It’s another busy week of fun and learning in our classroom. Past and present inventions, plants, glow-in-the-dark flowers, shapes, equations, and more! Are we ready?
Lesson Plans
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Phonics And Phonemic Awareness: Vowel Bootcamp
We are following our required foundational skills curriculum. And we are supplementing with our TKS BOOTCAMP Blends Bootcamp! Our foundational skills curriculum is focused on segmenting, word chaining, blending, and writing words using blends, and digraphs, and now we’re introducing vowels. The curriculum has us doing short vowels, so we will be doing circle charts to focus on the short vowels as the medial sounds. We know the sounds so this will be a bit different by isolating the sounds in the middle of words. This week we’re doing e and u.
We will be segmenting, spelling, writing, and reading the words as well as changing sounds to make new words with short vowels, blends, and digraphs.
We also use our decodable texts in small groups to work on the skills in text. I have seen so much growth in my student’s reading with these decodables. The kids love them and I love seeing their confidence and excitement as they read!
In small groups, we’re using our Word Mapping Mats to really help us segment, spell and read words! Since we started using these I’ve seen great improvement in my students’ ability to segment, spell and read words!
We’re also doing a lot of word chaining with CVC words and blends. Word chaining is when you change one sound to make new words. This phonics activity is one of the best for helping students blend and write words and understanding how words work. For these lessons, we’re using our Digital Word Building resource! This resource includes a PowerPoint file and a Google Slides file so it can be used on any device!
Math-Shapes
This year our district is using Illustrative Math as our math curriculum. We will be completing those lessons and supplementing them heavily with our Math It Up! creations. This week the curriculum is about shapes, making shapes with shapes, and writing equations. We’re also working with 2D and 3D shapes.
The focus of this week is to build shapes/pictures with shapes and then write an equation showing how many shapes there are! Stay tuned for some details and videos of these lessons.
This week the curriculum also suddenly introduces 3D shapes and has students sorting 2D and 3D shapes! We will be using our Shapes Bootcamp to work with 3D shapes!
Reading Comprehension: America Then And Now
We are working on module 3 of our required curriculum. This module is about life in the past and present. This week we’re writing about transportation and communication and how they have changed. Then we’re reading the book Now And Ben and working on questions, answers, and how inventions help us. Stay tuned for more details on these lessons!
Plants
We are also continuing to learn about plants and living and non-living things with our Plants Research Project. We have a 20-minute science/social studies block so we do our research and graphic organizer during that time. We use our PLT time in the afternoon to finish up any of these activities that we didn’t finish.
This week we’re labeling the parts of plants, learning about the life cycle of a plant, and doing a true-false sort.
When we do labeling activities, we use them as an opportunity to build vocabulary and explain how each part helps the plant.
Art Projects
This week we’re doing some fun art projects! One is for spring and Easter and one is for plants!
Our plant art project is torn paper flowers! We start these later in the week and let students work on them over the course of a few days! I draw the shapes on black construction paper and the kids do the tearing!
Our spring/Easter art project is a handprint bunny! My class and their families love these handprint projects! These are done one on one while kids are working in centers!
Foodie Fun Friday
This week’s Foodie Fun Friday snack is eating the parts of a plant! This sheet is included in our Plants Research project. I printed it on cardstock and laminated it so we can reuse it every year! Our snacks are: sunflower seeds, broccoli, celery, spinach leaves, and carrots! We also give the kids a side of ranch! Because…everyone loves ranch.
Mad Science Thursday
This week’s mad science lesson is an awesome experiment that shows the parts of plants and how those parts work together!
This experiment directions and materials are included in our Student Scientists resource!
Glow-in-the-dark flowers are always a hit! I love that this experiment ties into our plant research project, especially when we label the parts of a plant! This experiment allows us to see the parts of a plant, especially how the roots and stem help water get to the entire flower!
Morning Meeting
Greeting-egg greeting-put student names or pictures inside plastic eggs. Students choose an egg, open it and greet their friend!
Activity-pass the egg-we pass around a plastic egg using plastic spoons! This is great for motor skills and teamwork! Check out the video so this greeting in action!
FREEBIES!
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