Insects Continued and another Freebie!

Hello again friends!
I wanted to share the rest of my insect stuff with you all but first... What do you all think about a mid-year classroom photos linky party?? thumbs up? thumbs down?
So, I was going to go to work today, take some photos of the activities I wanted to blog about and get ahead with some prep stuff BUT I spent the entire day at the stinkin' DMV! UGH! I spent 3 hours waiting and 3 minutes completing my transaction. AND my phone had just 30% battery so I couldn't sit and tweet, pin or read on my nook app. So, I'll have to put the pictures up next week. Sorry.

Anyway, this year we spent our time teaching just 4 insects: ants, ladybugs, bees and butterflies. We started the unit with a KWL chart which the students LOVED because I typed their responses right in front of them. They were so excited to see their words on the interactive whiteboard as I typed it. I always include the name of the person who helped fill out our chart so at the end of each sentence I typed you'd hear the whole class say that student's name. It goes a little like this:
"Boy bees are called drones"
"Great idea Andy! Let me type that, Boy bees are called dron..."
"ANDY!"
"Oh, Andy said that? Thanks friends"

I love it! Carrying on...
We also label the parts of the insects we learn about. I set up a whole Insects bulletin board/station for the students to come back to and for us to add to. Here is a snapshot of it...

At this point, we had not gotten to our L part of the KWL but the K and W are up. After we learn about each insect (we spent about a week on each one), we type up what we know about that particular insect. You can see under each one of the insects is a sheet of facts that the students have helped me create. I use that same type during the lesson approach and it is quite engaging and meaningful. I also like that the students remember who said what fact when we create charts. In the picture, you can also see my Insect Lifecycles which you can download for free here. We also fill in a sheet to describe each of the insects. We give a big talk about being Entomologists during our insect unit and the kids guzzle it up! Does anyone use Kaplan's Icons of Depth and Complexity? We do so you'll see the little glasses icon on the sheets but there is a set without them too.

When we get to bees, we make our own little bee with bee facts on it but you can use this template for any of the insects. I'm so bummed that there are no pictures to go with the activities but I will get them to you asap. Promise.

Here is the activity we do (your freebie!): 

Get it for free at my TpT store here. 

Lastly, my favorite part of the Insect unit... INSECT JEOPARDY! We play teachers versus students and they get so fired up! You can see just how competitive they are when we play! lol. One of the questions asks, 

"What is another word for a butterfly's wings that means the same on both sides?" 

As the teachers, my co-teacher and I thought out loud by saying things like, "hmmm, I wonder what it could be? Maybe equal? no... I just can't remember because it is a long word... hmmmm... I think it starts with a /S? sound..." 

One of the students yells out, "CHICKEN POX!" 

Chicken pox? I couldn't resist laughing. He was really trying to throw me off my game. lol. You can grab Insect Jeopardy at my TpT store here. 

BUT if you are one of the first 3 people to comment, you can get it for free!!! Let me know what you think about starting a Mid-Year Classroom Photos Linky Party... and it's yours !

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

   

Insects and a Freebie

Hello friends!
Maybe some of you have noticed but I have made some (not many) adjustments to my blog... what do you think?? Mainly I added a Pinterest and Twitter icon that I made all by myself! AND I got the images to link to the right places AND I got those images to be next to each other! lol. Oh the small achievements that make me happy! Follow me on Pinterest and Twitter with a simple little click now! (I hope) Also, I realized today that my Classroom Pictures link is broken (wonder how long that has been) and I wanted to put up new pictures of my classroom anyway SOO I was thinking about making a linky party about it, what do you think?? I figure that most are like me and have made many changes to our classrooms since the beginning of the year AND it would be pretty cool to see others' bulletin boards with actual work on them, right? I'll do it if someone gives me a thumbs up! =)

Ok, on to Insects! I love Spring because insects are all around us and the students get so excited. We have many caterpillars making their way around our campus and under the breezeways. I popped in to work last Thursday and I saw 4 chrysalises (?) hanging... I hope they are still there on Monday!

We are all done with our insect unit so I wanted to share a few things today and a few more tomorrow...
We start each and every insect unit with Dr. Jean's Insect Song. Do you know it? It goes like this:
(to the tune of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes)
Head, Thorax, Abdomen, Abdomen,
Head, Thorax, Abdomen, Abdomen,
Eyes, and mouth, antennas, two!
Six legs, and that's an insect for you!

It's the best! I love it, the students love it, anyone who walks in while we are singing loves it! AND, the best part of it all, the parts of an insect are taught with a little tune! hehe.

