Throwback Thursday ~ Bunny Craft & Writing About the Easter Bunny

I love, love, LOVE this time of year!  With Easter fast approaching, I thought I'd share some posts I did a couple years ago.  Enjoy!
Original Post Date 3/30/12

My class was so happy that we got to hang out with our 3rd grade buddies two days in a row.  We started this project yesterday and finished today. We stuffed them with grass, jelly beans and a chocolate.  I love the way they turned out!  And all the students had so much fun making them!
*I've added this project as a FREEBIE in my TpT store, click below to grab the directions and bunny ear templates.  If you download, please leave some love! Thanks!

Original Post Date 3/28/12

This week my students can't stop talking about the Easter Bunny.  I love hearing all about it! It's so fun!!! So I'm sharing what I used today for students to write their little hearts out - all about the Easter Bunny.  Visit my Tpt store to download! Click HERE

*I recently updated this little freebie so the download will look a bit different than these samples show.*

I had students draw a picture of the Easter Bunny to put above their writing.  On the left I plan to add a picture I took of each student today.  I had them wear bunny ears while holding an Easter basket and some carrots.  The pictures are SO CUTE. :)

Looking at these pictures brings back many happy memories.  I hope these posts will help you make great memories for you and your students too!

All About Leprechauns

That time of year is fast approaching.  Do you love having a little leprechaun fun in your classroom? I do!!! Every March, my classroom has been visited by a leprechaun.  This is how it starts...

I read this little book that comes with this plush leprechaun.  This book is so fun because would you believe it, that leprechaun is real?! Every morning for about a week, the students discover that the leprechaun has moved to a new spot in the classroom (always somewhere out of reach).  The night before St. Patrick's Day we set a trap for the leprechaun and try to catch him.  But alas, he is always too tricky for us.  Before he leaves our classroom for good he makes a memorable exit.  On St. Patrick's Day students walk into the classroom to find posters hung upside down, chairs turned over, table baskets on the wrong tables, and all sorts of leprechaun mischief.  Yes, it's wild when the students see what's happened to the classroom but it's one of the best days of the whole year.  Here is a link to the book at Barnes and Noble.

One fun thing that students can't get over is seeing leprechaun footprints all over the classroom tables.  Unfortunately I can't find a single picture of them, but I will tell you how I make them.  

1. Clench your fist and dip the pinky side of your fist into green tempura paint.

2. Stamp your fist where you want the foot prints.

3. Dip a few of your fingers in the paint and stamp at the top of the footprint for toes.

Now you have leprechaun footprints! 

Sometimes the leprechaun will leave a note for the class and on lucky years (when I can find them) he will leave the students each a chocolate coin.  The last time I found them they were at Cost Plus World Market.

I always encourage students to wear green on St. Patrick's Day, but if they don't I'm ready to hand out green shamrock stickers! 

To help us get in the leprechaun spirit, we make leprechaun hats and beards.  This picture is from several years ago and doesn't do these justice.  They are adorably hilarious to see on the students and they have so much fun with them!

This year I decided to expand the leprechaun fun and put together an All About Leprechauns unit! The unit includes the directions and templates for the leprechaun hats and beards, an original book about leprechauns, leprechaun writing resources and more!  Click on the picture below to get a closer look.

Do leprechauns visit your classroom? I'd love to hear about it!  Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Johnny Appleseed & Apple FUN!

September 26 is Johnny Appleseed Day!  Every year I do some thematic teaching about apples and Johnny Appleseed.  I do some in September because September=apples right? I also do apples when we get to the Johnny Appleseed story in our anthology books later in the year. There are so many things you can do with apples!  Here are some pics from an 'Our Favorite Apple' graphing activity we did last year.

For this activity we used red, green and yellow apples.  

That handy dandy contraption is the best! Why did I ever try to slice apples without it?

Students getting their apples for the big taste test!  Then they got to vote for their favorite apple.   We recorded, graphed and discussed our apple data. 

I took a picture of each student wearing a Johnny Appleseed hat while holding their favorite apple.  The idea for this picture was something I found on Pinterest last year.  (I don't remember where it came from but if you know please comment so I can add the link.)  The poster this little Johnny is standing in front of is one I made for vocabulary in our anthology story about Johnny Appleseed. 

I ended up having a few extra apples left over so I turned them into "Golden Apple Awards".  Boy oh boy did the students want those apples!  It was a great motivator for everything that day :)  If you're interested in the "Our Favorite Apple" activity I included it in my latest unit Johnny Appleseed & Apple FUN!  It includes fun writing, math and science activities.  Take a closer look below.

