Tacky!

 We love Tacky!! He looks so cute hanging out in our room. The patterns are free from Tammy over at Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten. Super precious!

After reading Tacky the Penguin we talked about character traits and the evidence we found in the book. Then we made this bubble map to describe Tacky. You can find the pieces to make this chart in my penguin unit found here. You can grab your own set of Tacky clip art over at cool school clip art.

After we described Tacky together I had them draw Tacky in their reader's workshop journals and describe him.

 

penguin freebies

We learned that an emperor penguin can be four feet tall. So we measured ourselves against the penguin to see if we are taller or shorter than the penguin. I did this last year after I saw it on First Grader at Last. This year I created a recording sheet. You can download the sheet below.

click below to download

Here is another great idea from First Grader at Last. We read the story Pink and made pink penguins. They wrote the cutest stories. I told them to include who, what, where, when, and how. We had just learned about that when we read Tacky the penguin.

click below to download

For this activity we used the patterns from Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten. Then we talked about the real dangers penguins face. They completed the writing prompt, "Tacky saved the penguins by fooling the hunters with his crazy costume. I will save the penguins by . . ."

groundhogs and a little science

What did y'all do tonight? I watched the game while working on a new unit (should be up this week). Here's a little look at some of the things we did last week.

We made groundhog predictions and graphed if the groundhog will see his shadow. This adorable graph was inspired from a similar one Mrs. Lee posted about last year.  

Once we found out that the groundhog did see his shadow we made this craftivity. We discussed the clothing you wear in the Spring versus the Winter and what it looks like outside. They did great with their illustrations. Then we made this little groundhog. You can grab the recording sheet here.

Now for some science activities . . .

We read the book "If you could go to Antarctica" and made a class bubble map. Then they made their own bubble map in their science journals.

We also labeled penguins and glued the recording sheet into our science journal.

labeling the penguin can be found in my penguin unit on TpT.

penguins, Tacky, and a groundhog day freebie

I love the month of February! There are so many fun things to teach. Plus, it's my birthday month! We took a break from all our non-fiction learning to have some fun with Tacky. After we read Tacky the Penguin we described the character Tacky.

Then they got to make their own bubble map. This activity can be found in my TPT store here. 

We charted the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Then they retold the story on their own. This is also found here.

Here is one of our chit-chat messages. Thanks Deanna Jump for sharing this wonderful idea.

They got to do this part with me. Later we used the bubble map to help us write sentences about penguins.

Find all the above activities here

For math we drew, painted, and measured penguins. This idea came from Kinder by Kim. Love her ideas.

We just loved this activity from Deanna Jump's penguin unit! They practiced sharing the fish and told me if they could share the number of fish equally.

We made this guy last year. If you downloaded the writing paper I just updated it. So you can download a cuter copy below.

penguins!!

This weekend has been such a good one for our family. My 3 month old niece has been in the hospital since she was 2 weeks old waiting for a new heart. Yesterday morning my sister got the news that a heart was available! Dahlia is out of surgery and her new little heart is beating strong.
I finished my wintery fun unit with my class and I am now ready to start teaching penguins. I have all my morning stations ready to go (this is different from my literacy and math stations). Here is a look at what we will be doing. My first and second grade friends from our after school program helped me out.

All of the activities below can be found in my slip and slide penguin unit on TPT.

ABC order

uppercase and lowercase letter matching

funny fiction writing prompts

(this is going to be in my writing station)

real and make-believe sorting

(recording sheet not seen)

matching the correct punctuation to the sentence

This could be used as a station activity or taught in a whole group. We are going to do it as a whole group.

a little rhyming with the -ig word family

Here is a little write the room freebie for you!

Click below to download

The snowy day

During reader's workshop we used the book The Snowy Day to respond to literature. Here are some of the activities we did. We made text-to-self connections. They drew Peter in the snow and then they drew themselves in the snow. They loved this activity. You can find this in my Wintery Fun Unit on TPT.

The next day we made a story map. As I mapped out the story on our large story map, they got their clip boards and made their own story map along with me.

The story map is in my wintery fun unit.

Another day we sequenced Peter's snowy day and used the story map to retell the story. We first did it together so I could model what I expected them to do. Then, they got to make their own story map.

The title was downloaded from Kinder Gals.

We are about to start my penguin unit. I love reading Tacky the Penguin with my kids. Here is a Tacky tree map for you. Click to download.

Penguin unit preview