1. Check out our spring bulletin boards. We wrote some five senses spring poems, then practiced our typing skills using Max's Toolbox (kid version of Microsoft Office... have you tried it before?? Love it!). On our spring math bulletin board we made some Easter subtraction craftd (inspired by Kinder by Kim's Jazzy Journals). We also completed Miss Kindergarten's Math Flowers. They turned out so cute!
Here is our rough copy of our spring senses poem. We wrote them in pencil first, then typed them and added clipart. I skimped on the colour printing though. Oh well! Click the pic to download your own copy.
2. We have been doing a mini plant unit last week and this week. We labelled parts of the plants, completed the life cycle, talked about needs, and graphed our favourite type of plant (a la The First Grade Parade). We also made our own grassheads! They were super fun and pretty easy to make! Just get your boyfriend to make a pit stop at the Dollar Store to pick you up 8 sets of beige panty hose and you are ready to go! :) We just stretched the panty hose over a plastic container, put a spoonful of grass seeds into it, and then filled it with potting soil. Tie a knot at the base of the head. Use a tiny elastic to make a nose (some chose not to). Hot glue wiggle eyes and a pipecleaner mouth and/or mustache. Decorate the styrofoam cup. Last, water them! We put water inside the cups and I also let them squirt the tops with spray bottles eveyr morning. I was a little worried these guys wouldn't grow because I have no green thumb or fingers at all, but we saw a few little sprouts here and there this morning. Success! :)
Every morning I have my students take out their observation journal, draw a picture of their grasshead, and write a sentence about how it is growing. You can download the journal by clicking the picture below.
3. Last week Thursday was our Open House. It's pretty low-key. Usually we just display artwork created by the students when our "Artist in the School" visits, but ours had to cancel due to a family emergency, so we had to change things up this year. Our principal wanted us to demonstrate how we use technology in our classroom, so I had my Mimio and document camera set up. Students could show their parents how we use the document camera and then they could show our calendar routine (complete with fancy calendar video menu). Parents were pretty amazed at some of the high tech things we now have! We also put out our autobiographies that we finally finished! They turned out really good and I am pretty impressed with some of their writing.
4. I got some sweet comments on my Weekly Plans from last week. I have to confess, my plans don't look like that all the time. I just tried it out so I could link up with Deedee! This is what my actual day planner looks like. I like having the whole week spread over two pages. This works pretty well for me.
5. Here are my students enjoying some fun Daily 5 time! I had to snap that sweet shot of my two boys listening to the same book. They were really engaged in the story. I have about 60 different "Listen to Reading" books right now. I just picked up a few more from SuperStore this week. They were Disney stories--Wreck It Ralph, Phineas & Ferb, Tinkerbell, and Tangled. They were only 5 bucks each and the kids love them! The other picture is a student completing a newly added word work centre. This is a Beginning Sound MP3 Match from K is for Kinderiffic. They loved it!
So I did it today. I counted how many days left. 46! Eek! The snow is finally starting to melt a bit, so the kids are feeling a bit wrangly. I don't blame them. I just want to go sit outside in the sun too! Today I felt that the blurting out was becoming a big problem again so I decided to bring out the Whole Brain Teaching scoreboard idea again. I used to do Students vs. Teacher so that everytime a student blurted I would get a tally and everytime someone raised their hand or waited their turn, the students would get a tally. This worked fine except I would get the students that just raised their hand to get more tallies! "My tooth is loose." "My fish died yesterday." "I think blue is my favourite colour." Ugh! I don't care! Anyways, I decided to change things up a bit and change it to Boys vs. Girls! They ate it up! If a boy blurts, the girls get a tally. If a girl blurts, the boys get a tally. Sweet! The reward? Whoever has the most tally marks by last recess gets TWO EXTRA MINUTES OF RECESS!! Hahah. Really I just let them get dressed first and go outside a tiny bit earlier. Easy peasy! It worked like a charm! The girls won today. We'll see if the boys can make it tomorrow! :) Click the picture to download your own Boys vs. Girls Scoreboard and give it a try!
Enjoy your week peeps!
The math flowers turned out so cute!!!!
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