Seasons - Freebies!

Last week we did some fun things with learning the seasons.  

Most of our learning came from our small group books. I use Reading A-Z, so I can make the themes fit what I want usually.  And it did PERFECTLY!

After a few days of really learning about seasons, we did a craft idea on an apple tree. They kids should REALLY know the apple tree, right?!  So that's what I like to do.  I got the picture of the tree from {THIS} post. It's a JPEG download (the link is in the comments on her blogpost). After I printed it, I just used good old fashion white out to cover the season names.  They colored the tree brown, then cute apart the tree. (She has them already divided up)   

They put the pieces back together on the paper and then I had them label the seasons, IN ORDER.

Once they had them in order (they could start with whatever season they wanted), I called them back to the table to do their painting.

And now they hang in our room - and I love them!

Another activity they did was to write their book of seasons.

I suggested they talked about the weather, the plants, what they see.....

Some were a little more detailed in their writing than others... but hey, their illustrations show me they know it!

Leaf Litter!! Our phrase we learned that week from our Scholastic News. I love it!

We really talked about the trees being bare in the winter.... you know, in other states besides Florida. 

If you want this little book, you can click {HERE} to download it.

Then, to end the week. they did a "My Favorite Season" writing, where they had to write to explain why...using what they like to do, what the weather was like, what the plants did and if the days were long and hot or short and cold. And we worked on having a closing statement. They drew what they would see if they looked out their window at home.  What would be going on outside?? Then, depending on which season they picked, they glued it to that color background.

You can grab this activity {HERE}.

Living in FL, I really like stressing about the season since we don't really have seasons here. That is the one of the FEW downfalls of living in FL.

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Weather, Fractions, and Valentine's Day Visual Plans!

It's time for another set of visual plans!

I changed them up a little bit, so I could have more room to show you more what I do whole group. The other ones were a little squished, I thought. (these plans don't include the activities I randomly use from Denise, Katie, and Lisa because I just use those when I think they fit.)

This week is a combination of Weather and Valentine's Day (for literacy) and Fractions for math.

I hate the dreaded V-day. I know. I'm weird. But I really do. BUT, because I had so many cute ideas and activities in my "files," I HAVE to do it - lol. 

Remember...click the picture of the plans (or click HERE), and it'll take you to a PDF document to download...when you download the PDF, you can click on all the pictures and links to take you where you can find all the activities (TpT, blogposts, websites, or Freebies!)

There are TONS of freebies in this week's post, so make sure you download and click the links!

You like seeing a "fall" item on my plans in February?? hehe - hey... I love getting 2 activities out of one! Thanks, Hadar! I'm using a mixture of Hadar's scarecrow (turned blue bird) with Miss T's Tweet paper for our "Kindness to Tweet About" board... we are doing a school-wide Kindness week this week, so that'll be our display.

And what's carousel scrambled sentences?? WELL... I'm going put the kids in groups - and then I'm going to put the scrambled sentence sets around the room - there are 6 sets, so they're will be 6 groups of kids... I'll give them like 2-3 minutes at each station to unscramble the sentences and write them down. When my timer goes off, then I'll move them around the room to the next set. After they've been to all the stations, then they'll go back to their seats to illustrate the sentences. The thing is- I wrote the scrambled sentences in a way that they're actually learning information about the storms, so it's like a two-fer lesson too!

And this week for math, we're working on fractions in our whole group. There are a lot fun things I  plan on doing with fractions, and on Friday, we're going to practice skip counting with an activity from Kelley's pack...skip counting NOT starting with zero... that's one of the biggest problems with adding money...

And here are the center activities I'll be doing this week.

A little fun tidbit - the calendar center?? I got it as a freebie because I subscribe to Denise's newsletter...BUT it's not a freebie. The perks of being a stalker! ha! Make sure you sign up for her newsletter.

And I am going to try and start having a new poetry center. Yes, I do poetry all week long in my room - but I'm taking the form of Teeny's poetry she use to post... I broke the poems up into lines (instead of words), and they're going to have to put them all together - and then rewrite the poem using their BEST handwriting! Their handwriting skills (some of them) are HORRIBLE... so this is a poetry, handwriting, comprehension, and visualizing center. lol

Something else I wanted to share with you - 

the Valentine class list paper I sent home..

One of the things I'm GOING to get back into doing is Morning messages.  I used to LOVE doing them, and then moved to 3rd grade and got too busy...I mean, I'm still SUPER busy, but when I saw Megan's post about hers, it got me all excited about it again... so I"m on a mission to get it going again...thanks for the inspiration Megan!

and don't forget our HUGE THANK YOU giveaway!!

There's still time to enter!!

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Updated Storms

Next week our story in our reading series is Super Storms. 

I know, I know - but, Jen, you've said you don't DO the reading series! 

You're right. I don't.

BUT, I DO do weather, so I did make a pack to go with the story, because I can actually use the centers in my weather unit outside of the reading series.

WELL, I went to get the pack to get ready - and OH. EM. GOSH!

Yeah - it was one of my FIRST packs I did .....wow.

SO, I did a make-over on it - AND I added something like 10 pages to it.

I think it looks much better now :)

6 different activities:
~Vocabulary cards with a graphic organizer

~Compare and contrast (in both Venn Diagram and Double-Bubble) for rain/snow and hurricane/tornado with a writing extension

~Compound concentration game

~Sentence Scramble - these are written in a way that they are writing facts about weather

~Picture and caption - after brainstorming ideas, they create a "poster" and write about it

~What I learned - using a divided circle map, they jot down what they know and learned, then write about it

And here is a freebie from this pack - it's the vocabulary word graphic organizer - my kids love doing it!

