"Scooting" Towards a Season of Green?

I have several things to share with you this post, so settle in a comfy chair and relax :) I'd say with a glass of wine, but my pick is actually Diet Dr. Thunder (yep, the Walmart version!).

So, we are experiencing 80 degree days here in central VA and, since we've kept track of the weather since good ol' Phil told us we'd have six more weeks of winter....well, my kids are now convinced that while it's fun, a groundhog can NOT predict weather! Then again, we got our only snows this winter after February 2nd.....It's been a crazy winter and I am sooo ready for Spring! Not quite 80 degree days, but I'll take the 60s and 70s. :)

We have been studying animal and plant adaptations, so here is what we did for seasonal changes with plants (we focused on apple trees). I thought they turned out really cute! It took forever for me to figure out how to cut out four windows and I finally "googled" it, and found a quilt site, of all things, that told me how (with felt, but it's cousin to paper!). Now, I may be the only inept one at this, but I'll tell you how (if you already know, skip the next paragraph!).

Fold the paper in half. Then, taking one half, fold it in half again and cut (starting and ending at the fold) first one rectangle, and then another (make sure to leave a "bar" in between the two). Do the same for the other side. Granted, they were a little "wrinkly" after all those creases, but it did the trick! I was pleased with how they turned out!

This week, we've been focusing on St. Patrick's Day, but my kids are convinced we've had a leprechaun with us since last week! Our base 10 set went missing on Thursday, and it appeared Friday in a very obvious place...weird. Then, math papers started to go missing, only to reappear in strange places. So, for the last week, anything going missing or being just plain "weird," my kids have blamed on a leprechaun! We wrote stories today to warn any naughty ones from visiting our classroom on Saturday since we wouldn't be there! Last year, during recess, I had my kids so convinced, several took turns "standing guard" outside our window (peering in) during recess (I have the lucky corner room with the view of our wonderful playground!).

We also wrote about things that made us lucky (like having food, clothing, Xbox360s, etc.), and today, made cute pots of gold! The kids programmed money amounts (from cents to dollars) on their gold pieces, then glued them to their pots they cut out. They had to be able to add up their coins and write the dollar amount.

Oh, that's another thing my kids said. Since we've been studying money, the leprechauns have been attracted to our room!

Anyway, this rainbow "appeared" after school today on our tree, so we'll see what the kids say tomorrow about it. Gosh, I just don't know how it happened! Maybe we need to ask those little guys hanging about!

Tomorrow, we will be doing our holiday centers for math (this has become a tradition in our room this year! I'm surprised they haven't found other holidays to celebrate this way yet!). We'll also be participating in a leprechaun scavenger hunt that focuses on math concepts we'll be testing next week and ends with them finding a pot of "gold" (Rolos, butterscotch disks, and St. Pat's fake tattoos!). I'll be sure to add pics in a post tomorrow or this weekend!

OOOH! And one more thing (yep, it's that kind of post isn't it? This is what I get for not blogging for a few days!).

Okay, so my apologies, but I cannot remember the person who created "SCOOT" but we played her place value version today and my kids LOVED it! They are begging for more versions! If you know who it is, can you please post it in the comments and I can edit this post and add her name? She definitely deserves the credit! It was hysterical watching them "SCOOT" from one seat to the next. I added a pic below.

I was hard pressed for a title for this post, but I kind of like it and hope it makes sense to you now! ;)