Five for Friday- March 7

 I am linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! 

Thank you for hosting, Kacey!

Is this how you feel on Friday?

Me, too. 

I am tired of winter.  Surprise!  I realized that it is because we have had NO SUN - ever.  This was the weather forecast for today and I almost forgot what that yellow symbol in the middle stood for.

Anyway, since I can't do anything about the outside world, I am trying to bring spring to my inside world.  We made tulips and daffodils to decorate outside our door.

We aren't allowed to put anything on our doors- just beside it.   If you want the simple, child-like patterns for the flowers, you can click on the picture. :)  I just print the patterns out on the colored paper. The children cut all the pieces out.  I put the larger tulip part over the smaller one and staple along one side.  Then, I make it sort of 3-D by stapling the other side to the edge so it is puffy.  I have the children glue the two daffodil parts together and then glue a yellow cupcake paper in the center.

 

We also made some robins to put over the lockers. The children each traced and cut a robin, and then sponge painted the breast with red glittery paint. I hot glued each robin to a branch.

I showed the kids some of my bird nests- and this one with a real robin's egg inside! (We are going to study nests later this month.) We talked about how that egg had been left all winter, and the mother never came back for it, so it would never hatch- but if they ever found an egg or a nest, they were only to LOOK with their eyes and never touch, to be sure the egg and nest would stay safe. 

 

   I love these books about robins.

One of my boys made this robin, which may be my favorite ever. I wanted to frame it instead of sending it home with him.  She looks like she is going to lay her eggs any minute! 

I found this post from Teachmama.com called What Not to Say to Emerging Readers.  I hadn't seen it before- but even if you have, it's great to watch as a reminder.  Here is the video of the post.  This would be really great to share with parents, too.

Here is the part that I am was guilty of saying sometimes...

I always felt like I was saying it positively and as encouragement, but I see exactly what she is saying in her article, and I am not going to say it anymore. (I catch myself!)

This is what Amy Mascott (the author) says:

• DON’T SAY: You know this. . .

INSTEAD SAY: What part of the word do you recognize? If you get no response, say, Do you recognize this part (point to the beginning chunk or letter) or this part (point to the ending chunk or letter)?

Three things here:

1. If the kid knew it, she would have read it.

2. We all hate to be reminded that we knew something but forgot it.

3. By picking out two parts of the word, you’re setting her up for success. It all goes back to the choices thing that really helps with kids. Most likely she will recognize either the ‘b’ or ‘-at’ part of ‘bat’ or the ‘th’ or ‘-ick’ parts of ‘thick’.  If she can pick up either part, say, You got it! That does say ‘ick’. Now let’s put the first part, (give it to her and pronounce it) ‘th’ together with ‘ick’: th-ick. Thick!

Then put that new word into the sentence and give her a high-five for getting through it.

It is so good for me to think how I would feel if someone had been working with me on Physics or Chemistry (are you seeing a connection between me and a lack of science understanding?! yep.), and we had just gone over something, and I got to a question and had no idea how to do it.  I would NOT want to hear, "You KNOW this!" 

I remember taking a class where the teacher had our names written with symbols that we had to try to learn and recreate to "write" our names. It was hard! That was such a wonderful lesson to help put me in my little guys' shoes.

Here are the "flavors of the month." 

Again, here is my favorite play dough recipe...

Bisquick Playdough
2 cups Bisquick
1 cup salt
2 cups water
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
1 Tbsp oil
 
Mix all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 3 minutes.  Scrape and stir the bowl. Microwave for another 3 minutes. If it is not quite ready,  microwave for another minute.
(I made a double batch and put it back in my microwave for one more minute, which worked perfectly.) 

The leprechauns visited on Monday, just to say hello, make their presence known, ...and turn our milk green while the kids were at specials- SO exciting. It was my "snack day" so I thought Lucky Charms would be just right.

 I had some skeptics about drinking the green milk, but it all turned out just fine!

I posted at Pre-K and K Sharing this week ALL about Jack and the Beanstalk.  We had such fun learning with Jack this week.  Stop over and see what we did!

We used this FABULOUS teaching packet from Susanna at Whimsy Workshop! It is just full of fun and learning.

I cannot wait until our beanstalks grow. They are starting. I will keep you posted!

Irene Leeby posted this FABULOUS idea for ordering numbers on Youtube. She is a star.  It was so much fun to see it. (I am such a visual learner that it was even THAT much better for me.)  I used it immediately. THANK YOU, Irene! 

Finally, I wanted to share this video about a wonderful teacher and friend in my school district.  She is truly an amazing person who was given a second chance at life through organ donation.   Trish and Laura's family are both such inspirations, and I wanted to share their story.

Have a WONDERFUL weekend! 

