Upcoming: Owl Mini Unit

I have been completely obsessed with those cute little owls you have seen everywhere in the last year...you know, on necklaces, kids shirts, home decor, etc.

I though it would be fun to do a book study on the SIMPLY ADORABLE book "Owl Babies" by Martin Waddle.

 I still have a couple of criers in my class and they could relate with the sadness that comes when Mommy has to go somewhere without them.  I will be posting my Mini Unit for sale soon on Teachers Pay Teachers, and will repost when that is up and ready.  Here is a preview of what you will find in it:

A cute 'craftivity' incorporating writing after comparing and contrasting Owl Babies and Human Babies.

 

A KWL chart to get students thinking about Owls

 

 

 

Student KWL chart

 

This unit will be up Monday evening!

Whooo-s going to check it out!

 

 

 

 

 

Gingerbread People

My little lovelies have gotten so spoiled with fun math activities after they finish their regular math, that they have been at a loss not having a "May-Do" center.  Many years ago I purchased a clip art CD from Clip Art by Lisa.  She has super-cute images!  I have been purchasing some things from Scrappin Doodles (which I also love, but hey, free is always better) but thought I would use my old CD to save money. 

To make this fun center, I printed out the Gingerbread Lady and Gingerbread Guy and wrote addition and subtraction problems on them.  The students will find the GG (Gingerbread Guy) that goes with the GL(Gingerbread Lady).  A festive lil splash of Christmas!  Go check Lisa out at Clip Art by Lisa!

 

Happy Holidays!

OMG! Is that a Christmas Tree???

 

 

Okay, so today is November 11th and we already have one of our trees up.  I am so excited that we will have more than one tree this year.  I don't know that I am ready for Christmas music and present wrapping yet, but I can check at least one thing off my list of Pre-Thanksgiving Chores.  Our kitchen (strangely) has two doors going to the backyard, but we only use one of them so we thought we would put a tree in front of one of the doors so the golfers would have a festive vision while on the back 9.  I don't know why I bother, truly.  Everyday I see some yahoo taking a whiz in the brush as we play in the backyard, completely oblivious, but still, I like to think that someone is noticing. 

We are having Thanksgiving at our house this year, yeah I know I know, and want it to be as holidayish (ish can be used as suffix on any word at any time, google it my friends) as possible.  This tree will be our family tree sporting all of the ornaments that mean something to us and represents what we are as a family, but is a cheap, plastic menagerie.   I will be that crazy lady you tell your friends about!  The other tree will be our themed tree.  I will post those pics later! 

Welcome Bloggy Buddy!

Hello Deveree...I am so glad you are here!  If I find some 6th grade stuff I will post it for ya!  Love ya, girlfriend!

Thanksgiving

 

 

Say hello to Turkey Lurkey!  I purchased Deanna Jump's Thanksgiving Literacy and Math unit from Teachers Pay Teachers and did a Glyph activity for the first time.  It was so fun.  The way is works is the students are giving directions that tell about themselves. 

In this activity, the students had to use their age to know how many feathers to add.  If they were 5, they would put on 5 feathers, if they were 6, the put six.  We did this with several aspects of the turkey.  Her unit included a really AWESOME math activity to do after the craft.  The students really got to exercise their knowledge about tally marks and bar graphs.  

Here is a picture of them going turkey to turkey gathering data such as favorite color, if they are going away for Thanksgiving, etc.  The accordion legs mean they are going out of town for Thanksgiving.  I loved loved loved this activity!

 

 

Proposition 30

 

 

Hooray, Hooray, I have my job for one more day!  Well, more than that, but at least the rest of the year.  If yor voted for 30, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, as does my family!

Mayflower Activities

 

This week we have focused on learning details about the Mayflower, Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.  First, we read the story "On the Mayflower", which had photographs of Mayflower recreations and is told from the point of view a child aboard the Mayflower. 

After reading the story, we used what we learned to fill in a tree chart.  I used a mixture of ideas from Cara Carroll and Deanna Jump's units, which I purchased from Teachers Pay Teachers.  The kids had a lot of fun with this one. 

To throw some writing in the activity, we used our journals and put the details into sentences.  They started at the top and worked their way down to build their sentences.  Here is an example.  Not sure why it starts with I, but he later went back and corrected that :)  This was his work in progress, not the finished product.

Pilgrim is up!

FREEBIE!  Pilgrim TemplateTemplate is set in a slide show, just follow the picture example...Have fun!

Welcome Jovanna...one of most favorite Heart Mommies!

Fall Addition and Subtraction Fun

　
Acorn math
Click the above link to get the Acorn Addition and Subtraction center.  Print in color and laminate.  Cut along the top of the acorn to remove the sum.  Place all pieces in a baggy and have students find the matching answer for each problem.  It's totally FREE!

Thanks bloggy buddies!

Thank you Amorina and Heather for following my blog!  Amorina, I will post some fun stuff you could easily do with Mason...as soon as I learn to share links, I will share some things that you might like! Thanks Ladies!

Fall is in the air!

 

Aubree spent the whole day outside while I cleaned, lesson planned and made nice 'indoors'  She is definitely an outdoor girl!  It got a little breezy so she was able to wear her uber cute beanie.  A mom at school makes them so I got a couple for Aubs and some for Code-man.  When she came in for a smack(snack I mean, whoops) we had the best Fall snack ever!  Honeycrisp apples and Caramel Dip...yum yum!  Hope you are all enjoying fall y'all!

Thanksgiving

To get an early start on our upcoming week, which I will fondly call 'Thanksgiving Extravaganza', we brainstormed some things we are thankful for...notice the one about the soldiers who fight for our freedom!  Tear! 

After finishing our brainstorming students put their ideas into sentences.  How many sentences I expected depended on how quickly they were able to write two.  Everyone had the expectation of two, but some went full out and wrote 5 to 8!  I am glad they realize they have so much to be thankful for.

When they finished their writing and it looked their personal best, they made the Pilgrim to hold their writing.  This is the example I made for them, but I will post some pics of theirs so you can see how well they did.  Also, I will post the template for the Pilgrim if you want to use it.  It did take a lot of prep to trace all the pieces, but you could print the pieces directly to the construction paper.

School Spirit

My sweet baby girl is in Kindergarten at the school I teach at, so we had to show our school spirit on Friday!  She is a tiny little thing and her shirt barely fit her so we had to rubberband it.  I was SO craving one of those thingy's from the eighties...you know what I mean, the thing shaped like a circle with a bar in the middle!?!  You know!?!

Question Sentences

Question Sentences



This weeks HM story was "Moving Day".  All last week we worked on question words and how to start a question.  First, we discussed Quincey and his love of asking questions.  Then we brainstormed question words. 

After coming up with several question words we went through the story, pulled sticks for random selection , and dictated a question sentence relating to the story.  The kids had a great time and did really well having the question words in front of them. The purple words are the question words we brainstormed.  The red are the student generated questions. Quincey Questioner is one of the steps in Reciprocal Teaching, which we will work up to by the end of the year when my lil squirts are ready.