Spring Bunnies

Hellllooo spring break! Well, not yet. We've got four more days...but we WILL make it! :o) How? By having way to much fun this week and doing all things bunny related...

Here's a little preview of my center set-up for this week   ------------->

We've got plastic eggs for digraphs, blends, sight words, subtraction, word problems - you name it.  I actually think I bought all of the mini erasers in the dollar spot at Targea for this week, but I digress....

First up we have Sight Word Scramble - you can use this with or without the eggs. I just wrote the sight words on the egg, put a cut up version of the word inside and the copies to match.  Read the word, fix it, write it -  easy cheesy. 

 

Next a little blend egg spinning game. Each egg has a blend, spin it to make a word and record the word. We are working on "L" blends and "R" blends for now, so those are the ones I addressed.  Again, you don't need the eggs for this, its just a lil bonus for the kiddos. 

 

Digraphs are the same concept as the blends...there are also two options for these centers.  One is just writing the word, the other is writing the word and the sentence!

Here we have a little surprise! Sight words are written on the outside of the eggs and the mini erasers are inside.  So the littles write the word, open the egg, record the number of bunnies and carrots and write a number sentence.

I have no idea why, but my littles love mix and fix sentences. If I cut it up, they HAVE to put it back together. It's like the weirdest thing ever...so anyways here's a sentence builder for that. Use the sentence fluency strips in this pack. Cut them up, NUMBER the back - because, well you know why, and put the pieces in the egg. The kids organize the pieces and write the sentence. 

So those are all my ideas for a successful week...now implementation may be a different thing - but that's the joy of teaching, now isn't it? ;o)

I have got some number sentences, subtraction and addition, and number bonds in there as well, but you may just want to go here for a preview.

Oo that tricky leprechaun!

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but every single year a leprechaun comes to my room on St. Patrick's Day, messes up my room, leaves green footprints, and tricks us into trying to get his pot of gold.

Video Cred: Leah O'Donnell (who rocks!)


So this year, after their special, the kids came in only to find the leprechaun left them a pot - not of gold - but with a letter in it.  Turns out we just started our persuasive writing unit and the leprechaun wanted us to write him letters persuading him to give us his gold.

So we did!

The kids really did do a great job and they ended up each getting a plastic gold coin to take home. One little lady also followed through on her promise to make him a little house and brought her project to school the next day. 

We also did this fun Pinterest craft and are working on a combination of these centers.

I usually use this event as a kick-start to leprechaun and Irish themed centers that we use the last two weeks of March.  I have a TON (legitimately WAY too many) of resources for March here.

What do you do in March? Anything you would like to do more in your class? Although I have way more March activities than I need, it's one of my favorite things to create for!

In like out a lion and out like a lamb...

So this winter has been rough. Real rough. And we have finally made it to March...now we're looking forward to Spring on Thursday...but the weather still hasn't changed much.  Let's hope it does because last week we talked about the old adage, "March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb."

This saying can be difficult for kindergarteners to grasp so we take about two week exploring it through writing.

  

This year, we made it into more of a shared research project (to align to the Common Core Standards).

   

We watched video, read books, and looked up facts.  Two of my little guys even did some safe computer research on their own and wrote me a few sentences!

Not only have we explored lions and lambs, but now we know about similes as well! Yahoo! Now if spring would actually come!!

So when I planned teaching about March weather I didn't plan March would not only come in like a lion, but go out like one as well. It's still below 30 degrees people!!!!

But Spring is still arriving tomorrow and we need to finish up our lion/lamb unit. 

 Here's our messy (no time for neatness!) lamb brainstorm...

 ....and our lambs with lamb ideas on them....this one says "lambs are good for making sweaters" haha!!

 And this one says, "They are not great house pets." LOVE IT!

And then theres this little lamb with a lamb beard :o)

There you have it folks...lions and lambs galore.  Now if only Spring would actually come! :o)
Did anyone else use the lion/lamb unit on TPT? Get it here. How did you use it?

Lions and Lambs and March Weather

And here we are already in March...What? I can't believe it!

March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb ... but making that connection is difficult for many kindergarteners, so starting Friday and into next week, we are going to deconstruct that saying, learn about lions and lambs and then apply it back to why March is like a lion and a lamb... WHOA!

Sounds like a lot, I know, but you would be amazed what my little sweeties can come up with when they have help making connections.'

We started with a whole group brainstorm - we had to teach our Title 1 teacher what a lion was, because she had NEVER see one before ;o) ...and I was going to post the brainstorm, but my board eraser did her job too quickly! 

So, after the brainstorm, we used made lions and added some of their traits the lion mane so that other people could learn too...

The kids could pick whether to just color in a lion face or make his/her own and if he/she wanted to use lined papers to write or write right on the mane.

How cute! I thought they did a FABULOUS job and I am always SO excited when each child really takes ownership of the project, which they all did!

Visit my TPT store to get both activities! 

Dental Health

It's dental health week! We started with our Heggerty writing - brainstorming hat we have to do to keep  our teeth clean.  Then we did our writing and an super exciting science experiment! 

What. is. that?

 It's an egg! A hardboiled egg that was soaked in Coke overnight. YUCK! So we needed to clean up those eggs by brushing them with toothpaste and a toothbrush.

And so we brushed...

And brushed....

Until our eggs were white again! Then we showed them off! One of my little ones went home and told her mom there was a chick inside the egg and she had to sleep with it to keep it warm...how cute! :o)

Parents- don't forget the toothbrush checklists are due Tuesday!