Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!

First, I said I would post pics of our chameleons....I thought they turned out cute.  Next, bugs, bugs, and more bugs.  Short and sweet...with words at least...an abundance of pictures.  Enjoy!

 

We did Deanna Jump's bug viewer activity...check out her insect unit here.  It's great!

We added a "cover" to the page and made big bug eyes...

We learned about wingspans...we painted them at art center first...then measured them with unifix cubes and then in inches...since we don't do a lot with inches we checked out  measurements with 1 inch cubes.

Roll and Cover with addition and subtraction

ending sound mystery can

 We read and retold The Very Hungry Caterpillar....the kiddos loved it!

we tried ending blends

we sounded out words using our "first grade sounds"...they did SO good!

I found these cute little butterfly containers at Dollar General and snatched them up...I put colored letter tiles to build sight words...I used 10 different colors so the kids would know which butterflies they had already done.

We are practicing knowing the difference in statements and questions...after they read and sorted them they had to choose 3 questions and write them on their recording sheet.

This one is kind of like the car center I did during transportation...I put a pic and a "first grade sound" on the ants and they had to decide where they heard that sound...then write it in the correct spot on their paper.

I got these bug catchers at Dollar Tree and used foam to die-cut mini insects to put inside...we counted to 30

My friend made this one....

We did 3 digit addition...

We practiced counting by 2's...

And, finally we practiced money

 This is our bug graph...we used the information from this graph for our ladybug glyphs

The Praying Mantis and the Dragonfiles below came from Deanna Jump's insect unit.  Check it out!

These are our bees like kinderbykim's...Inside we wrote words that rhyme with bee...

Ladybug Glyphs

We learned how strong an ant is...The picture says that "it would be like me holding a car"...we think that you would have to be pretty strong to do that.

Our Grasshoppers...Check out the fun fact below...

 I will share this unit for a small donation to one of my donorschoose projects...And, I don't have any on the site as of now, but am working on it...once I submit they have to post it so it usually takes 5-7 days before it's on...

Thanks, as always, for visiting my blog!  

The End is Near...

Okay, so I don't know about y'all, but things are piling up and I can't seem to get caught up to get it all done.  Our "end of the year checklist" at school has at least 25 things on it and I have...count them...3 checked off.  I know you're feelin' it to, but assessments, permanent records,  paper work, etc. are just about to get the best of me.  We are still managing to get our centers in and some fun stuff...but, seriously, June 3rd can't get here soon enough.  Nevertheless, I LOVE my kiddos this year and will miss them DEARLY!!  


So, with all of that said, I just haven't had the time to send out reptile and dinosaur units...I hope you understand.  I actually don't know when I will find the time, BUT if you would like to make a donation to my donorschoose project, I will get one sent to you.  Just mail me and let me know if you did.  


One more thing...You know you are an elementary school teacher when your only means of getting a suntan is soaking up the sunshine during free play!!

Dinosaurs

I have to tell y'all the funniest story.  I was reading the book Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton and it starts out like, "A long time ago"...so I asked my kids what they thought that meant and a few said forever ago, like a thousand years, and one little girls says, "yeah, back in the 80's".  I had to laugh!  So precious....anywho...we learned all about dinosaurs this week...well actually last week, then the storms came and we were out three days so we finished up this week and "squeezed in" reptiles for two days.  Here are some of the things we did! 

We made a T-Rex foot then put all of our shoes in it...see what we found out below. 

Center games for the week

My sister did this super fun activity with her 2nd grades last year and I had to do it...We were "paleontologists" and practiced digging up dinosaur bones...we had to be very careful not to "break" them.  (We used chocolate chip cookies)

Here is the sheet I made to go with this activity

The Brontosaurus

Our T-Rex mouth with 40 teeth inside...then we counted how many teeth we had

Our dinosaur glyphs...

Here is a sample of our Stegosaurus with a pattern on his back...I let each child make up their own pattern and I asked them to be creative...not to do simply an AB pattern...I had some really really good ones...wish I could post all of them on here