bees and flowers

We wrapped up our insect unit over here. This little cutie just got done drinking nectar and has pollen dust all over her mouth.

We made and labeled flowers for our bees.

We also illustrated the word pollination in our science journals.

Mother's day

If you purchased my Mother's Day mini unit I just updated it. So go back and download it again. You still have time to grab it here. I am also working on a zoo mini unit to include my zoo keeper and zoo word wall cards seen here.

the zoo

We finished up learning about the zoo over here. We started off learning about the zoo keeper and what they do. Then we made zoo keepers and attached the sentence,

"A zoo keeper feeds and cleans the animals."

I used Deanna Jump's zoo unit to teach alligators. We made alligator pie and wrote a how to using interactive writing. Then they wrote their own how to make alligator pie.

We made a bubble map to chart our new learning. They used this resource to help them write to inform about alligators.

We made alligators and wrote about them.

We practiced making mental images using the poem my neighbor's dog is purple. We made mental images at the beginning and again at the end.

This recording sheet for mental images is from Deanna Jump.

We compared giraffes and zebras. We made giraffes and zebras from Julie Lee's faces of the zoo unit. I am loving the long blue tongues. All of the animals below are from her unit.

We also learned about cheetahs. We used our thumbprints for the spots.

We learned about elephants.

At the end of our unit I asked the question,

"Would you rather work on a farm or in the zoo?" This came from Kim Adsit. If they wanted to work on both they got a bandana and hat. We made a double bubble thinking map to record their answers.

This is my zoo word wall to help them with their writing.

Here are a few fun fiction books about the zoo.

cinco de mayo, earth day, and my farm unit

We made sombreros for Cinco de Mayo using paper scraps and dot markers. Then we attached them to a sentence strip to wear throughout the day.

For Earth day we made this chart and added all of the things we can do to take care of the earth. Then they made this little craftivity. You can download the writing here.

I also finished up this unit. I just uploaded it to TPT. Check it out here.

Farm fun

We finished learning all about the farm. It was a lot of fun and the kids loved it. I used Deanna Jump's Fun on the Farm unit and Julie Lee's faces of the farm activities.

After learning about sheep and pigs we compared the two animals.

We created cow glyphs from Deanna's unit.

We made a T-chart and listed what each animal gives us.

We graphed our favorite farm animal and analyzed the data. This is from my farm unit available on TPT.

We wrote a farm fact book from Mrs. Lee's faces of the farm activties.

Here are some thinking maps also found in my farm unit.

We made giant farm animals and wrote animal facts using interactive writing. This idea is from KinderbyKim. Her farm ideas are amazing.

 We read Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm and wrote mud poems. Then they made Mrs. Wishy Washy. This idea was inspired by Julie Lee.

We have been working on asking questions. We used this chart by Kim Adsit while reading a nonfiction book about pigs. My kids came up with some great questions.

Here is my retelling rope from Castles and Crayons. We used this to retell The Very Busy Spider.

Then I paired the kids up and we made a flow map of The Very Busy Spider. They drew and water colored each animal and dictated to me their part of the story. Another idea from Mrs. Lee.

Giveaway Winner

Congrats to the winner, Annie Moffatt!

Please email me your contact info

jwilliamson06{at}gmail.com