Linky Party with Sunny Days!

We've been followers of Sunny Days for a long time, and we're so super excited to link up to her Linky Party!!


We're on Spring Break until the 15th, and we've only touched upon Earth Day so far, with lots more planned for after break. We did manage however, to throw up a 2nd Grade Hallway Bulletin Board on Earth Day. Are you required to do any other bulletin boards other than "your own"? We were somehow responsible for the main hallway bulletin board like 5 times this year!!!



Anyways, this is what we thought up. The idea isn't that original, we remember doing something similar in elementary school. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Plus, we cutisfied it!

Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of said bulletin board. But picture it in your mind...cute right? We know.



Please RE-USE it! In the spirit of going GREEN!

You Can Get It Here!

Time to Grow

Hello there!


 
How is it April and where have we been?  We've been asking those questions ourselves a lot lately.  And well, we can't tell you how it's April already (this year has just flown...), but we can tell you where we've been.


 
We've been busy.  And overwhelmed.  And stressed.


 
And it looks like this little blog is just gonna need some more time to grow than we had originally planned.


 
And coincidentally enough, it's spring, and spring is a time for growth.  It's also a time for spring break, which gives us time to water our little blog, and watch her bloom.


 
Are you still with us after all the flower analogies?  If you are, we'd like to show you a Pinterest inspired Bulletin Board Halle found the time to do right before spring break.  And she's in looove with it.

 
The idea comes from Dragonflies in First.  I love so many things about this bulletin board.  The frogs.  The bathing suits.  The books.  I think I mostly love the books.

 
You can find the idea here.  Love this blog!!!


 
I was so immediately taken with Dragonfly's idea, that I sprang right into action, not noticing that she made up frog templates and everything, which you can find here.  That would've been so much easier.  So please, should you decide you loved her bulletin board as much as I did, save yourself the trouble, and purchase the bulletin board set from her Teacher's Pay Teacher's shop.  I did fudge the title a little, and changed it to "Spring into a Good Book" to make it more applicable to spring :)

 
This was a 2 day project for my class. The first day I handed out a large sheet of green construction paper to each student. I then made 4 tracers each of a frog body and frog head. I have 4 groups of desks, so each student in a group started off with the tracer then passed it on when they were done. (We have been using tracers/supplies like this since the beginning of the year, so they work great with them by now). I had them hold their paper length-wise for tracing. They also cut two strips of paper length-wise, then cut those in half and folded them accordion style for arms and legs.

 
Does that sound confusing? It looks confusing now that I look at it, but again- you're going to be using the templates from Dragonflies in First, so it doesn't matter!


 
Once I approved their frog bodies, they got to pick a square of scrap-book paper for the bathing suits. I didn't have any clear cut instructions or templates for them to follow. Just this wonderful piece of advice, "Just hold up the paper to your frog, and make it fit!" Those had to have been the most vague directions I've ever given to a group of 7 and 8 year olds, and you know what, like 17 out of 20 of them did perfectly fine with those instructions! I only had to help a few! (Note to self: Be much more vague with instructions in the future).

 
And PS, their bathing suits turned out a-feaking-dorable! Loved the one pieces. Also, loved the boys with enough guts to go with speedos over trunks. Too cute!

 

All but a few (those few who had trouble with the bathing suits, even after my clear-cut directions) finished their froggies in about 35 minutes. I told them that the next morning they would be making books for their froggy friends, and that they needed to make their book covers look as realistic as possible. I had pre-printed rectangles and hung mine up as an example, and they were good to go. Love this time of year…they're so much more independent!

Their book covers were out of this world, as you can see in these photos! I just was so impressed with their efforts on this project, and I let them know it! They in turn were very proud of themselves. And, they're loving all the teachers poking their heads in our classroom telling us how much they love their bulletin board.

I've said previously that I love bulletin boards that aren't particular to a certain holiday because I can keep them up longer. I'll keep this one up till probably mid-May, when I put up our End of the Year board.


 
Hopefully with things slowing down soon, we'll be able to take care of this little blog some more. If not, there's always next year…{isn't that a teacher's motto?}


 
Have a good one!

Adjectives Are Sweet

It sure has been awhile since we posted!  Blame the 100th Day, Valentine's Day, and Read Across America week.  Oh, and blame nasty colds.  Oh, and blame us, for being absent.  We just get so gosh darn tired every once in awhile.

We did this adjective activity a little while back, but our kiddos had such fun with it, we had to share it.  And by sharing we mean talking about it of course, but even better...giving it to you to use in your classrooms!!  For free :)

We use Storytown as our reading series.  Storytown spends no less than 5 lessons talking about adjectives.  Overkill?  A little?  A whole week on adjectives that tell how many is a little much if you ask us.  But recently, our kids learned about adjectives using the 5 senses.  What better way to learn about those adjectives than to use our 5 senses?  And what better way to use our 5 senses than candy????  You're right.  None.

First, we handed out the Sweet Adjectives sheet.  Then we walked around and let each student pick their candy.  Skittles were a huge hit, followed by M&Ms, and then the Twix and Snickers bars tied for third.  These kids were smart.  They knew the chocolate bars would start melting during the activity (why didn't their teacher think of that?).  We then had the students empty their candy out onto the frame on the page.  We decided to go sense by sense, and not let any kiddos work ahead.  That is completely your choice.  You could even make a center out of it!

Once everyone had completed looks, feels, and smells, everyone was allowed to chow down  Just in time for our chocolate bar choosers who were watching chocolate smudge and melt before their very eyes!  While students were chewing, they added to the taste section of their worksheet.  As you can see, each section needed 3 adjectives.  We weren't too choosy, students could use an adjective more than once, as long as they didn't overuse any adjectives.

After everyone's sweet tooth was satisfied, students drew their candy in the (now empty) frame portion of their worksheet.  Then (spur of the moment thought), students had to turn their paper over and use one adjective from each section in a sentence.  Simple! Tasty! Fun! Educational!  Easy! (How about those adjectives)???

There you have it! 

Get your copy here!

(Sorry.  Candy not included)

Thanks for stopping by!  We'll see you sooner rather than later next time!