Water Cycle

Last week we started the water cycle, I created a water cycle in a bag and every day my students have to record their observation and draw what they see. I also showed them a water cycle video which I embedded questions into using Edpuzzle. The link to the video is below. Here are some pictures of an anchor chart we created together and our water cycle bags!

Water Cycle Video

St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was St.Patrick's Day and we did so many fun activities! First my students wrote what they would do if they were leprechauns and then they created a leprechaun to display their writing. They turned out so good! I got it here from teachers pay teachers Leprechaun Writing Craft. We also did a Lucky Charms graphing activity. They first sorted all their marshmallows and then graphed them, they also had questions to answer about their graph. They really enjoyed this and enjoyed eating them when they were done! I got that activity on teachers pay teachers here Lucky Charms Graphing.

Some of my girls decided they wanted to make a girl leprechaun so they used his beard as hair instead!

Phonics oo

This week our phonics focus was the 2 sounds of oo. I did a Froot Loop activity and created a sunglasses activity as well. I introduced the two sounds of oo with an awesome Electric Company video. They have the best phonics videos, I have used them for each sound we have done so far.

Electric Company oo Video

For my Froot Loop activity I found a FREE recording sheet on teacherspayteachers here Froot Loop Worksheet. My students created different oo words and used the Froot Loops as their o's. We had to have a conversation about Froot though because they used it as one of their words and it was confusing to them that it isn't spelled the right way as in fruit. Here are some pictures!

The other activity I created was with sunglasses. I put Look Cool on the top and in the lenses they sorted the two sounds of oo under look or cool. I enlarged the sunglasses on big white paper and they got to color them. They had a blast doing it and got to sort their oo sounds at the same time!

Money

Our new chapter in math is all about money. I started the chapter by doing two fun activities. My students do money activities every day during Calendar Math which is part of our Math In Focus curriculum. Since they already have the background knowledge of coins I did an I have..who has activity to start. Each student got 2 cards and they had to be able to count their coins on their card in order to play the game.

I got the I have...who has game off teacherspayteachers at this link for FREE!
I Have...Who Has Money Game

I laminated them so they will last awhile!

The next day I created another activity involving coins. I put coins in 11 plastic eggs with 11 brown paper bags. I set them up around the room and split my students into pairs. They each got 11 slips of paper and had to write down the correct amount of the coins in the plastic eggs. Then I picked one slip of paper out of each brown paper bag and if the answer was correct they got a prize. They loved this activity and it was a great introduction into our money chapter.

Dr.Seuss Week

March 2nd was Dr.Seuss's birthday and we celebrated it all week! We did all different activities, we made oobleck, Dr.Seuss hats, made suitcases for Oh the Places You'll Go and so much more! Every day we read a different Dr.Seuss book, the day we read Green Eggs and Ham I made a special snack to go along with it! Our Dr.Seuss hats were Acrostic Poems, we started Acrostic Poems that week so I decided to connect it to Dr.Seuss's birthday. Our suitcases were a writing activity, my students wrote about where they wanted to travel to, what they would bring with them, and why they were going there. We had a great week! Here are some pictures of our activities!

igh Phonics

The last two weeks we have been focusing on igh words in phonics. I decided to do a lightbulb activity. My students thought of all the igh words they could and I wrote them on the SmartBoard as they told me them. They recorded them on their own lightbulbs which I created and will link below. They had a lot of fun with it and got a lot of practice with igh words AND compound words like lightbulb, moonlight, tightrope, and many more! I then hung them in the hallway and put "WE ARE THE BRIGHTEST BULBS!"

igh Lightbulb

Another igh activity I did was a read aloud of Snowmen at Night which is full of igh words. While I was reading I asked my students to raise their hand if they heard an igh word and then I recorded them on the dry erase board. My students filled out a snowman web with all the igh words throughout the reading as well. It was a great way to practice hearing the long i sound and writing the words as well.

Snowman Web

Vowel Teams

Since we are celebrating Valentine's Day this week in the classroom I decided to incorporate it into my phonics lesson on vowel teams. I got the idea from this blog, which I have linked to before, she is awesome! Smitten with First. I started with a read aloud of The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond. During my read aloud I made an anchor chart of all the -ai and -ay vowel teams we heard. My students would raise their hand when they heard one and we would record it. They were so excited to hear two in the title right away! I created the umbrella and stick myself, I just drew it on paper and made copies, and I made the hearts on Paint. My students did it in groups of 3 and they had a blast! They each got to record two words on the heart, one -ai and one -ay. They turned out awesome and we hung them on the ceiling all around the room! The next day they were doing an activity about -ai and -ay vowel teams again and they even looked to our umbrellas for help!