Earth Day Fun & a Freebie!

We had a F-U-N Earth Day today!

We were hugging trees and singing songs all of last week, so today was time to get to work and show a little bit about we had learned.

We read both of these books last week:

and today we focused on the book Tell Me, Tree by the fabulous Gail Gibbons!

I quickly whipped up this little craft to go with our non-fiction book about trees:

We read the book again, stopping to add facts to a group bubble map, and then we recorded some facts we learned onto the leaves of the craft!

The following are examples of how much more creative my kids are than me - ha! I had the teacher example (shown above) on display and without any prompting my kids were showing me up big time with their creative trees!

 Why didn't I think of roots?!

 A labeled diagram - SO cute!

 Rainbows and tulips!

Horizontal paper WITH rain?!? I was floored with this one.

Even though Earth Day is over, you can still snag this little freebie from my TPT store for a little non-fiction writing activity. Or just stash it away for next year!

We also did both of these today:

Don't be a Litter Monster! - an ADORABLE book written by the talented Lyndsey Kuster. Click {here} to get her Earth Day unit.

"If we don't..." - Flipbook freebie by Cara Carroll. Click {here} to download. 

(I don't know why mine is horizontal... I think it is old from last year?)

How did you celebrate your Earth Day?!

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All About Books - We're Almost Finished!

Valentine's Day, President's Day, and lots of staff development has gotten in the way of us completing our All About Books, but I am happy to say we are in the final stages!!

I wanted to show you all a sneak peek of our hard work:

Cover Pages:

 

Dedication pages:

 I dedicate this book to my brother, Max, because if I'm sick he will do my chores for me.

Hahahaha!

 I dedicate this book to my mom and dad because they help me learn to do math, reading, and writing. And I love them more than chocolate ice cream.

Diagram:

Different Kinds:

Over the next two days we are editing and finishing our how-to pages, our research paragraphs, and our about the author pages! This year I asked my students to write their "About the Author" in the third person and they are AH-DOR-UH-BLE!

If all goes as planned we will be having goldfish, animal crackers, and sparkling cider next Friday to celebrate our hard work :)

If you would like to make your own All About Books, just click on the cover image below and you can see more about it!

Happy Hump Day!

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All About Books - Our Non-fiction Research Project!

I may have said it 3728970423498320 times...

but this project is MY FAVORITE!

FAY-VOR-UT!

We have finally started our All About Books!

 Our "sloppy-copy" folders are piling up and ready for their first round of editing!

We are only about a week in, but my kids are already loving reading AND writing about their animals!

This was the schedule for week one:

Here are my students during their book walk:

I spread out the books all over the room. Sharks on one table, bears on the carpet, etc. and students spend the first day just enjoying the different animal books and trying to choose which animal they want to write about.

After they find out their animal, I have them complete a fascinating facts page:

Students get to spend the second day with their research group, reading and exploring all the fun facts about their animals. When students find a new fact, they write it down - in their OWN words - and write the page number they found it on.

Next, we made a diagram and a dedication page! My pictures of those are on my real camera... which is dead... so next time I will add 'em to the post!

Some how-to writing:

How to Save Owls
  When people cut down trees we need to make sure the owls out of the tree. If an owl gets trapped in a tree we need to help them so they can go free. When owls are hurt we need to help them when owls are hurt.

How to Find Food for an Owl
 First, you go to the forest and find a dead rat at night and some worms. Next, you climb a tree and find an owl...

Okay...So.... We need to work on these lol, but they crack me up and they are just the "sloppy copies." I will be sure to take more pictures of the process as we go!

If you'd like to start this all About Book with your kids you can read more about it by clicking the picture below:

This unit is also in my Common Core Writing for 1st Grade Bundle which includes a unit for writing narratives and opinion pieces!

Now, I'm off to eat some dark chocolate and catch up on my DVR!

Snooki and JWoww here I come ;)

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NEW and improved!

Two things are new & certainly improved!

{1}

My blog design!

I am kind of obsessed. If you know me a little bit, you know this is personalized to portray me perfectly. My wonderful fiance finally convinced me to let him design a blog for me and he did a fabulous job! I am one lucky gal :)

{2}

My All About Books!

Umm... for about 8 months now this has been in my store as just the templates for the final published book. It has been requested numerous times that I make it into a unit, similar to my best-selling Personal Narratives pack and I kept meaning to... I swear I did. Finally, finally, I have done it!

Now this little pack has everything you need to help you and your students dive into non-fiction writing. Your students will research an animal and go through non-fiction text features all the while creating and publishing their very own All About Book!

These have been the biggest hit in the past and I cannot wait to make them again this year!

I am so excited to have this little pack finished that I have put all my E.L.A. items on 20% sale for today and tomorrow! That means you can snatch up my All About Book and my Personal Narratives pack for only $3.20 each!

  

Click on the images to see them closer in my TPT store!

Have a great week :)

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Non-fiction books!

They're done!!!!

My students have been working SO hard on these books for about 8 weeks now and I am proud to say that they are finished and fantastic! Take a look (sorry for the flash - I use my iPhone)

Here's how we did it:

When this first started, I let the students know that they would be completing a research project and publishing their very own book to show what they have learned. Oh, the excitement! They were so thrilled and could not wait to start.

I introduced a variety of "exciting" animals and went to the public library to check out 50 books (the maximum, they would allow). I chose bears, snakes, sharks, owls, whales, and tigers. On the first day I let the students take a book-walk around the room so they could get take a look an decide which animals they may want to research. Then they got to vote for their top 3 choices. Soon after I chose 2-3 students per animal and they started their projects!

We spent a lot of time first trimester distinguishing between fiction and non-fiction books, so my students were already familiar with non-fiction text features. Once we started the process I spent each writing block going through a different page of the book we were creating. I used Gail Gibbon's non-fiction book about frogs for my modeling throughout the whole unit. The students compiled a folder of "sloppy copies" then they would have to schedule a meeting with their editor (me!) before they could publish their pages.

It certainly took a long time, but the students LOVED going through the research process and the publishing process. They loved getting to meet with the editor and then publish their own book. We will be having an author's celebration with some sparkling grape juice to celebrate our hard work!!

You can get the whole book at my TpT store for only a dollar here:

All About Book

Enjoy!

Susan

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