Five For Friday- February 21

I am linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching, for Five for Friday. 

I love this linky. Thank you, Kacey.  I find myself about Wednesday thinking, "What five things am I going to write about this week?!"  or "Ut oh- have I done five interesting things this week?!"  

This week was a busy one. 

 

We had a lot of fun with the book Here Comes Jack Frost.  The children liked noticing that the illustrations were only blue and white, and we talked about how they made the story feel "cold." In  the story, Jack Frost tells the boy that he may not mention anything hot, or Jack Frost will go away.  The boy is careful not to mention anything warm, until one day when he finds a snowdrop (one of my favorite flowers by the way) and says, "It's almost spring..."

I had each child tell me something else warm that could have made Jack Frost go away.

Next, we reviewed writing conventions and practiced writing a sentence.  The children had to write "I like to play in the snow." beginning with a capital letter, using spaces between words, rereading to be sure they did not leave out any words, checking for neat letters resting on the line, and ending with a period or exclamation point.

Then, I gave each child a white crayon to draw a snow scene on the paper.  After that, I called groups of six to a table to turn their paper into magic Jack Frost pictures, by painting over the white crayon with blue paint. 

  

I found this rug at... TARGET Dollar Spot! ($3 Spot, actually- but still... LOOK at it!)  It is perfect for...  oh so many things. It isn't big at all, but called a doormat, which made me laugh a little. Maybe a doormat for leprechauns. That's probably it.  I am going to use my sight word gold for some activities.  This would be a perfect "something" for the leprechauns to leave.  I like when they take over watching the behavior of the kids.  There is quite a lull between Santa and the leprechauns. 

Before...

After!

I wrote all about what I do with the gold at my post called  Literacy GOLD! 

 

Holy Cow- I can't believe the icicles I have seen this past week. (That is a doctor's office by me, by the way. I would think someone might knock those things down!)

I need to remember to do my Dragon's Teeth poem later in the year. It would have been perfect this week.  We did revisit the poem, and the kids have been on the look out for dragon's teeth when they are out and about.



 

We finally had our 100th Day of School! 

It is so late this year! (I am afraid we are going to be feeling like there are 100 Days of June...)  We had so much fun.  Here are some highlights:

We made 100 cups structures.

 We had a fun snack!

 We  shared our collections of 100 things.

 We each brought in 100 of something to eat and made a delicious trail mix!

We wore our 100 day hats.

 

 We collected the names of friends we have been with for 100 days.

We wrote about what we would do if we had 100 dollars.  (I had about five children say they would save it?!  WHAT?!  I am thinking that was probably easiest to write.  Although, my son was quite a good money saver, so maybe it is for real...)

 We compared what life was like 100 years ago and today.

We did 10 sets of 10 exercises, filled in 100's charts with missing numbers, and  found special numbers on the 100's chart.  I have lots of fun 100 songs and games on my Counting and Cardinality Prezi .  If you would like all of my Common Core Math Prezis, click on the picture below. 

My smart board has been down for a week and a half.  BOO.  It's funny how dependent I am on it now- not even for lessons, but for quick activities and brain breaks. 



Here are a few bulletin boards I put up in the hall because I am READY for Spring. 

I also posted LOTS of ideas about clouds this week.  Just click on the picture below if you would like to go to the post. 



Have a wonderful weekend!

There's No Such Thing as a Dragon

This is a fun little winter activity that I have always loved to make with my class.  At first you may not see the correlation between dragons and winter- but... you'll see!

First, I read There's No Such Thing as a Dragon by Jack Kent, to my class.

Any dragon book will work- this is one I have had forever, and it is a cute one. This is a good book for a discussion about real and imaginary things.  The children love giving examples from the book about why they think the dragon is imaginary.  It's also about how important it is to notice things- people who may need a friend or be sad, or pets who need some love, or even details in pictures!

Next, I read the poem to the class and show some pictures like these to help explain the poem. As soon as I show these pictures, it all makes more sense! The children like to share their icicle experiences, too.

 

Finally, we do our fun little activity to go with the poem. 

I print out this roof on red paper. 

Yes- I drew that roof by hand.( I know- you can hardly believe it because it looks so much like an architect drew it, right?)  I'm sure you can make one more fancy, but this gives you an idea, anyway. 

The children cut out the roof. They always usually  cut off that chimney, so I model how to cut around the outside of the lines. I go over and over it- and still- have the tape ready. Guess what? Today  nobody cut off the roof! 

They pull apart a cotton ball for smoke dragon breath coming out of the chimney.

I give each child a strip of white paper so they can cut icicles to hang from the roof.  I model this a lot, too.  The kids had fun trying this part.  I also have some pre-made icicles, just in case someone gets frustrated. That isn't the goal of this lesson! Today- I  had quite a few who wanted the pre-made icicles. 

Finally, they glue on a copy of the poem, and the roof is complete.

Here is a copy of the poem paper if you would like it.  You can just click on the picture to get a copy of it.

The next step is drawing the dragon that lives underneath those icicles! 

I print out several different copies of "How to draw a dragon".  Here are several different sites with easy to draw dragons.  I have a copy of each type of drawing on each of the tables as a reference. This is good practice for the children to choose which dragon they want to draw and follow the directions- or freestyle and draw their own fabulous dragon!  I stress DETAILS with this drawing, because adding details to a dragon is so much fun! (You can click on any picture to take you to the page.)

How-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com

 

Lucy Learns.com

 

The Drawbot.com

Blue Tadpole Studio

Here are a few of the finished products.  You will see that most of mine "free-styled" with their dragons.  The sweet part was that they really did use the models and were so proud of their creations.

 



This was one of my favorites because the fire that the dragon was breathing was melting the icicles and making it rain!  

 

 

This one below looked like a really cool dragon with a sassy attitude  blowing smoke.

 

This is one serious fire-breathing dragon...

 

My friend Dan wrote this wonderful Disco Dragon D song that is PEFFECT for this lesson- especially if you want to review that tricky letter d! Thank you, Dan!   Check out Dan Colquhoun's  channel on Youtube.  He is great! 

 

 

Finally, here is a fun little Youtube Dragon Brain Break if it is 6 degrees outside and your children need to MOVE!



So that explains what on earth a dragon has to do with winter!  Have fun!