You will also get some examples on what I do in the "More!" box - TONS of ideas.

So if you've already bought it, make sure to go download it again to get the updated version!

Make sure to head on over to my FB page - there's a nice surprise for you there!

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There's a Storm a Brewin'

When did this happen?????

I'm over 300 followers now!!!

Wowwy.

I never thought this would happen....ESPECIALLY since I've been off from work for 2 months, so I haven't really had anything insightful to share - just my thoughts. I feel like I'm Rambling Jennifer (I was going to make a comparison of myself to Babbling Abby, because of the play on words...but I didn't want to insult her....because let's face it, there's no comparison...ha!)

Seriously.

Thank you to all of my followers. You guys are awesome and I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting your comments. They really brighten my day. :)

And thank you to all of you who have started following me at my TpT store! I go and check my stats over there all the time...lol. I'm lame. I know. (please, if any of you do that, let me know so I don't feels so lame! ha!)

I wanted to show you one of my crafts I did. It's a mouse pad makeover!

It was super easy and I had everything on hand already.

I found the idea from Jazmine....Click her blog pic to go check out how to do it!

 And even though we haven't had rain in FOR.EV.ER, there are storms, somewhere, right??

(Wait...it just rained for like 15 minutes. I guess that counts..lol)

Well, it's raining in my new packet I made! Yay!

This one is a supplemental Literacy packet to your weather and storms unit.

There is 36 pages and 5 different activities

~Compare and contrast (in both Venn Diagram and Double-Bubble) for rain/snow and hurricane/tornado with a writing extension

~Compound concentration game

~Sentence Scramble - these are written in a way that they are writing facts down as well.

~Picture and caption - after brainstorming ideas, they create a "poster" and write about it

~What I Learned - using a divided circle map, they jot down what they know and learned, with a writing extension

These are very Thinking Maps oriented....it's how I "think" now when I create things...lol.

It's on sale for $2

Did you see?! I used some of hubby's doodle frames throughout the packet!!!

Those are on sale in my TpT store too, for only $1 and there are 20 different colors and shades.

Click below to go check out my new packet :)

And I just got a new idea to add to it.....

But I'll try probably use different graphics so I can give that as a freebie...I don't have a Scrappin' Doodles license to give out freebies....boo. I can only sell them since I don't need a license to do that.

Have a Terrific Tuesday!

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We're SINGING in the Rain!!

Ok, seriously, we were singing today!! And I have the video to prove it!

Click {HERE} for the words. 

We also finished our "tree map" of the types of precipitation....Well, it's the same affect, right? lol

 The raindrops were different types of precipitation, and they wrote the definition on the back.

  And our book this wee to discuss facts and myths about weather as well as doing cause and effect was Franklin and the Thunderstorm. Can I just tell you that in my MASSIVE classroom library, I don't have ONE Franklin book....isn't that SOOOO weird???

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Up in the clouds

.We started our weather and water cycle unit for the week....fyi, the 2nd grade standards for weather and water cycle in FL are LAME-OH!!! And the space and planet standards??? NON-EXSISTENT! I'm annoyed....but anyway, making the best of it.

A LONG time ago, I found a pin on pinterest on cloud dough - no I didn't repin it, so I don't remember where it came from, but I saved the "recipe" in my files (my 5th grade teacher/friend/science guru reminded me of it!)
...we made it today!

The recipe is SIMPLE! 8 cups of flour and 1 cup of baby oil...mix and enjoy! lol

I told my kids - ok wait, you have to know that a) we DO have a skydiving place in the next town over that I actually have gone skydiving and b) I'm over 7 months pregnant... - ok, back to the story -  I told my kids that Mrs. Ross REALLY wanted y'all to find out what cloud felt like, so I went skydiving and grabbed some clouds on the way down...lol. I'm tellin' ya - most of them either believed me or weren't quite sure so they decided to believe me. lol! It was cute!

They did a little sensory exploring - all the senses (except for smell, because, well, clouds smell differently in their bowl than when they are in the sky - it's because it smells like baby powder! lol)

 Then, they did a little bubble map using adjectives to describe! Click {HERE} to get it.

We also did Fact and Opinion using weather sentences. Each student got their own sentence strip to sort. Let me tell ya, sometimes they get it, and sometimes they don't.

But we did a little circle map of all the words we could find (or did find in that activity) that would make the statement an opinion, and I think they got it a little better...here's hoping??

Then we started in our water cycle...ok. So I've been seeing a lot of anchor charts out there in blog land, and coming from 3rd grade, we didn't do that a lot - so, I'm trying to get better at it...here's my attempt at the water cycle. lol

In addition to the Cloud dough, we also did a Cotton ball demo - the cotton ball is nice and fluffy.....

and then as it soaks up more and more water (the condensation part), it gets heavier and heavier until....it just can't take it anymore! (ok - I just started singing a Jimmy Buffet song - anyone? anyone?!?) and it HAS to release it...which is the precipitation part. 

Do you KNOW how many pics it took me to get one with a drop coming out of the "cloud"?! lol!

And....we started our experiment - which jar will allow the water to evaporate the quickest - the one with a lid, or with out a lid? (yes, that is actually a standard - and let me tell you, even my low ones who are ESOL could already explain this to me in their prediction. lol. Good...well, hopefully with this lack of sunshine we've been having lately won't deter any evaporation).

We have some centers that revolve around weather too, but I'll get to those another day :)

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