Cloudy with a chance of .....

Hello Everyone!!
We had a fantastic week!! Integration all the way!  In science we were studying weather and clouds.  I shared my cloud unit a few days ago, but I wanted to show you how things turned out and more!
After a study on wind, we made our "Flutterflies," and took them outside to compare how the moving air affects even the lightest of materials.

We celebrated cumulus clouds and Charles Shaws book, "It looked like Spilt Milk" by creating our own clouds. Mix shaving cream and white glue, plop, swirl, dry and write using the patterned text! Thank you, Charles Shaw, for the inspiration! 

We made out "cloud watchers" and went outside to study as scientists. After discovering those amazing clouds we recorded out observations in our science journals.

We tried to understand what happens in clouds for rain to occur.  We were amazed by the "Rain in a cup" activity.

It's raining!!!

One of the last things we did was read, "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," a favorite of kids.  We used this text as a springboard for our own weather reporting. The kids created a picture of themselves and we used the amazing AP "Chatterkids" to make a mini movie of our weather reports.

This was a great way to have fun with language, weather, practice fluency and creativity- all wrapped up into one lesson!  The kids had a blast and will remember this for a long time!!

All these activities (except for the Chatterkids) are available in the Clouds unit. You can get that

 IF YOU CLICK HERE!

Up next?  Our Cinderella unit and a study of the moon!!  Hold on and thanks for going on this ride with us!!

Thanks, also, for stopping by and don't forget to leave a comment!!

Have a great weekend!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

"Moon Over My Firsties"

Hello Everyone!
We are finishing up our science unit about observing objects in the sky.  Kids are busy documenting the moon's phases, and reading a lot of moon facts on Pebblego and BrainPop.  We, of course, had to read a fun fiction book about the moon, Mooncake by Frank Asch.  We did a quick reader's response in our journals.  In the story the little bear thought he had landed on the moon in his rocket.  Instead, it had snowed while he was asleep in his rocket. His mooncake tasted like...you know...water!  The kids had to imagine what the moon might taste like. We know that it is dust and rocks, but we got some imaginative  little responses!!!

The moon is made from cotton batting and then we cut little spoon shapes.

Friday we invited out third grade reading buddies to join us for "Moonlight Reading!" The kids brought their flashlights and I brought a light up moon!  The calm feeling in the room was absolutely beautiful!!

I found this moon light in my son's closet!!  So glad he saved it from his "astronaut phase!" He's 21 now and I don't think he will miss it!!  It has a remote that changes the lighting to look like the phases of the moon!! The kids loved it!!

Then, for our SCI FRI, we, of course, had to do the infamous crater activity. Our team has been doing this for years and it is one of the favorites!! After researching the reason for the moon looking so bumpy and dented, we set up a representation of the moon (tub with flour and cocoa powder) and dropped various sizes of rocks from different heights.  Love the reactions and the connection to other thinking!!  We are growing as scientists!!

A recording page can be found in this little unit.CLICK HERE!

At the end of the day we found ourselves with a little extra time. we decided to create our own moons.  A dab of white and a mini dab of yellow paint in the center of a piece of black paper.  We swirled it around to make a circle.  Some kids decided to try create some craters. We then sprinkled a bit of sand and silver glitter.  I think they turned out so pretty. These hands on visuals remind me of the moon in Ralph Fletcher's book, Hello, Harvest Moon. I may need to pull that book out and explore his beautiful words to go along with our moons!  OH!!  Next week's lesson plan just changed!!!  That seems to happen a lot!  

Well, that's what's going on in our little world.  Thanks for stopping by for a peek!! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Pets Rock! Especially non-living ones!!

Hello Everyone!

PHEW! Four day weeks can be very tiring!  Especially the four day week that comes after the holiday break!  I always try to cram five days worth of learning into four.  Well, we made it through and ended the week on a fun note.  We've been working on "living vs. nonliving" in science. I love the AIMS materials when it comes to engaging learning activities.  On Friday, we were able to fit in a fun lesson about the difference in pets. What do we have to do to keep our pets healthy and safe?  Why? Because they are living things.  We learned a quick song, and then got busy making a pet that didn't need to be fed, walked, brushed, etc.  We made pet rocks!  We simply picked up some bags of rocks from Dollar Tree, dug out some eyes and a few other things to decorate, and tah dah! Cute little critters!!  Some of the kiddos named their critters, and I even saw one little one give her critter a little kiss.  Then we talked about the differences between this pet and live pets.  

 If you want a quick little copy of this song, click here! :)

The kids got to take their new Nonliving Pets home!  I hope they are taking good care of them!! :)

Have a great weekend!! Got to go and take care of my living pets!! :)
Joyfully!
Nancy

There's Snow Time Like Winter

Hello Everyone!!
I have absolutely loved having this week off.  Christmas was a very relaxing and sweet day of celebrating so many things. I feel so blessed!
 I ended up getting a yucky cold later in the week, so I was forced to stay in and enjoy the snow from my couch.  It did give me some time to put together a little unit for later on in the winter, probably the week of Jan 21.  I love having time to plan ahead for a change.  This little unit includes some winter poetry and interpretation responses, some compound word activities, a word search, some math tub activities, including one with missing addend, a marshmallow snowman craft connection, some quick reader's response to go along with "The Biggest Snowman Ever" By Steven Kroll, a mystery picture math activity with addition and subtraction clues, and a fun science activity. Here are a few pics to help you visualize.

Looks good enough to eat!!

 

Unit has a Borax snowflake in a jar experiment.

If your fingers aren't too cold, click here for your 45 page wintry unit!

Now that I'm feeling a little better, I'm going to venture outside!!  Hope your time off is a time of blessings and joy!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Flutter, Flutterfly, flutter!!

Hello Everyone!

What a wonderful way to end our week!  We have been studying seasons and weather and today we created "Flutterflies" to help us learn about wind. We had brainstormed weather words earlier in the week.  I saved the chart for an anchor for today. We had some sweet moms cut out 2 cloud shaped pieces of white construction paper and some lengths of crepe paper streamers in the colors of the rainbow for each of our first graders (Thank you moms!!) The kids then wrote the weather vocabulary on the cloud, glued the streamers to the bottom of the cloud and sandwiched the other cloud shape on top.  We then took the flutterflies outside. The kids had to hold their clouds still and see what happened to the streamers.  They discovered that even though we couldn't see the wind, we could see what the wind could do. We had wonderful conversation about what else made the air around us move!  Then it was time to come back in and record our findings just as scientists do!  

Flutter, Flutterfly, flutter!

If you want the free printable, flutter on over to here!:)

Have a flutter-filled weekend!!

Joyfully!

Nancy