Sharing a Couple of Recaps and a Couple of Units

Hello Everyone!!
2014 is almost here!  We are staying home, safe and sound in our living room this year!  I am so happy!!  We had a houseful of love and laughter this past week with both boys and friends here, and frankly, I am pooped!!  It feels good to not have to cook, clean, dress up, and be "on" for a few hours!! But at the same time, I miss them already!!!
I do, finally, have a minute to show a couple of pics from the week before winter break.  One of my favorite days was our Grinch Day.  We love celebrating the special message that Dr. Seuss illustrates in this infamous story!  Here are a couple of pics!

The kids went all out with grinchy green spirit!

The grinch sent some sweet little elves to check on our kindness and make sure we learned from the story! Jolly, Joy, and Jingle made their debut and will probably hang around throughout the new year!!

A yummy green snack was mysteriously left for the kids!!

This amazing team really gets into every celebration!!

I also wanted to share with you something our room moms made for our classrooms!!!  The kids brought gift cards to clip onto this amazing snowman tree!!  

We have the best room moms around!!!

When we get back from winter break we will be studying the historically significant and amazing life of Eleanor Roosevelt,  First Lady of the World.  I put together a little unit about her, integrating social studies and ELA. Here are a few pics from the 17 page unit.

For your own printable unit on Eleanor Roosevelt, click here!!

Another thing we will begin studying is the science concept of living and nonliving.  I have shared a mini unit on this topic before, but I revamped it a bit, so I'm offering it again!

Here are a few pics from the 9 page unit.

For your little living/nonliving unit click here!!

I hope these little offerings will help your 2014 get off to a good start.

 Stay tuned for a little somethin' somethin' 

later in the week!!

Till then, be safe and warm tonight. 

Welcome 2014!!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Laaaaaaaand Hooooooo!

Hello Everyone!
One wonderful perk about the 15 hour drive home? I was able to put the finishing touches on my Landforms unit.  This unit is coming up in our curriculum, so I'm glad I had time to organize and put everything together.  This mini unit includes almost 70 pages of learning centered around exploration of landforms. There are some social studies activities (of course), some ELA (abc order, vocabulary, antonyms, written expression), some math, and a couple of craft connections.  I hope you can use even a small part of this. 
Here are a few pics of the unit.

Landforms book inspired by AIMS curric. Unit includes patterns!

mystery picture includes clues with mixed math practice

If you are interested, please click here for your free unit!

Well, spring break is almost over.  I have missed my kids so much!! Can't wait to see them!  But that's going to have to wait one extra day as I have jury duty tomorrow. Thank goodness for a wonderful substitute teacher who just so happens to be a dear friend.  My kids are in good hands!!

Next up? Natural resources and geometry units!  Stay tuned!!

As always, thanks for taking time to take a peek!  I appreciate each and every one of you!! 

Take care!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Topsy Turvy word Toss

Hello Everyone!
A very quick post tonight...It's Book Club Night!! I love my book club friends!! Anyway, this week we are working on categorizing words. And today was the day to work on opposites, AKA antonyms, AKA Topsy Turvy Words! We talked quickly about what opposites, or Topsy Turvy Words were and then  played a quick Topsy Turvy Word Toss game. I simply gave each kiddo a paper with one word on it. They crumpled it up and tossed it gently!  Then I had the kids pick up someone else's crupple paper (similar to our snowball fights!), read the words and quickly had to find the topsy turvy word!  We then recorded all the pairs of words! Quick, easy and fun!

Want this quick game? Click Here!

There are more Topsy Turvy activities in my 100th Day of School Unit.  If you've already downloaded it, please do it again, as I have fixed some of the typos!
Please download an updated version of the 100th Day unit by clicking here!

Okay! Off to meet my Book Club Friends!!
Have a great evening!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Sentence Surgeon

Hello Everyone!
Welcome back!  Today we spent a lot of time understanding that using synonyms and antonyms can build our vocabulary and make our writing better.  We decided that what better way to fix up a sentence, than to take it to the doctor,  the "Sentence Surgeon!"  Earlier this year we did an activity where we performed surgery on words to make contractions.  Knowing the kids had a ball with that, I knew they would love cutting words out of sentences and replacing them with others.  Each kiddo (doctor) was given a sentence (patient) and the surgical tools (scissors, tweezers, bandaids, gloves, mask, and a doctor coat (complete with name tag) to cut out one of the words.  They had to choose whether they wanted to replace that word with an antonym or a synonym.  Surgeries were successful! Phew!!

Showing off our surgical skills

I'm a Sentence Surgeon Printables? Click here.

Or click here! :)

Oh! And by the way, most kids are now saying synonym and not cinnamon! :)

Thanks for stopping by!!  Take another peek into our window sometime!!
Until then, have a nice, good, spectacular day!!:)
Joyfully!
Nancy

Opposites Attract- Antonyms and Synonyms

Hello Everyone!
Great first day back after Spring Break!  The kids all sounded like they had a lot of family adventures!  We definitely took extra time to share this morning!!  One of our favorite lessons from today was one on antonyms and synonyms.  We read The Foot Book and learned that antonyms are really just opposites.  Then we went back through the book and replaced some of the sords with synonyms.  We then talked about how using words like these can make out own writing more interesting and more powerful,  Brainstorming antonyms and synonyms is a great way to increase vocabulary and expose kids to words that may not have thought of using.  We brainstormed words on a new anchor chart with a magnet on it to remind them that using interesting words like antonyms and synonyms can attract other great word choices and great writing!!  We'll be working on using antonyms and synonyms all week!! Fun Stuff!

Opposites Attract! :)

Each kiddo wrote either a set of antonyms
or a set of synonyms

  Good Job Kids!!!  Now the trick is to get the kids to say "synonym" and not "cinnamon!!"  :) So cute!!  It's going to be a great week!!

Have a great night!
Joyfully!
Nancy