Oh- here is our Morning Glory Update:

One of my little guys actually ran over to me and yelled, "OUR NIGHTENGLORIES ARE CLIMBING THE STRING!"  I am thinking he totally missed the part about how they bloom in the "morning." Hmm.

Thanks for stopping by!



Dandelion Math

I decided to make the most of what we have going for us outside at school, and right now it is dandelions!  I made this bulletin board, because I loved the saying:

"When you look at a field of dandelions, you can either see a hundred weeds, or a hundred wishes."

Of course we have to start off the Dandelion Day by reading Dandelion by Don Freeman.

This is always a great book to help children remember that it is best to be exactly who you are. 

We illustrated this poem below, and had a great conversations about the way the dandelion flower is described as a real lion. It is a great poem for description.   It isn't "personification," I guess- because it is a lion- maybe we could make up a new term called "animalification."  There you go!  Anyway, the children thought it was fun! (OK- I just looked it up- and on Urban Dictionary, "animalification" is a real thing! :)

During our computer time, I have only half of the class for about 25 minutes.  This is a perfect time to do so many things with a smaller group.  Wednesday was a gorgeous day, and we had only about ten minutes left before we picked up the rest of the class.  I decided to take the children outside to count dandelions!  We had a ball.  I did say a little prayer the night before that the custodians hadn't mowed that field earlier in the day- and my prayer was answered!

Ahhh!

We got busy! Our job was to pick groups of 10 dandelions and line them up, so that we could see how many we could pick in ten minutes.  After the groups were picked, we would count them by tens.

 Our finished product:   350 dandelions!





It was also May Day on Wednesday, so some lucky moms were going to have some lovely bouquets in May baskets at home after school.  :)

All good things have to come to an end, and the field was mowed later that afternoon.  The other half of my class will get to go outside for Dandelions Part 2:  The Wish Flowers...

Thank you for visiting!  I hope all of your wishes come true! :)

Carolyn



Learning about Ducks and Details!

We were " crazy for ducks" this week!  We started off reading lots of duck books, fiction and nonfiction.  I used to always start with Seven Diving Ducks, but I have found others that I like and use more now.  That book seems sort of mean and sad the way little duck doesn't "measure up" and isn't included with the other ducks.  :(  It ends well, but these are others that I like MUCH better now and use instead:

We listened to this book on Tumblebooks on the Smartboard .  It is a great introduction to a word family game for the "uck" chunk.  I usually read this book along with Where is my TRUCK  by Karen Beaumont, which I love for the "uck" chunk.  I have my Word Family Word Roll Game out with my "ack," "ick," "uck," and "ock" chunks that day.

Here is a neat word family sort for short u  word families at Holly Baker's TPT store.   Thank you, Holly!

 I also liked this Ducky Colors book for morning work from Kinderpillars TPT store.  Thank you, Kinderpillars!

This is a great story for conversations and discussions about helping each other.  We make connections with other books  for instance in both Farmer Duck and Little Red Hen one animal is doing most of the work, but Farmer Duck is different because it focuses on sticking up for friends and helping each other, where the "friends"  take advantage of the Little Red Hen.   We did an interactive writing activity about different ways the children can help others at home or school after we read this story.

I love this book because the friends in the book make inferences and predictions about what has happened to duck using information they find in the soup (a feather!).  We discuss how sometimes things turn out differently than we think they will and sometimes our predictions are not right.  It is also a great story about friendship.   I use this story for sequencing and retelling,  as well, because it divides easily into a beginning, middle, and end. 

After reading a few fiction books about ducks, we make our "April Shower" ducks to hang up over our lockers. We also have our "May Flowers" around our door, so we cover all of our bases! When I first told the class the saying, "April showers bring May flowers," one little girls said, "Maybe you should write that down, so people know that happens." I love that she thought that I came up with that clever saying.  



(I cut up my extra "sparkly border" to use for the raindrops.)


My new favorite nonfiction book about ducks is Just Ducks, by Nicola Davies.

We read this book through one time, reading all that the little girl in the book knows about ducks.  The second time through, we read the smaller print with more facts about ducks.

 

After reading this book, we do a Science activity to demonstrate how ducks waterproof their feathers. In Nicola Davies book, she explains how ducks have a special oil gland right above their tail, and when they 'preen' or clean themselves with their beaks, they spread this oil all over their feathers and they become water proof. I usually have the children cut out a duck pattern from a paper grocery bag to use for this activity. But this year, I found a great freebie here  by Jaclyn McCullough at her TPT store. I printed out this page on cardstock and the activity worked well, plus the children could label the parts of the duck on the paper before we did the activity.

After the children label the duck's parts, I have them dab a bit of vegetable oil on the duck's back.  Then, they spray water on the duck with a spray bottle and see that where the special oil is, the water beads up and doesn't soak through the duck like it does where there is not the special oil. I let the children tape on a feather to their duck just for fun.   I staple a little paper onto the duck with an explanation of what we learned about how ducks' special oil glands help them become waterproof when they preen, so parents can help the child remember the process when the child explains it at home.

