Arctic Things

We've been learning about the Arctic and Antarctic for the past two weeks. Boy, is there a lot to learn!
We created a nonfiction book about arctic animals using PebbleGo and the other books we read throughout the week. These books really turn out very nicely. We worked so hard on them. I wanted to make sure the kiddos knew that it was important that they think of themselves as authors and illustrators who take pride in their work. We're getting ready for Second Grade, so we're really trying to do our best!

Our class also researched Inuits on World Book Web. It was so interesting to learn about life near the North Pole! We created Inuits to record our newly-learned facts.

Since Saturday was Groundhog Day, we wanted to make sure to add in a few groundhog lessons. We talked about what happens if he sees his shadow or if he doesn't. We also got to learn a little bit about Punxsutawney Phil, and the kids loved him! (As much as I love the cold weather, I'm kind of glad that Phil didn't see his shadow... I'm ready for the gorgeous spring!)

We created little groundhogs after learning some facts about them on PebbleGo. We made sure to add shadows for them with an additional Groundhog Day fact.

Then we read Who Will See Their Shadows This Year? We brainstormed which animals might want to look for their shadows and what weather they might bring. We created a class book with all our lovely pages.

We had another great week. I'm looking forward to tomorrow being the 100th day of school. Wow, it is flying by!

Penguins!!!

It's penguin time! It's definitely one of my favorite units we do all year long.

This week was all about Tacky the Penguin. We'd first learned about Tacky during Christmastime. He is hilarious, and the books teach us wonderful lessons about acceptance and appreciating others' differences.

One day we read Tacky the Penguin. It was great to finally read Helen Lester's first tale about this hilarious bird. After we read the story, the students created bubble maps for Tacky.

We also read Three Cheers for Tacky and Tacky the Winter Games. We learned about character analysis and talked about how good readers look for character traits. We look at a character's outside and we also infer what they are like on the inside, looking at their action and dialogue. We talked about Tacky together in order to practice our character analysis.

Another book we read was Tacky in Trouble. This one is hilarious! It might be my favorite, but I think I say that about every Tacky book. :) Tacky finds himself lost on a tropical island with an elephant named Rocky. It's quite hilarious! After we read the story, we did a Story Map for the book.

I think Tackylocks and the Three Bears was one of the favorite books this week. After we read the story, the students completed their own Double Bubbles comparing Tackylocks to Goldilocks.

During writing time this week we worked on publishing a book inspired by Tacky. The students brainstormed who their penguin characters would be and what setting they'd be in. We also thought about problems the penguins might encounter and what solution they could possibly have.

For Social Studies we talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. this week. Since his birthday was on Tuesday we wanted to celebrate him all week long! We learned about him in the biography section of PebbleGo. Then we wrote sentences about things we had learned and drew a picture of him. These turned out very well! I love some of the speech bubbles that our friends added to their photos. Once again, it's fun to see each child's personality come through in their artwork.

We also made birthday cakes to celebrate MLK, Jr's birthday on Tuesday. The kids brainstormed what they would want to give him for his birthday after we read Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King. They came up with wonderful, bucket-filling gifts. Then we wrote what we would give him on the cakes.

Our class discussed how MLK, Jr. was a great citizen. We made connections to his story by discussing how we could be better citizens.

In math we've been working on comparing and ordering numbers to 100. Finding patterns on the hundreds chart seems to be going well, since we do it during Calendar every day. We talk about how numbers change by one in a row, and they change by ten in a column. We also made Pac-Man to help us remember "greater than" and "less than." Of course this is always a huge hit, and I think it really helps the kiddos understand some of the harder concepts! We talked about how Pac-Man is greedy and super-hungry so he always wants to eat the bigger numbers.

I hope everyone is having a nice holiday off. We'll be doing lots of more fun penguiny things this upcoming week!

Mittens & Things

Wow, I can't believe we're almost halfway through the year! It's been so nice this week to see everyone's bright and well-rested faces. :) This week was all about winter (although more of the fun snowy kind, less of the Texas rainy kind).

We started off by reading The Mitten by Jan Brett. As the kids know, she is one of my all-time favorite authors! She also illustrates all of her stories and is just all-around amazing! We talked about genres and how this is a folktale so she is just retelling the story to us in her own way. They loved it. Of course I forgot to take a picture of our finished projects because I'm so out of habit of photographing everything! Here's what the animals looked like.

We also read The Hat by Jan Brett which is another folktale. Then we used a Double Bubble to talk about the similarities and differences in the books. The kids made a ton of great connections to the other texts we've been reading as well as to themselves.

Our class wrote about their winter breaks and created some adorable little people to go with their writing. We sat in a circle and all shared our favorite things first. It was wonderful hearing how much people love their families and friends. Of course we all got to talk about our new fun  presents, too! :) Gotta love the honesty that comes from a 6 year old!

We also did a writing activity after reading The Jacket I Wear in the Snow. After reading the story we talked about all the wonderful adjectives we had read. We reviewed how adjectives make stories more exciting, and life is pretty boring without them! The kids colored a person, then wrote about what he was wearing using wonderful descriptive adjectives.

This week we created mittens to play a mitten concentration game. We rolled dice to create math facts on one mitten then we put its answer on the other mitten. The kids played concentration to make pairs.

In Social Studies this week we've been reviewing rules. It was a long two weeks away from school, but I'm glad to report that most everyone has remembered proper school etiquette! With the new ClassDojo in place, I think we're all excited to gain tons of points throughout the day. We've realized it's even better than the color chart because you can keep adding and adding and adding! I split the kids up into groups to brainstorm the different rules we have for different parts of the school. Then we made a giant Tree Map with all of their rules. They worked great with their teams!

ClassDojo has been awesome. I absolutely love it, and I think the kids do too! Like I've said, there is no limit for how many points they can get so I think that it's even better than the color chart. The kids can hear the sound on the computer and see what people are getting points for and why points are being lost. Any feedback from you is appreciated, too. I've gotten some good comments from a couple parents already! Here's our weekly breakdown. We had a great percentage. I'm one happy teacher!

All in all, it was a wonderful week back! I did miss the firsties, but boy am I exhausted! Stay tuned for the exciting things next week. It's one of my favorite things we do all year! :)