EARTH DAY FREEBIES

April 22^nd is Earth Day and my kids love to eat dirt!  Of course, I mean the edible kind. We combine chocolate pudding with a tub of whipped cream, add some crushed Oreos, gummy worms, and gummy bugs!  Let the chocolate coma begin. 

 Here we are making the dirt. Keep mixing.. almost done!

I've also created some easy-to-make Earth Day Hats for you and your kids to enjoy!  You can grab it here.

Don’t forget to drop by my store to download your FREE Earth Day writing paper to do some meaningful writing and pick up a fun color by number! 

Have a wonderful Earth Day and enjoy your freebies! 

 Grab your color by number too!

Here are some great books to read for Earth Day!

Synonyms and Spring

When I think of the word spring, I think of longer, warmer days with a bit of rain expected.  Since the weather has been anything but spring-like (still feels like winter), I thought I’d take one of the Pinterest ideas from below and bring it to life in my own classroom.  The kids created their own Van Gogh flowers with oil pastels for our bulletin board and they look amazing. Thanks to the original poster for the great idea! I just put in my order for my own classroom set of oil pastels since the finished project looks amazing.  Funny thing is, warmer weather came the following week! Coincidence? I think not!

We also worked on synonyms this week.  There is a great activity called Synonym-Cinnamon Rolls  (thanks for making it a freebie!) on TPT from Lesson Plan Diva for practicing synonyms that my kids enjoyed prior to making their own ‘synonym’ rolls.  Once they got the joke- cinnamon vs. synonym, everyone got tongue tied – myself included.

Check out our synonym rolls here!

 

Grab the 'synonym' roll template here!

Update 5/16:  After a few trial and errors, I created a  NEW 'synonym' roll template that you can grab here.  The dot should be to the left when writing a word and  students can now space their words out in an easier way.

Want a copy of the Synonym Rolls sign for your hallway, grab a copy here!  Enjoy!
Update 5/16: I headed back to this post to show you a fun way to display your rolls!

We played the match up game as a whole group and now it’s a center.  After, I traced a cinnamon roll for each of the kids.  They worked as a team to brainstorm as many synonyms as they could for a chosen word and then wrote the synonyms in each of their rolls.  They colored them, cut them out, and glued them on brown construction paper.  Finally, they bubble cut around the edge.  I created some signs for the hallway and the class loves when a teacher compliments them on their work. However, they always walk out saying, “Now, I’m hungry!”

If you're working on synonyms and antonyms and looking for some center ideas and printables check out Synonyms and Antonyms or the BUNDLE that's on sale for a limited time!
Here's some fun books to teach synonyms. 

Synonyms:

• If You Were A Synonym by Michael Dahl
• Chicken Cheeks by Michael Ian Black
• Stroll and Walk, Babble and Talk: More about Synonyms by Brian Cleary & Brian Gable
• Pitch and Throw, Grasp and Know: What Is a Synonym  by Brian Cleary and Brian Gable
• Big, Bigger, Biggest! by Nancy Coffelt

Antonyms:

• Stop and Go, Yes and No: What Is an Antonym?   by Brian Cleary & Brian Gable
• Straight and Curvy, Meek and Nervy: More about Antonyms  by Brian Cleary

 The kids got a kick out of all the different synonyms for 

rear end in Chicken Cheeks =)

As you can see, my kids LOVE to color all their work in when they are done!

Here's one of the synonym printables.

Here are some of the center cards for synonyms and antonyms.

All of this practice with synonyms will be great when we start our poetry unit!  

  

PIntastic Ideas for April!

 I'm hooking Up with Inspired Owl's Corner & Pawsitively Teaching for  April's Pick 3 Pinterest Picks

When I saw these amazing spring flowers made by kids in middle school, I knew my creative kids in second grade could do it!

 http://beckermiddleart.blogspot.com/2010/10/overview-of-projects.html

Here are some of my kids working on their flowers. They drew them first with pencil. Then, outlined them in black marker and colored it in with oil pastels. When I get back from break, I'll post our masterpiece!

Pretty impressive for a 7 year old!

Who can refuse a cute chick? He just makes me smile =)

http://www.craftymorning.com/paper-plate-chick-craft-using-easter-grass/

We love to make snacks each month so here are some favorites to make for April.

On Earth Day, my kids love to make edible dirt!  We mix our pudding with some cool whip so it's not overloaded with chocolate (is that possible??)  Add some crushed Oreos and some yummy gummy bugs! Dirt never tasted SO GOOD!

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/85146249174698871/

Here's another cute idea for spring!

http://www.thehighheeledhostess.com/search?updated-max=2011-04-25T07:17:00-07:00&max-results=7

Hope you find some great ideas for April.  Join up and share your finds!

Pintastic Ideas for April!

 Oops... Look at the above post for this month's Pinterests picks!

Eggs! Eggs! Eggs!

Since most of my class was on vacation this week, we were able to be a bit more crafty.  We read Patricia Polacco’s, Rechenka’s Eggs.  It’s a wonderful story about an older woman who is known for creating the most beautiful eggs for a festival each year.  She ends up taking in a wounded goose, who inadvertently ruins her eggs, but in the end, the goose produces amazing eggs for Rechenka to take to the festival.  It’s a fabulous story about friendship and kindness.   The kids thoroughly enjoyed it.  After the book, we created our own eggs! 

If you don't have the book, you can see it on You Tube. It includes a little extra info about the book and includes information about animals that produce eggs.  Check it out here!  

 One of my kids wanted to create both eggs!  

 

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Here are some of the eggs my kids created!

 

 Grab your egg outline here!  It should directly download.  Have fun!  

We also learned about oviparous animals (an animal that lays eggs). After reading, Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones, children brainstormed a list of animals that lay eggs.  Then, using a similar template, we created our own egg. On the front they wrote, "What is an Oviparous Animal?" and on the inside they wrote, "An oviparous animal is an animal that lays eggs.  A ___ is an oviparous animal."  They finished it by drawing a picture of the animal.  I poked some small holes with my pen where I put a small black dot (it was easier than trying to use the tip of the fastener) and used a fastener to put it all together.  

Here are some of our eggs:

You can grab the outline here!

Here's a fun spring center for your classroom.  It's a Create a Word Center using word families.  It's differentiated so students can put a single consonant or blend before a word family to create a new word. Students fill their jelly bean jars with words they know! There is also other follow up printables.  Check out Word Families here! 

Don't forget to grab this seasonal color by number. You can visit my store, and grab it here!

Here are some other cute ideas for spring!

Enjoy!