Five for Friday!

It's time for my "week in review" with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching.

It was a rough week! I went in for strep throat last Friday and took off Tuesday for a bad cold on top of it! Nothing like going to school before 6am to type up sub notes. (You gotta get out of there before anyone stops you and sees how terrible you look!)

The struggle is real.

My students started joking with me: "Its like a pattern - you, a sub, you, a sub!" Oh, dear!

I usually do blow painting with my kinders each spring as a fun art activity. I wanted to amp up the science integration and came across Kindergarten Kel's What Will the Wind Blow? experiment recording sheet. It was perfect!

I set up a mini IKEA table in the middle of the rug. We wrote our prediction for each item before I called on someone to try er' out. (TIP: I always have my students use marker to record estimates or predictions. Why? So they can't go back to erase and change their prediction when the result ends up being different than their guess. I can pick out the perfectionists in the group!)

I love hearing at the end of an activity "That was so fun!" *happy dance*

Click HERE to get a free copy of this recording sheet!

After our wind experiment we painted with wind - our wind! All you need is watercolors and straws.

The next day, we added tissue paper flowers using the end of a pencil.

"Buzzy" the Bee kicked off our insect unit.

He taught us his favorite song to help us learn the characteristics of insects.

We used play-doh to make our own insects using what we learned. The bendy straws worked perfectly for legs.

3 body parts? 6 legs? Antenna? Yes, it's an insect!

Here is yet another perk of teaching at a K-12 school: the science department lends us their bug collections!  We got out our magnifying glasses to investigate. (Some of my girls needed confirmation that yes, the bugs were indeed dead.)

I think we might have some future entomologists!

We talked about the difference between insects and arachnids.

These are my favorite kinds of spiders... cookie spiders!

Aren't these spiders "sweet"?

How ridiculous is this? We did these In the Spring... poems..... because we've had spring weather. One day it was a glorious 70 degrees! I thought it was perfectly safe to do these poems.

Well,..... we spent all this time describing spring... and the next day it SNOWS! They must be so confused!

Even though spring is hesitant to come, Easter is on it's way! We began our tradition of telling the Easter story by opening up a Resurrection Egg each morning before our Bible story. My students love guessing what's in each egg and sharing what part of the story each symbol represents.

I'm looking forward to linking up with Easter ideas next week!

Enjoy your weekend!

Five for Friday!

It's time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for 5 randoms from this week.

I thought it would never come!!! But it came! It's fi-i-i-i-nally SPRING! (So this is what it feels like to be happy again!)

We went from below zero temperatures in our weather journals last week to this....

Echos my sentiments exactly.

We leaped into our plant unit this week. We learning about the parts of a plant and the things it needs to grow.

First we read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carl. Gotta have the classics.

The Needs of a Plant YouTube video. (In kindergarten, you always watch music videos twice - the first time you bob your head and the second time you DANCE!)

 Before labeling our own artistic creations, we labeled our anchor chart.

Our hallway looks like a beautiful garden!

Now we are waiting..... and waiting... ever so patiently for our bean seeds to grow. C'mon little seeds. You can do it!

Get your FREE printable HERE from The Chalkboard Garden's TpT store!

Does anyone LOVE watercolors as much as I do? While other teachers are like "We better plan use our watercolors before the end of the year." .... I'm like..." I hope these last until the end of the year!"

Watercolors are my favorite art medium to use in the classroom.
 

This was our Bible enrichment project after our story about Jesus and Nicodemus. Jesus transforms our lives!

My hubby is in luck! My culinary passions have been revived!

Last night I attended the annual Taste of Home Cooking School. I had my fingers crossed hoping to win the demo plate of these cookies. BACON & WALNUT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. I know!

No matter! I will make them this weekend - with extra bacon!

Enjoy your weekend!

Five for Friday!

It's a double Friday week! Wednesday was technically Friday since we only had 3 days of school this week. Why? Because didn't use any of our snow days this year. THAT. NEVER. HAPPENS.

I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 highlights from our short week.

We kicked off Monday with a birthday celebration for Dr. Seuss! Complete with none other than GREEN EGGS AND HAM!

Students graphed their answer to "Do you like green eggs and ham?" by placing a green egg with their name under the YES or NO. I don't have a final picture, but the results were16 YES to 1 NO.

Headbanz - Math Edition! My kids love to play Headbanz during free choice time. Which got my teacher brain a-thinkin'....

I modified it a bit...
Whoever is "it" closes their eyes while I take a number out of our hundred's chart. 

I clip it in their headband. Then, they call on other students to give them clues to help them guess their "mystery number".

 It's a great way to grow critical thinking skills and reinforce math vocabulary and concepts:
"Your number is the sum of 3 + 4."
"It's 2 more than 5." 
"It's 3 less than 10."

Be prepared for everyone wanting a turn.

We finished our literacy weather unit last month, but I didn't start our weather journals until the end of the unit. February weather around here is just.... well...LAME! Last year I started our journals earlier and every page was practically the same: "It is cold. It is cloudy. It is very cold. It is very, very, cold...."  *yawn*

This year, I'm hoping March weather has a little more diversity. 

You can get these adorable journals from Tessa Maguire's TpT Store.

Even though we don't write in our weather journals every day, we always check the weather using the Kid Weather App. It's amazing! Totally worth the $1.99. It's kid-friendly, interactive, and.... you can graph the weather each day!

What better way to invite spring... than to make the classroom look like spring!
Take down those snowflakes!

We first watercolored our Rhyming Rainbows then added rhyming raindrops.
(The original "pinspiration" came from The Virtual Vine.) 

I'm looking forward to spending my day off drinking coffee (in my P.J's of course) and reading ahead.

Elizabeth at Kickin' it in Kindergarten hosted the first linky of a blogging book study: Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites by Marcia L. Tate. My book margins are filling up as I glean ideas from so many amazing teachers! Come join us tomorrow as we link up with Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten to discuss learning outside of our classroom's walls- field trips!

After reading Chapter 2, I challenged myself to find a way to incorporate drawing and artwork into this week's literacy lesson. We started our plant unit by reading  Oak Trees by Melanie Mitchell.

The writing extension focus skill was steps in a process.

Research states that "drawing is a powerful way to develop the thought processes and perceptions of children", in addition to helping them "comprehend and encode new content for later recall" (Source: Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites by Marcia L. Tate)

We made a pamphlet style book by folding a piece of paper in thirds.

 

 I only had my students write one step in the process. (I've learned from previous years, that having them write ALL of the steps can be very overwhelming for some students. I plan to do several more "steps in a process" writing projects later on in the year. Eventually, they will write all of the steps themselves.)

Have a fantastic Friday!