Plant Power! Bring on the Spring!

Ugh.  So tired of snow and sooo ready for Spring!  Right now, it's raining outside, but there's the possibility that it might mix with snow tonight.  Boo!

My family spent yesterday at Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) celebrating St. Patrick's Day with the leprechauns and generally just having fun! :)  The weather was FANTASTIC!  I mean, 60 degree day!  Snow - tonight???  ARGH!

Anyway, we tried to bash away the winter blahs this week by going full force into our plant unit after losing 3 days last week to the "s" word.

We used this wonderful golden oldie AIMS activity to dissect seeds.  I'd share, but I'm worried about copyright (hint hint:  do a Google search....shhh!  I won't tell). 

Then, we created this Pinterest-inspired (slightly altered) activity.  I like using the straw for a stem to help teach that it "sucks up" the water and delivers it to the rest of the flower.  It's impossible to glue, so we taped it down.  The flower is a cupcake liner.

We also "planted" seeds and are observing them day by day to see how they grow!  Students are anxiously awaiting the first stage with the roots!  We're documenting it each day in a plant journal.

We also had a visit from our "4H Lady" to get our 2nd grade gardens ready for planting!  Students learned about the different types of soil, how worms help gardeners, and pulled out the old plants (that our cafeteria uses in salads and taste testings which is too cool!) to make ready for new!

 

Since I was out Friday afternoon and will be Monday afternoon thanks to a cancelled and rescheduled doctor's appointment for my son, the St. Pat's activities were confined to reading and writing (because we are too behind on math!).  Students wrote a letter to the leprechaun asking him not to trash our room (with the sub).  I warned students beforehand that if they didn't use the correct letter format, he'd trash our room!  

When I went to school after hours on Friday, I checked where they had hung them in the hallway for "Lucky" to see, and most of them looked great with only a few errors!  Good thing - I told them that in the past, my classes had always gotten some sort of treat from the leprechaun, and that it often included a treasure hunt!  Students were MOST excited to hear that.  Of course, some asked me how trashed was the room in the past, and I told them that I didn't know, since my students had always written their letters very carefully!  hah hah :)

So, after resource (which we have at 8:15), students will find a note on the board from the leprechaun and the first clue in their hunt!  The "pot of gold" at the end are shamrock stickers and "gold" (Rolos).
I have the leprechaun hunt as a freebie at my TpT store from last year.  Click {here} to check it out! 

How Much CAN You Fit in 5 Days???

Good question.

So much, I thought I'd link up with Doodle Bug's 5 for Friday (even though it's Sunday!)



It was a busy week.  Between Famous American projects, Dr. Seuss activities, finishing our Polar/Animal Unit, and Place Value - yeah, we crammed a lot in! ;)

And now they're calling for some sort of wintry storm this week?  Really?  *Sigh*  What happened to the groundhog promising us an early Spring?  Our next teacher workday is March 18, and I am holding desperately to it!  That, and I'm ready for SPRING!  My two kids and myself are looking forward to Busch Gardens opening on March 16 - oh yeah,we are there! ;)  Even Dave Ramsey couldn't get me to let go of our season passes!!!

Hah hah.  I digress.  Back to part you're interested in, right?

It was the annual Famous Americans project.  LOVE this project!  It always turns out so cute!  My kiddos were so proud of their projects! We had 9 (yeah, 9!) Jackie Robinsons, 4 Helen Kellers, 1 George Washington, and 1 Abraham Lincoln.  Those were the famous Americans we studied back in December.  The students were allowed to choose anyone, so add to that Albert Einstein, Billie Holiday, Harriet Tubman, Garrett Morgan (inventor of the traffic sign), and Thomas Edison.  Didn't they turn out cute?

Had to put all the Jackie Robinsons together, like in their own club - neat how they all turned out different!  Have to show you this stylin' Helen Keller one of my kiddos did.  A sequin belt - I love it!

We also celebrated Dr. Seuss all week long with activities.  I incorporated literacy centers I had downloaded/purchased last year (that are now gone, thanks to the copyright battle there!) in my reading groups, but used new ones for writing/read aloud time.  All these are linked on my Dr. Seuss Pinterest page.  Aren't my kids cute who dressed up for the day?

We created a wocket and wrote a sentence about it.

Created a hat from a reading glyph I got years ago from Mailbox.

Drew ourselves as a "Who" and wrote about what we'd say to Horton.  Most of my students said "thanks" and told Horton about living in Whoville.  One of my kiddos, though, asked Horton to send him a 4-Wheeler!  Not quite sure how it would fit on the speck!

Wrote green eggs and ham poetry.