  

Click on the pictures to check it out in my Tpt store.  Have a great weekend!

Mr. Turkey

We have been having a lot of fun with all of our November activities.  It's amazing to me how many times students will sing a song and not get tired of it :).  One of the songs I enjoy teaching them in November is called "Mr. Turkey". It's simple and fun, check the poster I made below.

 Hand Movements:

"Big and fat" - hold arms out in a circle in front of you

"I am going to eat you" - pretend to be putting food in your mouth

"Just like that" - "Just" right hand out palm up, "like" left hand out palm up, "that" clap hands together

Along with some fun turkey songs, we made some fact family turkeys.  These fact family turkeys came from Erica Bohrer's unit Thanksgiving Art, Literacy, and Math Activities.  This is a great unit with many fun activities for November. 

 For the turkey eyes I used some self adhesive googly eyes I found at the Target Dollar Spot in August.  Now I'm asking myself 'WHY did I not buy more of these?!?!'  You know how students can't resist touching a googly eye that has not completely dried....well you don't have to worry about that with the self adhesive!  The eyes won't move once put on, so now I'm on the look out for more!  

This week is a two day work week for us and then a few days off for Thanksgiving vacation - yay!!!  I wish everyone a wonderful time with family and friends this Thanksgiving.  

  

 

Double Final Consonants

This last week we had fun learning about double final consonants. Here are a few pics:

This is a color by the code for double final consonants.

Aaaaand a word sort.

Here is a kiddo working on a read/write the room activity.  I ran out of printer ink last weekend - booooo, so I had to print the word cards in black and white.  I know it's not a big deal but I like my room to be happy and colorful!  Just waiting for my ink recycling rewards so I can cash them in for more ink.

If you'd like to get a better look at this Double Final Consonants Activity Pack you can view it on Tpt HERE. 

I See the Moon, the Moon Sees Me

Talk about out of this world ;)  Our school had a wonderful opportunity last March to borrow and view lunar samples from NASA.  It was all thanks to one of our wonderful and dedicated teachers Mr. Kevin Roberts, who teaches 4th grade.  He applied for and arranged everything.  Not only did all the students get to see actual pieces of the moon right in their classroom, Mr. Roberts graciously went around to every classroom and gave a presentation and explanation of the samples. It was incredible!  Want to apply for this program for your school? Click on this link for more information: Lunar and Meteorite Disk Program.  Here are a few pics from the presentation, I wish I had taken more!

 Several hands-on pieces were passed around the room.

 

 The well prepared Mr. Roberts with his fancy bulletin board and props.

 

My BTSA participating teacher Ms. Fennern and myself with the samples.  (I highly recommend teachers becoming BTSA support providers - great experience!)

 

What I really liked about this program is that it was something the entire school could enjoy, not just one classroom.  A once in a lifetime experience!  AND, it all happened because of one teacher.  At your school that teacher could be you!  Thanks again Mr. Roberts!!!!

 

 

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” - John F. Kennedy 


"The After" ~ A Work in Progress

 I was just thinking wow this first week went by so fast, then I realized it's been 2 weeks!!! I must not be entirely awake this morning... So in my last post I said I would post my "after" pictures of my classroom. Here are a few:

 

Ok, I know this looks totally boring. I was running out of time and just had everything in order for the first day.  My room looks MUCH better now....if only I had remembered to take pictures of the update!!! (I will this week.) I also have some Pinterest projects I'm anxious to do to spice things up!

I like to work ahead.  We have one copy machine for the entire school :( so you never know if it will be available or if it's working.  We do have a copy aid who makes us copies and I like to have any copies I need well in advance.  I use these trays to organize any language arts copies I make.  (We use Houghton Mifflin and each theme has 3 weeks.)  I find that HM doesn't provide enough rigor so I use supplementary materials to fill in the gaps.  I got these trays at the Target dollar section.

This is how I organize my copies/papers I plan to use for the week.  The one on the left is for math(we use Scott Foresman) and the one on the right is for language arts. I like this system in case I get unexpectedly sick - it's happened!  I always try to leave everything ready for the next day before I leave school. 

I hope everyone has had a great start to their school year.  I have a really sweet group this year and I'm so excited for all the things they are going to learn!

