Froggy Friends Fun

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Froggy Fun and Other Stuff

This week we learned about frogs!

We made a circle map after reading several non-fiction books about frogs.

I found this model of the frog's life cycle at Hobby Lobby.

The students created their own frog life cycle! We work together using the projector (big screen) to illustrate the pictures and use our decoding strategies to spell the words. We are practicing letter formation, too!

The students cut and glued a circle frog. Each student added a AB dot pattern around the border.

Aren't they cute?

Each student painted a frog by following step by step directions. They also practiced writing a sentence using a finger space between words and placing the letters on the writing lines correctly.

Too cute!

We are reading Froggy Happy! This poem will go in our Poetry Is Great (P.I.G.) book

The students are using their resources to complete a color words book.

This week we started building and reading sentences. We know that all sentences begin with a capital letter and all sentences end with punctuation. We are using our decoding strategies such as, eagle eyes and lips the fish to help read words.

Another little book the students worked on this week to practice our decoding strategies and "butter" popcorn words.

At the beginning of the year, I read The Little Engine That Could. The students make a train and think of something they can do. We talk about how sometimes when we are learning a new skill or concept it may be difficult and to remember the little engine in the story saying, "I think I can, I think I can" - our words of encouragement.

Take a look at our P.I.G. Book! We'll be working on a lot of poems this year! We will "butter" popcorn words, go on letter hunts, find rhyming words, practice fluency, and more.

Our first poem!

GAME DAY!
Every Friday afternoon is game day in our class. The students rotate around the room to each of the 3 games. At this time, the students are learning to take turns and work cooperatively in small groups while practicing skills/concepts learned.

Game 1: Frogs on a Log

Game 2: Fill the Lunchbox


Game 3: Color the Flag

I found these little containers at Wal-Mart! This is a much cheaper way than buying the commercial version of these. Just had to share!

Note: Games 1 & 3 can be found at Making Learning Fun. This is a great website organized by themes or activities and best of all - EVERYTHING IS FREE!

Friday was the 10th day of school and someone special came by to visit - Zero the Hero. He will visit every 10 days and bring a treat that is round like a zero. Zero the Hero is our friend who will help us learn number concepts in a fun way. We LOVE Zero the Hero!!!

He brought us this book!

Meet the Gingerbread Man! He'll be running around the world. Right now he is in the USA!

The students made passports, travel journals, and suitcases so they can join the GBM in his travels. The GBM will help the children learn about countries & cultures in a fun way!

We ate a flag! This recipe is from Making Learning Fun.

That's all for now! Be on the lookout for my Froggy Fun Unit. I'm finishing up a few details and will post it some time this week.

Thanks for hopping by!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL AND A FREEBIE

I just completed my first week of school! Whew! It was a "frog"tastic week of fun, but exhausting too. Here are a few things we did this week:

We made AB pattern name tags to use during the first few weeks of school. This was also a quick assessment of who can make an AB pattern and who can count to 10.

Our story of the week was The Little School Bus by Carol Roth.

We did a lot of activities around this book.

The students painted a bus using step by step directions.

We made ourselves on the bus.

Here's the close-up of the kiddos! They did a great job!

We did a lot of shared reading this week. We buttered the "popcorn" words that kept popping up!

The students made a traffic light. We discussed the positional words - top, middle, bottom.

The students practiced writing letters with the game - SPIN A LETTER

Look at my kiddos working hard!

Friday was our 5th day of school. The students discovered that

5 pennies = a nickel. The money is weighted! I ordered the money from Learning Resources.

We ended the week cooking a tasty traffic light. Yummy!!!

Now if you read to the end of this post - here's your freebie. It's a school bus mini-unit. Some items are used with the story, The Little School Bus by Carol Roth but most of the items can be used independent of the story. Enjoy!

School Bus Mini-Unit