the darndest things!

1. Your first year will be HELL, but you will learn more in that year than any other.

After surviving that, you can do anything! :)