First Grade Wow: animals

Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Animal Feet and Chicken Life Cycle

Hello Everyone!
Another rainy day??? I had full intentions of working in the yard and doing some spring planting! Oh well, The change in plans gave me some time to post to this little blog! YAY! I couldn't wait to share with you our "Animal Feet" hands on visual!! The kids loved Sandra Markle's new book, "If You Had Animal Feet!" We loved learning so many fun facts about animal feet and enjoyed the fun illustrations of kids with animal feet! This author is nothing short of genius!

After reading and brainstorming what kind of animal feet we would like to have, the kids wrote about their ideas and then went about creating their visual.

If I had animal feet I would want owl feet!

If I had animal feet I would want Kangaroo feet!

If I had animal feet I would want lizard feet!

Lizard, kangaroo, mountain goat, rhino, cheetah!! Having these feet would be fun...for a little while!!!

If you would like the printable directions for this activity, CLICK HERE!

I can't wait to hang these up!!

Up next week? We'll be working on life cycles. Our first graders will specifically be learning about the life cycle of chickens. Last year we were able to watch the hatching of some little chicks. It was a school wide project. Oh my was it exciting for these little ones to experience little babies coming out of their shells. I haven't heard if we are doing it again this year, but I hope so!! In prep for this unit of study, I put together an ultra mini unit to help kids visualize and organize thinking about the life cycle of chickens!

Here are a couple of pics of what is included in the unit!

The kids are going to love making this hands on visual!! Stay tuned for pics of their efforts!!

If you want to grab this mini unit...CLICK HERE!!

So hoping this brightened this rainy day for you!! So happy to be able to share!!

Have a great rest of the weekend! Don't forget to leave a comment!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Animals Eat, Move and Have Covering!

Hello Everyone!!
Well, this spring break has been awesome! The weather has been rainy and cloudy the whole week. Yay for all the lakes around us. They are finally filling up after a looooong drought! I got a lot done on the homefront!! Some closets cleaned out, carpets and wood floors redone, made some fresh new wreaths for my front doors, and took a quick trip to visit my baby. I also had time to combine and add to an animal unit. Kids love animals. They love learning about the different characteristics and fun facts. Three of my favorite books to use to integrate science, ELA, and even math are "What If You Had Animal Teeth?," "What If You Had Animal Hair?," and "What if You Had Animal feet?" all by Sandra Markle.

The animal feet book is fairly new, and so I had to add to my old unit. The new unit contains cross curricular activities to go along with all three books.

Here are a couple of pictures of what what is included.

The unit is now about 70 pages of poetry, reader's response, science research, math and some hands on visual opportunities!

Click HERE for you 70 page unit!!

This coming week we will also take some time to work on vowel digraphs, specifically ay and ai. I made a quick unit to help the kids understand when to use the two different digaphs.

Using letter tiles, kids will build and record real and nonsense words. (Letter tiles included in the unit!)

If you can use a 12 page ay, ai unit, click HERE!

Well, that's it for now! Back to school for many of us tomorrow. I have enjoyed my week off, but I am ready to make this coming week awesome for my kids. I hope they are ready!!
Till next time, thanks for stopping by for a peek into our wonderful world. Stop by again soon!!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Sunday, April 6, 2014

No Yolk! We're Talkin' Math!

Hello Everyone!
I wanted to share a quick little math activity that we did this week. I've posted about our number necklaces before and remembered how much the kids loved the idea, so I decided to create a "double Yolk Math Talk" Necklace activity. We started with each kiddo creating an egg shape out of paper. They each wrote a number from 10 to 120 on the egg. We tried hard not to repeat numbers. Then we strung a piece of yarn through each to create a necklace. We did a couple of things incorporating our number necklaces. The first was to see how long it took us to put ourselves in order from least to greatest. The kids did a great job! They did it in about 35 seconds!
The next activity was to play the "Double Yolk" game. I divided the kids into two groups. The first group formed a circle with each kiddo facing out. The other kids had to form an outer circle, but facing in and across from someone in the inside circle. They had a couple of minutes to compare their numbers- greatest, least, difference, closest to fifty, etc. They had to talk to each other about their numbers. I loved hearing the "number talk!" My principal is always reminding us that those who are doing the most talking are doing the most learning! There was a lot of learning going on!! :)

You can get this and many more math activities in my free packet of fun! Click!!!

You may have already downloaded it, but I added several more things, including patterns for this activity and a subtraction game.

This week we are finishing up our animal unit with learning about animal resemblance, especially adults and babies. Kids love baby animals and they are going to love this next little mini unit. It includes some poetry, animal baby names, sorting cards, sequencing with "Are You My Mother?," a hands on visual or two, a word search and more.

Here are a few pics from the unit.

You can get this little mini unit on animal babies if you click HERE!!! :)
I hope you enjoy it as much as I know my littles will!!

On a personal note, my oldest son came home for a visit (nothing like the Texas Rangers Home Opener to bring him home!). We had a great time at the game and he always takes time out from catching up with friends, to come visit my class to read to them. Jordan is an on air journalist/reporter/anchor for an ABC station in Indiana, and his fluency and expression in reading aloud to kids is captivating!! The kids loved his visit and can't wait for him to come back!

Love all these babies!!!

Well, off to do a bit of cleaning! My house is a wreck!! I've had other priorities lately!! :) Til next time, have a wonderful week, and don't forget to take a minute and let me know if you are using any of my units, how you like them, things I need to fix, add, or other thoughts you may have. Thanks for stopping by for a peek!!

Love to all!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Animal Teeth and Hair and a Share!

Hello Everyone!
We have finished our study on what and how animals eat and what kinds of body covering they have. Sandra Markle has written two perfect books to help organize kids' (and teachers') thoughts on those exact subjects.

What if You Had Animal Teeth and What if You had Animal Hair have become two of my favorite books. I posted about the teeth book last year right about this same time, and Sandra came through with the hair book just in time for our study this year!! Both books are wonderful examples of a blend of fiction and nonfiction!! Perfect!! After reading, discussing and comparing, I had the kids write about the kind of animal teeth they would want to have. They created a self portrait including those teeth! They turned out so great again this year!

After reading and discussing the hair book, the kids wrote and created a similar hands on visual, with animal hair added to their self portraits. So cute!! Including a hands on visual connection helps kids understand concepts more deeply and in their own creative way.

I wish the kids'writing would have shown up better in the pics, but I was very pleased with their thoughts and ideas!!

Doing these activities reminded me that I have some fun news to share. A while back Scholastic Instructor magazine contacted me about this lesson. They saw my post last year and said they wanted to include it in a section they were doing on "craftivities." Of course, I gave them permission and sent some samples. The article came out about a month or so ago! The editors and photographers did an amazing job!!

You can read the entire article at www.scholastic.com/instructor. Oh! I almost forgot! They wanted some more fun ideas for a summer issue. So exciting!! I've had ideas included in other publications before, but Instructor always does an outstanding job with celebrating teachers and what we do for kids. I want to support that! Thank you Scholastic/Instructor!

Anyway, if you are interested in the hands on visuals above, you can take a look at THIS FREE UNIT!! CLICK!!

Well, thanks for stopping by for a peek! I appreciate your support!! Stay tuned for some more fun and learning!!

Joyfully!

Nancy