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!

The Sunday Scoop!

Joining up with The Teaching Trio for the Sunday Scoop!

Spring!

March 20th marks the first day of spring!  Even though there is still snow on the ground, my kids and I are anticipating spring like never before.  Our thinking is if we read about spring, write about spring, and talk about spring, it'll come sooner!

We started off with an acrostic poem about spring.  If you've never done one, an acrostic poem uses the letters in a word to begin each line of the poem.  All  of the lines in the poem should relate to the topic.

I always brainstorm spring words to help the kids write their poems and I always love how they come out! Since we've been reading some fantastic books about the season, the kids have done a great job coming up with words.

I created these Spring Acrostic Poem Sheets that you can grab here for free! They are available in both portrait style and landscape style for those kids that write a bit more.

I've got some creative kids who love to draw!

Check out some of their poems:

You can pair it up with my Spring Emergent Reader, Craft and Writing Activity for K-1 or

 my Spring Craft and Close Reading for grades 2-3 and create these adorable bunnies. They are No-Prep!

Going Buggy!

Linking up with Carla from Comprehension Connection for Thematic Thursday!

I think I'm the kind of person that loves and appreciates bugs as long as they stay in a book and outside my house =)

That being said, here are a few cute ideas to connect with the books above. 

After reading In the Tall, Tall Grass and Inch by Inch, we took the ideas of measurement and the parts of an insect (three body segments - head, thorax, and abdomen, six legs, antennae, and wings), and put them together. 

First, kids had to order the grass pieces from smallest to largest. Then, they drew some bugs on another piece of paper, cut them out, and glued them in their tall, tall, grass!

I paired up some non-fiction and fiction books about ladybugs and created some ladybug rocks. I didn't take any pictures of our rocks, but I found these similar ones online (all links are below).  I also love the paper craft so I included it as well... definitely a less messy idea!

http://www.crafty-crafted.com/category/insect-crafts/ladybug-insect-crafts/

http://cocktailswithmom.com/2013/07/paper-plate-bugs/

This is a beautifully written book that my kids loved and it contains wonderful, descriptive language. 

It's about a boy on a summer evening who is so excited and mesmerized by catching these magical creatures in a jar.   However, he soon realizes that by keeping the fireflies locked away in a jar, they begin to lose their mysterious glow and will die. He makes the wise decision to let them go. 

 If I saw this adorable craft earlier, I would have done it. Hope you get a chance to do the craft!

CLICK HERE FOR LIGHTNING BUGS

I thought this tied in great with the bug theme!

I created Buggy Math to teach and reinforce the concept of place value, even and odd numbers, greater than/less than, 10 more/less and 1 more/less through printables and easy NO PREP dice games. Worksheets are differentiated and some have a choose your own number option.  

You can grab Buggy Math here!

                  Here is one of the partner dice games.

Here we are learning how to representing numbers in different ways.

You can also grab 3 FREE hundreds chart for your students here! There is also a black and white version too!

Found these fun freebies too!

Buggy Math has been updated! Download the updates for free if you purchased it!

St. Patrick's Day Coloring Sheets FREEBIES!

No matter how old they are, kids love to color!  It's great for their fine motor skills and it's relaxing for others.

Linking Up with Catia from Always a Teacher & Forever a Mom for Freebies Friday! Check out some more freebies here!

I hope you enjoy these FREE St. Patrick's Day coloring sheets I made - I even drew that shamrocks - woo hoo!

GRAB THEM HERE!

If you're looking for some great March Ideas, keep scrolling down.