Then, we finished our Polar/Animal Unit by doing a "mind dump" and creating graffiti walls.  I love this idea and like so many others, I tend to forget them until I have an "aha!" moment (since I like to keep things fresh with the kids.....SCOOT is great, 4 Corners is great, but sometimes - especially when they've been wiggly like this week - new ideas are great!).  I think they could have spent the rest of the day on it!

On Thursday, we had fun building place value with marshmallows and ringed cereal from Babbling Abby's freebie.  

On Friday, we read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and created place value houses.  This was a fantastic idea I got from The Lemonade Stand via Pinterest.   Love the castle this one created!

Sooo...this weekend, I've been getting ready for our Plant Unit - life cycles, erosion, plant parts, and uses.  That covers about 2 1/2 standards.  I've had this super cute detective clipart from mycutegraphics.com and I finally used it!  Click on the picture to check it out - it's a review game about plants and erosion (for you VA teachers, it covers 2.4 plant life cycles, 2.8 plant resources, 2.7 erosion) that can be played in any number of ways - you can make it a SCOOT game, a scavenger hunt, etc.

Limas and Butterflies

We've been quite the Science classroom lately!  My class faces out to the playground and this week, I realized that we truly looked like a working lab!  Bags were hanging in our window to help encourage our tickle plants to grow, lima beans were sprouting like crazy in the other window, plant books lined the windowsill, ready to be read.....and of course, our caterpillars we received a week ago are now starting to form their cocoons!  It made me feel proud that my students were so actively engaged in their learning!  


Of course, now the limas are transplanted and growing outside in our school garden our second grade is staffing this year, the bags have been taken home, but our caterpillars remain!  Hopefully in a few weeks, I'll be able to publish their release!  Till then, I included a pic from last year of our butterfly release, in anticipation. :)

Our first day (April 25th)

"Moving on Up" (yesterday)

Attaching themselves to the top...VERY exciting! :)

Butterfly Release 2011 (Painted Lady Butterflies)

Anchor Charts!

So, I wasn't able to accomplish too much this week to brag about in pictures since I wasn't here :( However, I was able to use my workday to create some much needed anchor charts (including finishing one my sub didn't seem to quite complete on homophones!). I thought I'd share:

Fractions: I wanted my students to remember the reason why we have a numerator and denominator, as well as a fraction being equal parts. I was worried it would look too boring, but a few "dashed" boxes, and I thought it turned out pretty cute!


Plants: We're beginning Life Cycles this week, but have already discussed plants and animals with plant products and seasonal changes, so this will be a quick review of plant parts (notice the smaller life cycle on the side?). I'm not much of an artist (as you can tell by the flower's lower petals), but it wasn't too bad.

Homophones: Not earth-shatteringly spectacular, but it'll help those of my kiddos who are still earning their badge for the Grammar Police, Homophone Division!

I just realized I should have done one for Fossils! While not a huge part of our habitat unit, the students have to know that due to the study of fossils, scientists can learn more about plants and animals and early habitats. We're making fossils on Monday with shells and clay (postponed from this past week), so hmmm, maybe that'll be my next one. If it turns out cute, I'll be sure to post it! :)

Knock Knock! Inspiration Calling! :)

"I love it when a plan comes together."

Okay, I admit it - I was watching A-Team with my husband the other night. :) However, wanted to share with you my latest inspiration/"pinspiration inspired" activities I'm doing with my kids! The best part...most of it is FREE since I'm sure you have these things lying around your classroom or home! ;)

As always, we continue on our journey of silent e/long vowel sounds for word study. I was soooo pleased this week when my groups GOT silent e! I had already made this paint card inspired activity, using a gold sharpie for the "e" (the paint cards are from Lowe's...I love the ones with the holes already in them!):


We said the short vowel word first (even if it wasn't a real word), then placed the gold "e" in the hole and voila! The kids knew by adding the "e" it made it loooong! :) (And they still enjoy being loud and using all our breath to say long o, and using short breath to say short o!). I am excited that my lower ones are getting this concept and I'm seeing it cross over into their reading. Woo hoo! :)

The next center is math, using popsicle sticks (the wider ones) and again, paint cards. Love those paint cards! My friend says they're going to start charging me soon :) (I make sure to "spread the wealth" and take them from different stores each time). We are beginning comparing numbers as well as inequalities. They'll use the card and match the sticks so that the math sentence is true:


The last is what we did for Science today. Total Pinterest-inspired! My kids did AWESOME on our have/need/give chart...coming up with some "gives" that I hadn't thought of! I think it really helped set our unit off to a great start! :)


I have to say a great big THANK YOU to my friend, Valerie over at Enriching Kinders for introducing me to Pinterest (if you haven't checked out her blog, you should!). I feel like I have become a much better teacher because of it! I get so inspired by what others post, as well as giving me inspiration for my kiddos! (I mean paint cards...who knew?). Hope everyone has a great week! :)