After we sing the song a million times, we make a generic insect and label it with all of the parts we have just learned. We only put 3 legs on it because we are looking at the insect from the side, of course! We just used pom-poms, pipe cleaners and LOTS of glue. It's hard to stick on those pom poms and it's the only time that I regret teaching my students, "just a dot, not a lot," because I find pom-poms all over the floor and head-less insects on papers! hahaha. Also, the labels are just paper. If you'd like a copy of the labels, just leave a comment below with your email and I'll get them to you.

Next, we teach different kinds of Insects butterflies, ladybugs, ants and bees: (more on that tomorrow). We also teach about the lifecyles of each. Grab a copy of my Lifecycles interactive bulletin board:

Included in the freebie are the lifecycles for ants, bees, butterflies, ladybugs, crickets and dragonflies.

Here you can see the bee lifecycle (the only one in clip art). I printed the pages, glued the blank ones onto a blank poster and laminated everything. Then I placed velcro on everything, taught the different lifecycle stages and put the poster up. The students come over to the board and manipulate the board all on their own! It is super cute to see them acting like teachers while I watch and think, "Do I really sound like that?"

Grab your freebie at my TpT store...

If you download it, please let me know!
Ok, friends, don't forget to enter my giveaway AND come back tomorrow for some more on INSECTS!

Plant fun!

Hi friends!
Ok, ok, I'm here, I'm ready, I'm setting my time aside to finally sit down and blog again! I feel like this time of year is my most stressful and therefore the best time to blog! What do we have, you ask? Well, we are currently on spring break (yippppeeee!) but after that we have...
1. Our school carnival- a school fundraiser on a Saturday where each grade level comes up with a performance based on a theme... Our theme this year is California Adventures so we are singing a California song... and we gotta practice, and practice, and practice, all in a week...
2. Annual Project- a school wide activity where we construct something giant, you'll see pictures soon
3. Student-led conferences- Anyone else do student-led conferences with their kindergarteners? I'm curious to see what other people do.
4. New kindergarten parents' orientation- fun, right? =/
5. Buddy day -where incoming kindergarteners come and visit our current kindergarteners for the afternoon
6. AAAAANNNNNDDDD in between all of this we will start doing Daily 5.... ahhhh!!!!
That's okay though, I'm ready! (at least I'm telling myself that)

Here's what we've been working on over the past month... PLANTS! I see all kinds of ideas on Pinterest and I can't wait to add my team's ideas to the mix! To introduce plants we start by making a plant and labeling it... Yes, that's a handprint! Super cute right? Well, when you don't have a sink in your classroom, it sucks out the fun a little bit... no too much though because look at how cute they are! We make our plants, then label their parts.

Handprint Flowers to teach parts of a plant

Handprint Flowers to teach parts of a plant

After we make our handprint flowers, we learn about how plants grow, what they need and how to plant them. We read From Seed to Plant and The Tiny Seed to help us with the concepts.
We then teach about how each part of the plant helps the other to grow. We teach that roots dig down deep to get all of the vitamins and mineral they need to push up the stem. The stem sucks water up like a straw to grow taller and takes it to the leaves and flowers. The leaves collect water and sunlight to make food and the flower makes seeds and feeds insects. Phew! That was a lot to say! lol... Next, we taste the parts of the plants! SOOOOO much fun! I couldn't get any pictures of that part without having all of their faces plastered on here. Just imagine 22 little faces being grossed out then excited then crunching away! Here is the sheet we did afterwards:

We taste the flowers- broccoli, stem- celery, leaves- spinach and roots- carrots. We also make our What a Plant Needs Flip book... (not all in the same day, don't worry!)

Needs of a plant flip book front cover

Needs of a plant flip book- sun!

Needs of a plant- sun, air, water, soil

Needs of a plant- sun, air

Needs of a plant bulletin board

Needs of a plant bulletin board

Cute right? Grab your copy here
Lastly, we do my favorite part of the plants unit... dissection! We all turn into botanists and wear our "multiple perspectives" glasses (part of the Kaplan's Icons of Depth and Complexity) and dig in! We have conversations about plants, ask questions about what we are seeing and get down and dirty with learning!
The scientists (we are called scientists during this time, not students) separate the parts of the plants they find: roots, stems, leaves and flowers... some find other things and make that a category! I gave the students some tools to use BUT they could only use them IF they were SCIENTISTS... we used a rake (fork) and a magnifying glass.

Dissecting plants

Dissecting plants

Dissecting plants

PIN ME Please! =)

I'm finally getting around to putting together my giveaway... stay tuned! If you're interesting in joining, email me!

Vanessa