Spring is *ALMOST* here... right?!

With tomorrow being March, I was so so hopeful that the winter season was coming to a close and warmer weather was on the way..... then I woke up and heard that there is another storm coming this weekend...

WOMP, WOMP!

Oh well. Just saying March makes me feel a little more cheery :)

I have been working on a few different Spring themed products to prepare for the season, but I wanted to quickly share some resources that I will be using these upcoming months:

Opinion writing!

It isn't spring themed, but our informational writing unit is coming to an end and opinion writing is right around the corner.

In this unit, my kids first learn what an opinion is. Then, they practice expressing their opinion through some fun "would you rather??" type games. Then it is on to writing and defending their opinions. We finish the unit by talking about persuasion and write a few letters to our parents and our principal.

Butterflies!

We will be getting this icky critters soon enough and I created this unit last year to help us record our learning with these little buggers. I also added plenty of math, reading, and writing activities so we could have a whole themed few weeks of learning.

Writing through the Spring!

I use these seasonal prompts all year long. They are perfect for independent writing centers, crafts/writing projects for our Friday "fun days", or bulletin board writing to display. Each of these seasonal writing packs include the same type of templates for narrative, informative, and opinion writing so once students learn how to do it once, they can complete these each season independently.

Poetry!

April, April, April... come on April! I love teaching poetry and my kids produced the cutest poems last year with this pack. Free verse and form poems are included in this unit and I already can't wait to make our poetry bulletin board.

Close Reading for Spring!

After my kids "killed it" with our winter pack, spring is coming out next week. My kids LOVE these packs now. They are so simple and straightforward. My 1st graders can really, really do it! It took awhile... all year in fact... but I am SO proud of my little guys n gals.

Last but not least, I am completing this little project SOON.

After butterflies, we will be working on plants! This unit is set up the same way as my butterfly unit and will contain science, reading, writing, and math activities that are all aligned to the Common Core.

I am so excited to work on these units these next few months. They are all bright and cheery and remind me how far my students have come this year. I know it is only February, but this last part of the year always seems to FLY by and before you know it, it will be time for Summer and I will be crying as my kids leave for break! Oh lawdy - am I getting emotional already?!

I will be blogging about all of these units in my classroom in the upcoming weeks and months and in case you haven't heard yet.... there happens to be a big ole SALE over at TPT right now! Today is the last day to get 28% any of the units in my store! Go ahead and click on the button below to check it out:

Happy almost March!!

0

Butterflies! and a freebie!

Last week we got our classroom butterflies and the kids are SOOOO excited!

We have already read a few butterfly books, watched a BrainPop Jr. video (they are obsessed), and began our butterfly observations:

 

"I am wondering..."

After we watched the BrainPop Jr. Butterfly video, we wrote down some facts we learned about butterflies:

We will be studying butterflies for the next couple of weeks so I created a bunch of Common Core aligned activities to go along with our unit:

 Here is a sneak peek at some of the activities inside:

Diagrams/Posters/Printables

Literacy & Math Centers

Writing Prompts

If you'd like to read more about my Butterflies unit you can click here or on the picture of the cover above!

This unit will be on sale through Monday :)

PS - I have turned the observation booklet portion of this unit into a FREEBIE on TPT! Click the image below to download it!

Have a great week!

3

What we're up to this week...

First off, let me say a big THANK YOU to all my new followers :) I am now blogging to real people instead of just the wide... open... scary... internet world.

Our butterflies hatched over the weekend and my kids could not contain their excitement! I found this fun life cycle project on Pinterest which was loads of fun to make. It was originally posted here on Somewhat Simple, but when I look now the pictures are gone :( The directions are still there though!

After we made the pasta version, the kids drew the life cycle with the names of each stage in their Butterfly Observation Booklet, so I could grade it.

We also started some of our Mother's Day activities. We are finishing up poetry and we made list poems about our moms. After looking through them, I had the kiddos put them into a heart shape and highlight 5 of the most significant adjectives that describe their moms. I love that this student wrote "the boss" and highlighted it! Hilarious! Oh, and... he wrote huge in the bottom right corner, lol.

We are also learning the 3 sounds of ed! Tricky for 1st graders, but they are doing great! I made this fun little board game that is in my new Swimming into Summer packet. My students played it today and loved it!

That's what we're doing in Room 41B! What are you up to?!

And again, thank you for the sweet comments! I really appreciate it :)

Have a great night!

Susan

0

Butterflies!

We started our butterflies science unit and the kiddos are so excited! We finally received our live caterpillars and I must admit, they realllllyyyy gross me out. I am not a creepy-crawly type of gal, but the kids love them, so they can be in charge of this unit :)

We filled in our K and W parts of our KWL using a Kagan game "jot-thoughts" and my friend Carisa created an adorable vocab butterfly to put up on our science wall. Jot thoughts is a fun game we use for brainstorming or coming up with lists of things. Students work in small groups and use post its or small pieces of paper to "cover the table" with their ideas. I usually put about 2 minutes on the class timer and students must call out their idea before they write it down and put it in the middle of their table. There are no repeats allowed! I also have each student in a group use a different colored pencil so there is individual accountability as well.

We use jot thoughts for:

- Spelling: How many long a words can you come up with? blends, digraphs, short vowels, etc.

- Writing: brainstorming, nonfiction features, etc.

- KWL charts

- Comprehension:  write down all the details you remember from the story

After the students cover their table, they can sort the ideas too. After recounting all the details from a story I will have the students sort them into beginning, middle, & end categories. After long a words, I will have them sort them by long a patterns. After small group work, we always come together and record everything whole-group. I don't know about yours, but my students love anything timed and a little competitive!

But, back to butterflies...

Here is a butterfly observation booklet I made for the students to record their observations throughout our unit! Its completely free in my TpT store:

Butterfly Booklet Freebie!

Check it out and please let me know what you think! I am always looking for feedback and suggestions :)

Also, let me know what fun butterfly activities you are doing in your class!

Have a great week :)

Susan

0