Saturday, March 08, 2014

St. Patty's Centers & Activities: Week 1

Top 'o the mornin' to ya all! We began our Irish celebrations early this year with lots of fun at St. Patty's literacy centers.

At our Write the Room center, the kiddies reviewed colour words by searching around the room for shamrock cards (see under this little firsties' arm):
(This activity is available HERE)

They used the letter boxes on the worksheet to correctly write the colour of each shamrock they found. If they needed a little reminder of how to spell some colour words correctly, they could look at our classroom word wall or their double-sided Literacy Reference Posters that we keep in our Literacy Center work folders.

At Word Work 1, we began learning about antonyms with this fun Pot 'o Gold antonym matching activity:

At Word Work 2, the kiddies put together CVC word puzzles
and recorded their letter sounds on the worksheet:

At the Reading Center, the kids got to practice reading the shared reading poem that we read and sang (to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot") throughout the week:
It was so great seeing them taking turns reading different lines and playing "I Spy" by hunting for words.

The kids totally surprised me by how nuts they went for this "mad lib style" activity that allowed them to change the words of our shared reading poem and create their own silly poem. It was too funny hearing them giggle as they read their concoctions to each other (sorry for the picture quality, I really need to stop taking pictures with my phone!):
("I'm a farty leprechaun, soft and hairy...")

Finally, at Pocket Chart center, the kids used a word bank poster (no pictured) to select and spell sight words by finding the correct letters and arranging them correctly like a puzzle. Once they built a word, they recorded it on their blank worksheet:
(Sight word puzzle activity found HERE)

At the end of the week, we thought about all the things that make us feel as lucky as a leprechaun! We drew a picture of one thing that makes us feel lucky and made these adorable chains:
It was a great way to show our knowledge of the colours of the rainbow (cue: ROY-G-BIV!) and talk about the different traditions and stories behind the holiday...such as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as depicted by this craft!

And with that, my March Break begins! 
Goodbye!!!

Sunday, March 02, 2014

2014 Winter Olympics and Compound Words

Is it spring yet?! We have been stuck in what the news is calling a "polar vortex" (not kidding) for WAY too long. I am jealous of all my southern-state friends who are enjoying morning tea outside on their porches right now! 

But, although we're facing arctic conditions up here in the north, it really does set the stage for a celebration of the WINTER Olympics with my firsties!
Since we had two "snow days" last week (I put that in sarcastic quotes since one of the downsides of living in a northern town is that huge dumpings of snow, ice storms, and other insane winter weather is apparently no biggie so school is always open, busses just get cancelled) I ended up having 12 of 22 kids (grrr! haha), where some classrooms had as little as 2 kids. The upside to all this is that our awesome principal let us watch the gold medal hockey game as a school in the gym. GO CANADA GO!

To show our team spirit, my kiddies whipped up a couple festive crafts:
This is a great go-to activity for pretty much any occassion. All you do is cut out the shape you want, colour around the edges of the shape (in this case a circle) with pastels, and hold the shape against your paper as you smudge the pastels outward onto the background paper with your finger. Smear the pastel all the way around the cut shape and then when you remove it, you get a silhouetted "glowing" effect on your background paper. Let me tell you, my kids were all over this craft! 

Afterwards, we marched down to the gym to watch Canada beat US in our nation's game with our home-made Olympic torches:

And in no way related to the Olympics, earlier we learned about compound words and started this anchor chart:
We added to it throughout the week and it now hangs with our other poems and whole-class charts in our reading centre:
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    Stay warm, friends!

    Saturday, February 22, 2014

    100th Day of School & St. Patty's Day

    Long time no type!!! But I promise I have a really good excuse for my disappearance...
    I was busy marrying my best bud in Jamaica!
    We had an absolutely *amazing* time. If you've never been to Couples Negril, I SO recommend it.

    Okay, back to reality! Although it was a couple weeks ago, I have yet to post about our 100th Day of School festivities so let's get to it!
    (an adorable poster one of my firsties made for our celebration!)

    First off, we got to write 100 words at our Word Work 1 center:
    CLICK HERE to download your FREE copy (plus an additional math activity)!

    We also drew 100 things in groups of 10:
    (CLICK HERE to download your FREE copy!)

    We wrote about what we would do if we had $100.00, and much much more!
    (FREE download from Lesson Plan Diva!)

    Durning our little 100th Day party at the end of this exhausting day, we made hats with 100 things on them (10 strips with 10 stickers/drawings on each strip),
     
    and then made necklaces with 100 Fruit Loops by grouping the colours by 10s:
    All in all, 100th Day is always a blast!

    Unfortunately I was away for Valentine's Day so I didn't get to take pictures of the heart-filled week I planned for my firsties :( but I am already looking forward to the next holiday we will spend together...
    Yay for St. Patty's Day! I'm looking forward to stretching this lucky holiday a little longer than normal with the help of my new literacy pack. If you're looking for some more themed activities to engage your kiddies, have a look at Lucky Literacy :)
    Happy weekend! :)

    Saturday, January 25, 2014

    Science & Writing FREEBIES!

    Happy Saturday! 
    I'm just popping in to share two fun FREEBIES with ya'll today. 

    This first one has been highly requested so let's start off with a Science freebie!
    We've been learning all about Daily & Seasonal Changes and had a bit of fun with this activity:
    I hand-drew these adorable little creatures based on one of Pixar's animated short films, Day and Night. If you've never seen it, check it out...it's too cute!!
    We watched this during our Daily & Seasonal Changes unit in Science. One of the curriculum expectations is to understand that "changes occur in daily and seasonal cycles" by "assess(ing) the impact of daily and seasonal changes on living things." This video sums up our learning PERFECTLY!

    So anyways, the kiddies could either choose a scene from the film or create their own scene depicting the differences between day and night and the various activities that can take place during each. Let me tell you, they were *all about* this activity. 

    Click the pic below to download your copy!

    I use this last freebie during our descriptive writing unit and the kids LOVE it! I've never seen them more engaged in a writing activity:

    After reading one Robert Munsch's (LOVE him!!) infamous books, 
    we wrote down all the words we could think of to describe poor Thomas' snowsuit. Then, we dragged our own snowsuits into the classroom to get to work! The kiddies got to colour their snowsuit first, and then we wrote our descriptive writing pieces to match. 

    (UPDATED 15/03/2016: this activity has since been updated and is now included in my Writing Focus #3: Descriptive Writing pack)

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      And if you haven't yet noticed, we are already almost one full MONTH into 2014!! Which means love is in the air, and Valentine's day is right around the corner! If you're looking for some engaging and authentic literacy & literacy center activities for February, have a peek at my newest product:
      (To get a better description of what's included, you can click the pic above or right HERE!)

      I hope you enjoy the freebies! Have a great weekend, everyone!
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