Books to Rock Your World

I found these books in a local teaching store and paid far more for each one than I should have but I got greedy!  I now realize that they are on Amazon (what isn't?) and they are totally worth the money if you are teaching about plants. No cutsy pictures but scientific photos. My kiddos love non fiction books. If you click on the pictures at the bottom of this post it will take you directly to Amazon... easy,peasey. Easy works! I hope you love them as much as I do. What a find.

My Kids Flip Over These Books

My students love these flip books and because they always need additional practice with syllables I make these for every possible theme I teach. It is a big hit and it is so cute to watch them do this during their independent work time. I see them clapping out the word and trying to decide if it has 1,2, or 3 syllables. I always remind them to cut and paste the pictures under each flap before they color. This can be a great assessment too.

If you would like to have this book click here for the download. Please leave a comment and following me would make my day. Let me know if you have any activities that are great for this important kinder skill!

A Room With A View

Here are some of the projects we have been working on in my room. The children love all the science projects and are learning so much vocabulary associated with this. I can't wait to put some of these up on the walls. Thank you Mrs. Larremore for reminding me of the flower art using real sunflower seeds. Your post on plants was so helpful to me. If you are not familiar with this site it is fantastic but allow yourself plenty of time to look around!

Blooming Addition

I love creating strip books for my kids to record  their addition problems in. However, the idea of drawing flowers comes from another super blogger and her name is Mrs. Guntorius. If you have not been on her site please check it out, especially if you teach kinder. It rocks! Anyhow this is my twist on her adorable activity since I won't have time to cut and paste the pots (so precious). I am on Spring Break and loving the time off!

Open House countdown!

So I will have my students play this game during workshop time with their partner.

One student will spin the spinners and each will draw the number of flowers related to the spinner numbers. They will write the equation and decide on the answer together by counting up their flowers.

I will mention to them that this is not art since my little girls will spend hours creating the ultimate design!

We call this a "quick sketch." I think this will be a hit. A big shout out to Mrs. Guntorius!



Have You Eaten Your Veggies Today?

My students might not have a label for many of the fruits and vegetables I will talk about this week. I will use large picture cards and review some of the more common ones and move on to the ones they might be more familiar with such as jicama. I might ask parents to send in a vegetable so they can have a tasting party!

For the little "sprouts" in your classroom

Click here for your garden book. Students cut and paste images on individual pages. I can't wait to use this in my classroom. It's just a short poem we learn at this time of the year.

Let me know what you think!

Sensational Celery

Click here for worksheets

Here are the worksheets I use with my kids. I will post some samples of their work. If you do the celery experiment make sure you cut the bottom off with a knife and put many drops of red food coloring in the water. The change will occur quickly and the children love the speedy results!
If you decide to take the worksheets please leave a comment and I would love you to become a follower.

This is an example of a student's work. This is done in small group as we practice the new vocabulary and the language of the map. It was a challenge for them to remember which decribing word went with has.

This is a graph we did as a whole class but I broke them into their reading groups. They sat in a circle and I gave them a cup with the slips of paper for voting, a glue stick, and a marker. They voted according to their group number and each child glued his own ticket and needed to say, "I like celery." At the end I assigned a child to lead the counting and on each side of the graph he recorded the totals. For this graph I had the students all sign their name at the top of this chart. We took pictures and this is so cute to hang up.

What's Blooming In My Room?

I never get tired of watching their reaction when they come back to school the following day to see what happened to the flowers... so cute.

Now we dye the celery and learn to predict about the change in color. I am amazed that this is not more obvious to some children but today  all of them will make the connection!

We tasted the celery too and made a large bubble map together.
Now we will practice reading these words and creating our own map by tracing our words and cutting them out. I can post some tomorrow.

Can You Spell These Words?

Click here for the worksheets that match the cards

 

Here is another version of a worksheet where students record the word that they roll each time.
The game is over when a student reaches the top by writing the word 7 times. Now do you think your kids can spell these correctly?  The boxes at the top are for writing the number of times each word is recorded.

Back By Popular Demand: Roll A Word Game

click here for bear cards

Many of you asked me for the actual cards that you see in these cubes so I am giving them to you as a gift. I only ask that you leave a comment and follow me. I hope they are helpful.


You can order the cubes directly from Amazon. They are wonderful to have in the classroom for many concepts. I use them for character, setting,  and event too. We build silly sentences. This is a great activity for English language learners.