More Fall Fun

During writing time this week, we worked on creating a nonfiction book. We researched different things about fall on PebbleGo, then we used our research to write our books. I love making these books! I think the kids enjoy being authors and illustrators, as well. It helps them be motivated, and they love seeing and sharing their final products.

For our fun Friday project, we read The Lonely Scarecrow as a class. Then, we created a Bubble Map to describe a scarecrow. Using scrapbook paper (a big THANKS to the mom who donated!!!), we created a scarecrow collage-painting. These were absolutely TOO cute! I love seeing everyone's personality come out in their paintings. Some friends painted sunsets while others created blue skies. Other kids chose to paint green and brown ground, while others wanted to make colored ground to show different crops the farmers planted. Some scarecrows were happy, but others were lonely like ours in the story. I love them!

We had another great week. Looking forward to seeing y'all after a nice (and SO incredibly warm) weekend! :)

Autumn

This week we studied fall. I know it's a little late, but Thanksgiving came so early this year! We were able to squeeze in our unit before December.

Monday we learned about corn. We read Corn by Gail Gibbons and created a Tree Map for what we had learned. The kids just adore reading nonfiction books. I love it! After we made our Tree Map, the kids went back to their desks and created some tear-art corn. They turned out great! Then we wrote sentences, using the Tree Map, to go along with our corn. The kids did a wonderful job of using capitals and periods, checking and editing their own work before they came to me. Yay!

We also read a nonfiction story about autumn and things that are special about the season. Then, the kids made their own Tree Maps to write about fall weather, harvests, and clothes we wear. These kids really are rockstars with their Thinking Maps!

We read and retold There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves. These old ladies book are always a riot. We practiced using our sequencing words to retell each of the things she swallowed, then we made connections to the text. I was glad to see most of us are using nice handwriting!

We also started learning about objects in the sky this week. We created a Circle Map for our schema for outer space. After watching a quick video, we were able to add to our Circle Map. We'll keep updating our schema for the rest of the unit. The kids love to be able to visually see all the new things they've learned. It's a great way to assess our learning!

I just love how Angry Birds found a way to make it onto our Circle Map. Yes, they are a part of our schema but we made sure to note that they are fiction! :)

In math we've been practicing our fact families again. We have been using fun fall pictures to make part-part-wholes. Then we're writing corresponding number sentences to make our fact families.