Our Week in Africa

Open House is a really big deal at my school. I can't remember the last time I did not have 100% of my class attend, not to mention the scores of kindergartners who come in to check out what is in store for them next year. So, even though it is still 9 weeks away, I am starting to get ready. Our first grade classes do a 7 continents theme. That gives me 1 week per continent and two extra to finish up anything we didn't get to. We started in Africa this week. Of course, I didn't quite finish and now I am behind on my plan already. We did get a good start and the kids are really into our world travels. Here are some pictures of what we have accomplished so far.

African Habitat Poems

Jungle Close-Up

Jungle, Savanna, and Desert Habitat Poems
These are from the book, September Theme Pockets, by Michelle Barnett


We do these adorable dancing giraffes based on the book, Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. The art lesson is from Deep Space Sparkle. Get the lesson {here}

My class used the creature feature from National Geographic Kids to research animals from Africa. They absolutely loved doing these. There are tons of animals on the website. They each have a short video to watch as well. The only issue was that the text was above their reading level. I was able to manage by doing it with small groups of kids during our Daily 5 rotation. Check out the website {here}

We made these zebras from Deanna Jump's Zoo Animal Unit. The venn diagram and worksheets are from the same unit. Her unit has a ton of cute animal art projects and other activities. Get it {here}

Venn Diagram and Animal Research

St. Patrick's Day

Lucky the Leprechaun visited my classroom every day this week! He left a note each day along with a present for the class. He left books, crafts, writing activities, and Lucky Charms to graph.  The kids were so excited each day to see what Lucky would leave for us. We also had a very wet week with many rainy day recesses which made it difficult to coordinate "surprise" leprechaun visits.

Lucky's notes from the week

My students wrote letters and Lucky wrote back in green ink.

Notice the end of this one. There always has to be a sceptic!

Lucky Charms Sort and Graph

Worksheets are from Teachers Clubhouse

Who is more precious than gold to you? This idea was from Pamela from First Class Teacher.

Books from Lucky

Leprechaun footprints!

Fun with Dr. Seuss

We have been working on some fun Dr. Seuss themed activities this week.  We started out the week by  creating Cat in the Hat from paper plates. Then we added rhyming words to the hats.  Super cute!

We also made these adorable Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprints inspired from Mel D. Check out her blog {here}. She also has a really cute Lorax activity on her blog for free!

We have been working on using powerful verbs to spice up our writing. I taught the students to write a 3 action sentence to go with the Thing 1 and Thing 2 project. What is a 3 action sentence you ask? It is a sentence that follows this pattern: noun, action phrase, action phrase, and action phrase. For example, Mrs. Sousa hopped out of bed, gulped down her coffee, and drove to work. I teach them these in isolation first and then, hopefully, they will include them in their every day story writing to vary sentence structure.

I created a rough draft framed writing to help the students with their 3 action pattern sentences. Click the image to download a copy.

Thing 1 came to my bedroom. He jumped on my bed, spilled water on the floor, and broke my fan. What a mess!

Thing 1 came to my kitchen. He destroyed the glass, threw all my pans out, and jumped on my table. He is a little rascal.

Thing 2 came to my backyard. She yanked my dog's tail, made all the palm trees collapse, and leaped on my glass table. She was a little mean devil.

President's Day Writing

We did some writing about Abraham Lincoln today.  

Click the picture to download the graphic organizer.

Here is one for George Washington