Back to School Sale & "the Before"

I'm sure you've all heard about the fabulous Back to School sale happening August 12-13 on Tpt.  Just wanted to let you know I am participating in the sale and you can get up to 28% off all items in my store. Use the promo code: BTS12  Don't forget to check out my latest Writing Resources Pack to help get the school year started!

So Monday I have staff meetings and then Tuesday the students arrive.  Where did the time go??? Hard to believe the summer is over.  But I am excited to meet my new students and get back into the swing of things :)  I moved rooms this year and this is what my room looked like when I walked in for the first time last week :( 

I took a few more steps into my room and I noticed what has to be the UGLIEST wall ever!

Do they not think when they design these portables??? I'll have to work on doing something to distract the eyes from this....
There was also no tall file cabinet in the room, and in my last room I had one that was bursting at the seams.  I talked to our custodian who kindly hunted down the only available file cabinet...

It's old, it even smells old! And again, what's up with the color???  But hey, I'm just glad to have one at all! I brought the small one with me from my old room.  Now both are full of my wonderful files.  The weird thing about this old smelly cabinet is the top two drawers.  What should I do with these? Any ideas???

I didn't know where to start! HOURS and HOURS later my room is finally ready for students.  But guess who forgot to take a picture of the after? I was so excited to be done, I almost ran out the door so I could enjoy the rest of my Saturday. So I will definitely take a picture this week of "the After" and post. 

One more thing - as I was prepping for the first week of school I took a pic of something I do every year.  I make name tags for the first few days of school for the students to wear.  It helps me learn their names and if they get lost on campus my information is on the tag.  I bought these plastic tags a few years ago and they have been one of the best investments EVER!  I also use them for our big field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  For the field trip I put the students into a different ocean animal group(each chaperon has a different animal) with the school name and phone number.  I keep the field trip tags in and just change out the name tags every year.  If you decide to get some you will be happy you did!!! I got the clips at Staples and the plastic sleeves at the Dollar Tree.

  Sorry, the picture will only load upside down....but I'm sure you get the idea :) Have a happy Sunday!

Recycling a Panda Plate

The moment I saw the new paw plates at Panda Express I knew there were endless possibilities for using them in my classroom!  The people at Panda were very kind and gave me enough plates for a class set.  But you could just use a few for a small group or center activity.  Here are a few ideas:

CVC Word Building

Number Order

Art Lesson with Primary and Secondary colors

Put each primary color in the top three spaces and use the bottom for mixing up secondary colors.

The plates also come with lids which would make it easy to store the letters or numbers with the plates.  When school starts up again I will post pics of these plates in action!  Have a great day :)



Last Day of School

I can't even believe the school year is over, it hasn't hit me yet.  The last day of school was a blast!  We did my Drive - In Movie themed project day and the kids loved it.  One of my colleagues that also did it commented "I can't believe how easy that was!"  That is one of the things I like best about the whole thing - it's super fun AND super easy.  It's one of those special days in school the kids will never forget. The kids were so cute and they were eager to earn their "driver license" - hehe. After we did the "Parking Lot Measurement" activity, the students all wanted to cut apart the key measuring tool so they could have car keys - so that got me thinking... 'I need to add keys to my unit for the kids to earn, just like they earn their driver license and ticket to the movie!'  So I have updated the unit and added keys for the students to earn, along with more car project examples from this years batch of cars. If you've already purchased the unit, head on over to Tpt and redownload!  Like last year, the kids brought in some AMAZING cars.  I was seriously blown away!  Here are some highlights:

   Here are a few pics from the "Parking Lot Measurement" activity:

Interested in doing this project and activities with your students? Check it out in my Tpt store.  I hope everyone had a great end to the school year.  Now I'm looking forward to planning for next year :)  I'm so excited to try all the new ideas I've been finding on Pinterest and the blogs.  You all inspire me!  Here's to a great summer!!! :)

Fireflies For Nathan - Open House

Here is one of the many projects we had out for display at our Open House.  Fireflies For Nathan is one of the stories in our anthology series.  Students drew a scene from the story with crayon and then painted over it with black water color.  Students copied the poem in their best handwriting(it was in our anthology book).  I have done this project for several years and always love the way they turn out! 

Teacher Appreciation Sale

Hi friends!  I am excited to tell you that I am going to be participating in the Tpt Teacher Appreciation sale by offering 20% off my store in addition to the 8% off code TAD12.  Mother's Day is next weekend, so don't forget to check out my Mother's Day unit - When I Am Old with You Mom.  Here are some examples of the book project that is included.  My students came up with the SWEETEST stories!!!

 

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