hello spring

A lot has been happening over here. We have been busy and in need of a much deserved spring break. Here is a glimpse at some of the things we have been working on. In Texas it's rodeo time so we spent some time learning about cowboys and Texas.

Making text to text connections with Armadilly Chili and The Little Red Hen 

We made chili pepper patterns. I love this activity I got from April Larremore over at chalk talk.

We made this little cowboy craft followed up by the writing prompt, Every cowboy needs  . . . boots. The kids painted their boots using water colors.

We read Armadillo Rodeo and talked about the story elements.

In February we had fun learning about the Winter Games. We compared the summer games to the winter games.

Then we graphed which Olympic sport is your favorite and talked about the data. I passed out white boards and let the kids write along with me.

For writer's workshop we learned what a biography is and started writing Olympic athlete biographies. My kids loved writing about Gracie Gold.

We made a circle map of winter Olympic sports.

We brainstormed words that describe Olympians. We used this circle map to help write Olympian list poems.

Olympian list poem.

When we come back from spring break we are going to continue learning about weather and landforms.

This reader can be found in my landforms unit.

the wild west

I'm on spring break and loving it! In March we always learn about our great state. We spend time talking about the state symbols, important people, the capital, cowboys and cowgirls. It is one of my favorite units to teach. Here is a freebie for you. I had the kids roll out a snake using play-doh then measure it with cubes. I followed up with this recording sheet. You can grab it here or just click the picture below.

We read Armadillo Rodeo by Jan Brett and talked about the story elements using this story map I made on a giant boot.

After reading many books on cowboys we organized all our new leanring with this cowboy tree map.

This was our pocket chart activity for the week. We spent time learning about cowboy clothing.

 For word work we worked on making Texas words with magnetic letters and stamps.

 We made many western themed class books that we have been reading in class.

We learned what cowboys wear and why. This is our circle map of cowboy clothing.

We learned about Texas regions and the types of landforms in each region.

 

 

I added many updates to my wild west unit. Go check it out here.

  

wild west unit week one

We started our week learning all about horses and cowboys. We read Horses by Gail Gibbons and then wrote about horses.

horses bubble map

writing to inform about horses

(I love how this girl labeled the apples)

I got this book last year and it is precious. After we read it we made a class book about what every cowboy and cowgirl needs.

We made two class books. One for the cowgirls and one for the cowboys.

 Then we made this horse from Mrs. Larremore at Chalk Talk

We read a lot of books about cowboys. Here is one of our chit-chat messages.

We made a cowboy tree map

We learned about cowboy clothing and its function. We made a circle map with all the clothing a cowboy wears.

pocket chart station this week

They are building sentences and completing the recording sheet

(I just updated my wild west unit and this is in it)

Then they made cowgirls and cowboys and finished the sentence prompt. They had to pick an item of clothing or  tool and tell me what it is used for.

Everything above can be found in my wild west math and literacy unit. If you already bought it go back and download load the updated copy. I added a few more things.