Earth Day, Endangered Animals, and Measurement

We celebrated Earth Day by reading a variety of books about taking care of the Earth.  The boys and girls learned different things they can do right now to help save our natural resources, as well as, protecting the animals that share the planet with us.  

 We completed the 'Taking Care of the Earth" booklet shown above while learning related vocabulary such as recycle, reduce, reuse, pollution, etc.  We also practiced answering true/false questions, sorting, and sequencing. Everyone then completed the following as a review.

The students also wrote about an action they can do to help our planet.

To incorporate further vocabulary and spelling development, partners worked on a "Making Words" activity.  In this they used the letters in the words "Earth Day" to make as many "real" words as they could.

Also, in honor of Arbor Day we learned about the special significance of trees in our lives and how important they are to the survival of humans and animals.  

  We love to use Scholastic News and Science Spin magazines with the related activities to help with our learning.  This issue provided us with some graphing practice as well.

The issue to the left provided us with information regarding water pollution and how it effects both humans and animals. 

 

We learned about endangered animals while reading about beach birds called "plovers".

 The related lesson gave us practice with the terms "problem" and "solution."

In math during the last couple of weeks of April we practiced different types of measurement, both non-standard and standard.  Weight and length were explored with a variety of activities.  Students used "teddy bear" manipulatives to determine the "weight" of different sizes of rocks.

The boys and girls measured the "length" of a variety of objects using links, paper clips, and rulers.

We also continued with math fact fluency practice, as well as, reviewing problem solving, telling time, and many other math skills on a daily basis.  

Next time, we'll let you know all about our study of the rain forest, practice working with shapes, and we'll share a few pictures from the annual Grandparent/VIP Day.

My Birthday, Earth Day, Grandparents'/VIP Day, and Mother's Day

My birthday comes in April and I just wanted to share the lovely flowers that were given to me and helped to brighten our classroom.  They definitely added to the feeling of springtime!

While Earth Day has come and gone, I don't think we should ever stop thinking about our wonderful planet and all that it has to offer us if we take care of it.  The following is some of the learning that took place in April as we celebrated this special day.

We learned about the "Three R's" (recycling, reusing, and reducing) as we discussed natural resources and what part each of us has to play.

  Each year I can always depend on at least one kiddo who pipes up in our discussion and says, "we are just kids, what can we do?" This of course, leads perfectly into us brainstorming a list of all of the many, many things we can do every day to help planet earth.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, one of our favorite activities is making words with letters from the topic word.  This time of course we worked with the letters in "Earth Day" to see how many words we could make using just these letters.  The students have so much fun and don't realize all of the actual "learning" that is going on!

Our building decided to celebrate Grandparents'/VIP Day this spring rather than in September when the national day happens. We had a huge turn-out as you can see from the pictures below.  

To prepare for this occasion, the students shared the cute names they call their grandparents, where they live, and special things about them.  We did some writing about why grandparents are so special, and made cards to give them.

Everyone met first thing in the morning in the cafeteria for juice and doughnuts, then it was off to classrooms to spend some time with the kiddos.

Then, it was off to the gym where students performed some songs they had prepared.   

The entire morning was a huge success!

Another special day was of course, Mother's Day.  Students made a booklet for their mothers, wrote about why it is a treat to have their mother (thanks to Tessa at Tales From Outside the Classroom, and even prepared a little "breakfast-in-bed" in a bag.  (This required dad's help to pull it off.)  I want to thank Lisa at Growing Firsties for this idea.

This one is complete with cherries on the top!  (It took some careful cutting to accomplish this!!)

The kiddos had a blast doing this and thought they were so sneaky getting it all arranged with help from another family member like dad, or older brother or sister.

We also spent time learning about some of the upcoming national holidays like Memorial Day, Flag Day, and the Fourth of July.  We used many comprehension activities for these after reading non-fiction text.   

All-in-all we had a very busy couple of months.  Next time, I will catch up on some of the preparation we did for our field trip to the zoo.  Bye, for now!