Earth Day Book Bag

I have been working on an Earth Day Book Bag for my kiddies.

I just got the book in the mail today and we're going to start rotating it around next week.

For those of you who have never used book bags... they are great!

You choose a book, for this one I chose Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel.

Then you design a few activities to go along with the book. 

You send the bag home with each child for a few nights and then have the kids talk about what they did with the bag.

It is a great way to incorporate families and get them involved in learning. 

I posted all of the materials for this book bag on Teachers Pay Teachers if you are interested!

I always include a journal in my book bags, this one is about how you and your family will help the earth.

I found a great bag for $2 at Michaels, its a cute draw string backpack!

I'm starting on my next book bag soon... insects!

Enjoy :)

Pattern Block Activities

Last week we made we did some math activities using pattern blocks.

The first activity was to create a creature using pattern blocks and then record how many of each shape you used to make your creature. 

The second activity was about symmetry.

The kids had to create a symmetrical shape, and then trace and color their shape.

I will be putting these two items on teachers pay teachers as a freebie later on this week :)

I'm also trying to create a whole unit using pattern blocks in different ways, 

so if anybody has any ideas please share! 

Thanks!

Feelings Unit

Over the past two weeks we did a feelings unit.

We talked about a variety of different feelings and things that make us feel a certain way.

It was really interesting to hear some of the responses.

We did one feeling a day for two weeks and completed a feeling journal.

Each journal consisted of children writing a sentence or two about what made them feel that way, how they looked when they were feeling this way, and whether or not they liked this feeling.

At the end of the two weeks, the children selected their best two pages to put in their portfolio.

The rest were compiled into a book that the kids could take home and share with their family.

Here are a few pictures of some interesting ones and ones that made me giggle.

You can purchase the feelings journal on Teachers Pay Teachers.

I feel bored when.. I can't play the wii.

I feel happy when.. I go to the ice cream shop.

I feel nervous when.. I first go to basketball.

Some things that make me feel sad are.. when people laugh at me.

I am curious about... how movies come out and how 3D glasses and how it works.

(Me too!)

Some things that make me feel grumpy are.. when I stay up all night.

Some things that make me feel scared are.. jumping off a airplane and dinosaurs.

Rainforest Week #1

This week we started our rainforest unit (One of my favorites!).

We started talking about the layers of the rainforest and the children made their own trees, labeled the layers and put the animals in the appropriate place.

We talked about mammals that live in the rainforest such as monkeys and elephants.

Then we talked about lizards and snakes.

The children painted lizards and completed a graph about whether they thought snakes were cool or creepy.

On friday, we talked about alligators and crocodiles. The kids wrote facts about alligators and we made alligator pie! (Thanks Mrs. Jump for the idea!)

More to come next week!

Check out my rainforest unit plan on Teachers Pay Teachers.

St. Patrick's Day Fun!

We had so much fun last week celebrating St. Patrick's Day!

I love all of the fun projects that you can do for this holiday.

The main event was building Leprechaun traps. 

The kids were so creative and it was incredible to see what they came up with.

We set up the traps on Thursday and when they came in on Friday the leprechaun had left them some treats and a note. He also messed up our room!

It was very funny to watch them try to figure out what happened! (Gotta love their innocence!)

We did a lot of other great projects which can be found in my unit plan on teachers pay teachers.

I hope you and your class had a fun week :)

Dr. Seuss Unit

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday this month, we are celebrating by reading his books and doing projects by Dr. Seuss all week long!

So far we are having so much fun!

First we read the Cat in the Hat, we made hats like the Cats to wear all week. Plus, we did a journal about what we would do if the cat came to school! (Some very cute answers!)

We read Horton Hatches an Egg and did a sort of which animals we thought came from eggs and which did not. Then we checked our answers and fixed our chart. We made our own animals hatching from eggs (they came out so cute!).

We read the foot book and measured our feet to make our own foot book! 

We read "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" and made our own 'Wocket' (or something else that rhymes with pocket!) and put it in a pocket! It was a great way for the children to experiment with letter sounds by making silly words. 

Next, we read "Green Eggs and Ham" and made green eggs! The kids had so much fun and thought it was amazing that they were green. Then we made a graph about who liked the green ham. 

We read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". We practiced addition by making addition aquariums. We drew our problem with crayons and then painted over it with watercolors. (The wax doesn't get covered by the water plots and it gives it a neat effect!) 

We have a lot more fun activities to do this week (More pictures to come!)

Check out my Dr. Seuss Unit on Teachers Pay Teachers!

America Unit

The last few weeks in February, we studied American Presidents and Symbols. We learned about past presidents such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. 

We also learned about some American Symbols such as the bald eagle, the American flag, and the Statue of Liberty. 

We made bald eagles using our hands and feet! 

We made a tissue paper American Flag and practiced the Pledge of Allegiance. 

We did a penny experiment to see why the Statue of Liberty is green. We soaked copper pennies in salt and vinegar over night. The next day we took them out and after a few minutes of being in the air, they began to turn green. It was so neat, the kids really enjoyed it! 

(Thank you Mrs. Jump for the idea!)

Hopefully you can use some of these ideas with your class!