Thank you, Jaclyn, for this duck! 

Now for the details!

The children have been doing very well adding details to their illustrations. Now we are working on adding details in writing.  I tell them that a detail gives the reader more information, and 'information' is something that the reader knows. For example, I could say, "I am thinking of a number." I ask what number I am thinking of, and of course,  the children come up with 17 different answers.   Then I say, "I am thinking of a number that you write with a one and a zero, that rhymes with 'men.' "  All hands go up with the right answer! (Hopefully! :)    They "turn and talk " to teach a friend what a 'details'  are and what 'information' is.

We play 'The Detail Game.'  If a detail applies to the student, he/she stands.  I start by saying, "I am thinking of a person," so everyone is standing.  Next I may add a detail like, "This person is a girl."  Then, "This girl has short hair," "This girl has a pink striped shirt," etc until only one student is standing because I have given so many details that we figured out who I was describing.

Next, I  have the children close their eyes and picture the sentence that I say.  I say, "I see a tree."  I ask several students what they pictured in their heads, and all are different.  Then I have them close their eyes again and describe several scenes with details:  "I see a Christmas tree decorated with colored lights, lots of candy canes, and a bright gold star on top." or "I see a tall maple tree with read and yellow leaves blowing in the fall wind on a sunny day."  You get the idea.  ;)  We talk about how with more details everyone can make a picture in their mind that is similar.  They  love this activity.  Then, you can choose a student to try telling a descriptive sentence for everyone to visualize. 

We do a similar activity that combines using details in  illustrations and writing, where the students illustrate the sentence, "I see a dog,"  and we have lots of variety in our illustrations.  Then on the back of the paper,  they illustrate the sentence,  "I see a small white dog with black spots sleeping on a blue rug by his toy bone,"  just to see how much more similar our illustrations are with more detail. 

Our "Duck Detail" writing is one of my favorite lessons!  Eric Carle's book 10 Little Rubber Ducks is a perfet introduction to the lesson. 

                                                

This story was written based on a newspaper article that Eric Carle read. Here is a link I found that tells a little about the article that inspired him.   A load of bathtub toys fell off a cargo ship and ended up floating all over the world, so it inspired Eric Carle to write this book.  This book is great for teaching numbers to 10, ordinal numbers, and direction words. It is wonderful for retelling a story, since you can have cut out, numbered ducks and the children can tell what happened to each duck, or each child could be a certain numbered duck and retell his/her part. Here is a Smart Exchange Lesson for retelling this story!

 I have lots of these rubber ducks, so we can do a lot of word problems with addition and subtraction with the ducks to go along with this book.  I think the writing is my favorite lesson we do with the book.

I found lots of these little rubber ducks at a garage sale and I put eight out for the children to choose to describe. 

They will choose one duck to write about and add at least two details to describe the duck they choose.  I try to have similar ducks, like the ones with the blue books, so they need to also describe the hat color or another characteristic to help us pick the right duck!

(I also do this activity using  different balls I have in the classroom and put up front- so if two of the balls are red, one is spiky and one is small or something like that for extra details!)

I give the children a paper folded in half with only several lines on it for writing.   I tell them we will make the illustrations in our heads just using the words they write.  This helps them to understand how details help you form pictures in your head. 

After they write, I let them turn the paper over and draw a detailed illustration so that we can double check our answer with the picture!

Next, we share the written descriptions using the Elmo on the Smartboard.  We read a description, and I  have one student come up and choose the duck that has been described.  The kids are so proud of their details- and it also is a great opportunity to point out the beautiful capital letters, spaces between words, neat printing, and punctuation marks!

Here are some examples of our activity:

  

Here is how we double check! 



Thank you for visiting!  Happy Teaching!

Spring Smiles!

This is a fun activity I do in the Spring.  The children love to guess each other's smiles- and are always surprised how many they know!  I am always amazed that I can print the pictures, cut them, and know the smile instantly without checking the name on the back. 

I leave these up for our Open House in April and then for Grandparent's  Day, which we have in early May this year.

I have an answer sheet below the smiles.

Here is a Spring Smile from the other day...    I was trying to teach the children how to "read to themselves."  We said a poem with words and motions, and then did only the motions as we said the poem "in our head," with no voices.  Then, I said, "Watch me read this page to myself, in my head."   They all watched me read, and then one little boy said, "Mrs. Kisloski, we couldn't even hear what you read because your hair was in the way!" 

So... I guess that was my "informal assessment" of that lesson- and I did NOT get 100% mastery there- but I did get a big smile from it!  

Happy Spring! Thank you for visiting!