Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Spring is on my mind. Although there is still some snow on the ground and the forecast is calling for more, I am ready to embrace spring!  I am excited for warmer temperatures, flowers, and butterflies! I plan on growing butterflies in my classroom. My teaching partner used a kit she ordered from Wal-Mart and was very pleased with it. My plan for Spring Break (5 more days!) to get a butterfly garden kit and prep my new Life Cycle of a Butterfly materials.

It is available now in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. Click on the image above.  I have included a variety of activities in this product: vocabulary cards; large, color life cycle book; black line student books; life cycle of a butterfly song; and student journals to mirror the full color class KWL chart, life cycle and anatomy of a butterfly labels. The student journals include an observation page to document the metamorphosis of our classroom caterpillars!   

Field Trip

Last week we took a field trip to Sunset Hill Farm. The kids had a great time! They used their five senses to explore all the county park had to offer!  (Well, the animals got to use the sense of taste, not the kids!)

 We started the field trip visiting the animals. They got to brush, pet, and feed some goats.

 Next they peeked into the hen house. A chicken had just laid an egg!

 Then a chicken hopped in and started to lay an egg! She let us get really close to take a look!

 Mr. Tickles the mini horse was very friendly and loved our visit. The students each gave him a handful of hay.

 After visiting the farm animals, we took a hayride to the woods. We hiked for a while. The guide picked a piece of sassafras for us to smell. We learned that root beer comes from the sassafras tree!

 Last we sat on these fallen trees and listened to the sounds of nature. We heard lots of birds and the wind in the leaves. The tour guide asked what we had learned about and talked a lot about plants, seeds, and beetles. I appreciated that he related what we have learned in the classroom to the first hand experiences the children had while on the field trip!

We saw lots of very interesting things while at Sunset Hill Farm. It was a great field trip, and to make it even better, it was a free program! The students each paid fifty cents to cover the cost of transportation.  I am looking forward to taking more field trips next year. We have an awesome principal who really encourages taking at least two field trips each year! 

Sight Word Rainbows

We had a brief break from our Weather Unit to study dinosaurs, but we are back to weather this week!  The students are really enjoying the thematic Weather Unit by Kindergarten Smiles.

We made rainbows with sight words from our Cupcake Word Wall.

The students wrote their names on a cloud and added a strip of paper for each letter in their name. Then they had to choose a word from our word wall that started with each letter of their name. (We didn't have words for every letter of the alphabet, so the students came up with some that I added on index cards.)

It was a fun way for the students to practice reading and writing the sight words. Plus, it gave me a good idea of who pays attention and follows directions!  With 19 more days of school left to go, they have been struggling with paying attention and following the directions! 

Sunflower House

If you are using Treasures, you will notice that I am a week (or two) behind the game. My teaching partner and I share materials for reading. It's not ideal, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the district will adopt new books for next year so that I can have my own set of materials!  My teaching partner has decided to stretch each week of Treasures to seven days to make it to the end of the year. With that said, we just read Sunflower House by Eve Bunting this week. The kids have been really into talking about plants.  They came up with great ideas when we brainstormed a list of things to do in a sunflower house. They wrote and drew about what they would do while meeting the CCSS standard of writing an opinion in response to literature.

I would read in my sunflower house, too!

 

In my sunflower house, I would play police horses with my brother Charles. My sisters and I would have done that, too! We used to be horse crazy as children.  My horse craze fizzled out as I grew up, but my sisters still have horses!

 

After the students completed their work, Mrs. O'Dell, my instructional aide, and myself checked their work. If they had a complete sentence with words spelled as they sound, a capital letter, and end mark, they received sunflower seeds to glue on their sheet. They thought it was amazing to see a sunflower seed! I offered them sunflower seeds out of the hull to sample during our snack break that day.

Head over to Kinder Doodles to get your copy of the Sunflower House writing prompt.

April Showers

Fortunately, we have not experienced much rain yet this month, but you know the saying April showers bring May flowers! In honor of April showers, my class made adorable umbrellas. We first brainstormed what we like about the rain. I demonstrated how to make the umbrella and write my four favorite things about rain on my raindrops. Then the kinders received their materials and got to work right away. They did an awesome job!

The kids used their creativity to decorate the paper plate. We have rainbow umbrellas, polka dot umbrellas, and umbrellas with pictures!

My instructional aide helped me prep this activity by cutting the paper plates in half. (I was so excited to find uncoated plates at Wal Mart.  The kids could color on both sides of their plate with crayons.) We cut a 3 inch slice from the center up on one half and the outside down on the other. We put two holes on the long edge of both plates and two holes at the curved edge of one plate. The four holes are for tying on the rain drops, while the holes on the curved edge are for hanging.

 The kids brought their raindrops up the to interactive whiteboard to write what they like about the rain.  I love that I can save that image as a jpeg and bring it back up on the whiteboard for those who did not finish or were absent for the activity!

A lot of the kids like to jump in puddles! 

They curled the end of an inch wide strip of paper by wrapping it around a pencil. It made for a great umbrella handle!

Life Cycle of Seed Craft

The kinders really enjoyed reading about seeds during reading.  They are learning all about the way that seeds move and the life cycle of a plant.  Last week we read about the life cycle of an oak tree. This week, they are realizing that plants and flowers follow a very similiar life cycle as the oak tree. 

They began working on writing a story about how seeds grow using the words first, next, then, and last. (I will post pictures as soon as they are complete!)

Today we made flowers, complete with roots!

I am ready for Spring and the warmer weather and flowers that accompany the new season!