Woodland Animals Poems

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Next week I am going to start teaching about habitats in Science.  My partner teacher and I are going to divide the topic into four areas, forests, wetlands, oceans, and deserts.  I have absolutely nothing planned or in my file folders.  I have a lot of research to do.  I found this poem for next week.  It is super cute.  I found it in the book, Pick a Poem.

Five for Friday -- Oct. 18

“Make A Big Deal out of the Little Things”

Erin McHugh

One Good Deed

I am learning so much this year.  I barely have time to do my household responsibilities because I am constantly reading what I need to know for the next lesson. 

It is very challenging to bring a new twist to some of the same old subjects. 

I am linking up my favorite five things from the week.

First I went back to my spider project from last week.  I liked the project however I just thought it needed something more.  The orange paper was so plain looking.  Then one of those duh moments came to me, a spider web. 

I love how they look.  Each spider web is different and unique.

In the number two spot for the week is the spider writing the children did.  It was our first report of the year and the children did fabulous.  They worked so hard using the graphic organizer.

We read the story Anansi and the Spider and we made bright spiders with bright designs on them. 

Then for a break during the week my daughter and I went out to a painting class.  We had so much fun. 

I finished the week with a bat art project.  They turned out a bit smaller than I wanted, however they are cute.

Look at this pumpkin display on the bookshelf.  This was at the place where we went for the painting class.  There were all these pumpkins everywhere.  It was so cute.  I just thought I would share with you.  

Please stop by Doodle Bugs Teaching and read more Five for Fridays!

Halloween Is Coming

Where does the time go????  I feel like I do school work all the time however I rarely take the time to write down what I am doing.  I am determined to share one freebie a week.  This week I am doing a poem my daughter did when she was in first grade.

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Bats in First Grade

There are few things in life that creep me out: mice, snakes, spiders and bats.  I must be batty because this week I am teaching my students about bats.

I found a wonderful bat unit by Kristen Smith that I highly recommend if you are teaching about bats. 

There are some wonderful ideas in the unit for science, math and literacy. The link about will take you to her blog, A Day in First Grade.  Kristen's blog is amazing and so are her products.  

I plan on reading the following books:

and my poem of the week is Spooky Bats. 

Let me know if you have some other favorite books about bats. 

Five For Friday -- Oct. 11

Yeah!   It’s Friday!  I cannot believe how fast the week goes by.  It was a short week for the kids, we had three student days and two in-service days. 

This week my top five things in my classroom are:

A Minute to Win It…..this is not my idea.  I saw it on a blog or pinterest.  I cannot remember where so I could not go back and purchase it.  So I had to make it up from my memory.  This is how we played it.  Each child received a worksheet and 25 blocks.  Then they were partner up into teams.  The teams needed:  A tens and ones board and a spinner. 

We discussed out to take turns and waiting while the other person go his/her blocks.

They put all their blocks in the middle and they started to spin & grab.  After one minute they had to stop. 

Add up their score in tens and ones.

They had loads for fun.

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Second, we had another fun lesson with the counting bags and little junk.  The children had to counting out the bags of little stuff to get the correct answer.  Read More Here

My third favorite thing was Spider Show and Tell.  One of my students brought in a spider in a jar, however when he went to look for the spider the jar was empty.  He was so sad. 

Next, I put together my assessment finder.  It is the home of all my important papers for the students fro the year.  The front of the pocket in for notes and report cards and the back of the folder is for assessments. 

Lastly, we made these fact/opinion spiders.  The students had to read the sentences and put them on the side of spider facts or spider opinions.  I used the fact and opinion slips from the spider unit I purchased from Kristen Smith at A Day in First Grade.    The unit is amazing.  I highly recommend it.  I incorporated almost every idea from here unit in my lesson plans.  Thanks, Kristen.