Our Valentine Craft

Another old craft time! This craft is one of my favorites...and I actually took pictures of it this year. Each year, I do a different spin on this same craft...and this year my kids got to choose between two crafts. It is fun for them, because I always use their hands...Here are the steps!

First, have your student trace their hands with their fingers spread apart. Have your student  cut out around their hand.

Bend down the middle and ring finger and glue down. Place a heart on the  fingers. This is I LOVE YOU in sign language.

This is great for a single hand. Students love this! If you have a student that is great a cutting, they can do 3 hands. Each hand will have the first letter of the words I Love You! 

For three hands. The first hand bends down all of the fingers  but the pinky. The second finger bends down the three last fingers to make and L. The last hand bends down the three middle fingers to make the Y. Put hearts on all three hands to say I LOVE YOU!

I let all of my students choose their their color of their hearts and the color for their strings to make them a banner. 

And my parents loved them! It was a fun project for my students to make and then come home!

My kids LOVE....

SCIENCE! 


Since we work through the CAPA (California Alternative Performance Assessment) and the district's BASICS2 curriculum, science can be included throughout our year. We do science on Thursday (our minimum day). 


Usually, we continue with our rotations to complete our science activities, as it is easier to teach 4 in a small group, then 14 in a large group. But for this lesson, we did large group, and then the following week we did the worksheet. The students really seemed to like this activity.


Here are some pictures...

Here are the items that the students tested...a button, a paperclip, screw and a  shoelace.

Here are the items that go with the worksheet below...After we tested them to see if they sink or float.

The worksheet...Students circled the up arrow if the item floated, and the down arrow if it sunk to the bottom.

 Overall, a fun science activity. And a pretty easy one to have my kids do! Can't wait to try some more...

18 Days Left...

We have 18 days left of school! It will be interesting for the next couple of weeks...the weather in So. Cal has been crazy--windy, rainy, sunny...my kids have no idea what to expect from day to day.

I also have a feeling that the next 2 or 3 Thursday will be REALLY hard for us! All year, we have had minimum days on Thursday (students go home at 1:00)...ALL YEAR! For the next 2 weeks, we have full day on Thursday! UGH! If my students make it, it will be a miracle. I am sure there will be lots of tears and screaming...but I have a plan...I have found some GREAT interactive white board games that I am introducing to them that they LOVE! And, when all else fails, we will be watching a movie on Thursday afternoon! Between those 2 activities, we should make it through Thursdays!

We have also started the countdown in my class. I have decided to use the magnetic numbers in my classroom to help with the countdown! The kids are excited! 

With all of that...I must figure out what to do for the last 18 days! There is always something more to be done, and more to finish, and take down...Hopefully we can make it! Here's to a great 18 days left of school...

An Activity from January...

In January, in the middle of winter, I read my students a wonderful book...Snowmen at Night. They loved it! I knew that would lead to a great project, that I keep each year (this is my second year doing this project) and bind into a class book.  Last year, I let them paint their snowmen and then decorate them. This year, they got to tear white paper and then decorate their snowman any way they wanted. The next week, we do a guided writing project where each student writes about their snowmen...I love what my students come up with! Here are some of the pictures.

The cover of the book that our class made.

 For me, the best part is watching my students be proud of their work. They did a great job making their snowmen, and writing their sentences. Each snowman was unique! 


It was a great project.


Looking ahead to next year (already), I purchased the book, Snowman All Year. It will be a great way to talk about seasons, and a fun book for my students to try to put together! I am excited to let my kids pick their favorite season and activity and put a snowman in the middle of it!

Our Egg Project...

I think they really enjoyed this project from a few weeks ago! I did every thing that I said I was going to do...plus some...and I remembered to take some pictures...so here it goes!

Here are two pictures that I took of the work that we did after we read each book...The Happy Egg and What's Inside? With our first book, The Happy Egg, one of my students was able to tell me the word hatched! We talked about what the bird could do inside the egg and outside of the egg. Of course, we had to provide actions to each of these actions...


In our second book, What's Inside?, we talked about the different animals that were listed in the book, finally arriving at the animal that was inside the egg...the goose (or gosling).

The third book that we read, Chickens Aren't the Only Ones, we talked about animals that lay eggs. I put the different animals that lay eggs on a sentence strip. Since then, I have put a picture on each sentence strip and now I need to laminate them and hole punch them and make them into a flip book for my students! They love it already! 


At the end of the day, we made our animals that came from an egg. The students started by making their eggs. Then I had found animals that came from eggs...and printed them out. I let the students choose (some like spiders, some like dinosaurs and some like fish!)...Here are some of their egg creations!

 I think they did pretty good overall making their animals from the egg! It was pretty easy to make the eggs and animals. And the students loved it!










What a busy week we had learning about animals that come from eggs!

Our first day back...was...

Monday April 2, 2012

I am very happy to report that my first day back after a two week vacation went very well! Sometimes it is hard to tell...but we made it through.

And in our good day, I have created another project for my students to work on. We will work our way through it this week. 

We started by reading a very cute book called Ed's Egg by David Bedford. The book is about a little chick that does not want to leave his egg. 

My students were excited because: 1) they know that Easter is on Sunday (it is on our calendar) and 2) Ed's Egg is blue with polkadots...obviously an Easter egg!

After reading this book, I told my students about a project that I saw somewhere...creating an egg that has an animal that hatches from an egg. So this will now turn into a week (if not two) project. We will read, write, list, compare, contrast...and finally make the art project. 

We will read (at least) 3  other books including: Chicken's Aren't the Only Ones, What's Inside? and the Happy Egg.

We will write about the different animals that we meet using sentence strips and other graphic organizers. 

We will list the variety of animals that hatch from an egg.

Hopefully, I will think to take pictures of all of these different activities so that I can document all of the work that my kiddo's do. I am excited to see how it all comes together! Wish me luck!

Back from Spring Break...what's next?

Sunday April 1, 2012

April Fool's Day! Ha! Didn't do anything for that...

Sorry I have been out of action. I have been on Spring break (2 weeks worth of Spring Break...) and didn't think about school once! That is nice to say because it doesn't happen very often! But today I had to get back into the swing of things...clothes are clean for the week, lesson plans are ready, and my mindset is almost there...but not quite!

This week, we are going to be working on getting back into the swing of things...because they have been on vacation for 2 weeks too! We will review rules, get into rotations, and hopefully have some fun! 

At the same time, we are also getting ready for testing...we have ONE week...next week...I lose 3 days of teaching to administer the CAPA....my kids will like it though--they get to play games, watch movies, go on the computer...whatever it takes. Then there is only 5 weeks left...just a short time before summer! I hope that we can make the most of it!