We had a blast celebrating the literary works of Dr. Seuss this week. On Monday, the students came dressed in their crazy socks and I read "Fox in Socks." We made a class graph to answer the question, "Do you have on crazy socks today?" Once everyone's response was recorded, we read the graph and the students had to figure out a very tricky question: How many more students wore crazy socks than didn't?" Then the students wrote about their crazy socks in their journals.
The next day was St. Patrick's Day - and the theme was Green Eggs and Ham. So the students came decked out in green.
But our normal routine was sabotaged by some leprechaun mischief. When the students came in, our center materials had been tied up onto the curtain rods and taped up high on the windows with a giant note left behind.
But a basket full of St Patrick's Day activities had been left for us.
So we did those instead. First, we read the book, "That's What Leprechauns Do" by Eve Bunting. The story told of the mischief the leprechauns can't help but make on their way to put the gold at the end of a rainbow. The students then wrote about what they would like to find at the end of the rainbow.
Next, the students did a Write-the-Room activity. There were sight words on shamrocks left all around the room. The kiddos tried to find and write all 32 of them. Boy, were they ever determined!
After this whole group activity, we broke up into four small groups. Two groups worked independently on coloring and cutting out a leprechaun hat
and on coloring a rainbow with the traditional colors, using cotton balls to make fluffy clouds.
The other two groups worked with Mrs. Taylor to play a CVC memory game using gold coins.
While at my center, they graphed the marshmallows in their own portion of Lucky Charms.
The next day, we were back to our normal routine. We read Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book and the students came dressed in their jammies.
We made another class graph. This one was about our bedtime routines.
The students shared what they did before bed: brush their teeth, take a bath, read a book, and snuggling with a parent/grandparent. Then we compared how many more did one activity over another. (By the way, the AM class is the black tally marks, the PM class is the red tally marks). Then the students wrote about their bedtime routine in their journals.
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| I brush my teeth and I read and I take a bath and I snuggle with my family - Ashley |
After journals, the students start up centers. This week, nearly every center had a Seuss theme. In the word work center, the students cracked open green eggs that were filled with the letters to make two rhyming words. They had to find the matching words on the Cat in the Hat's hat.
In the number work center, the students had to fill up the hundred grid with Seuss numbers. Each row of ten had a different Seuss character or object.
The students were introduced to telling time in the math games center. They spun the Lorax clock spinner and traced the time it showed on their truffula tree. Once all the times had been spun and traced, they colored their truffula tree to look just like the ones in The Lorax.
There was a little bucket in the writing center that contained sight words and words that Dr. Seuss made up in his books. The students took turns pulling a word out, deciding if it was a Seuss word or sight word, and then writing it on the proper side of their worksheet.
And, finally, in the fine motor center, the students played with playdough, stamping letter beads to make words. My original plan was to make the gak that I made for them back in August and coloring it green to look like the oobleck in the Seuss story "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" but I kept forgetting to make it - so we made do with the playdough. But we did get to play with some oobleck eventually. More on that in a minute.
After centers comes recess, and after recess comes whole group math. This month our calendar activities look like this....
This month we are identifying "yesterday, today, and tomorrow". We are also tracking the weather since March usually runs the gamut as far as weather conditions go.
On the next page, the students spin a coin, identify it and then add it to the loose change jar.
We have been singing this silly song to learn the coin names.
Something we are ALWAYS working on is decomposing/composing teen numbers using tens and ones. This Rainbow Numbers page helps us to see it very concretely. Each day, the students used the base ten blocks to create a few numbers and then write numbers to represent the blocks in the clouds.
On the last page, the students are practicing their addition and subtraction (and how to go back and forth between the two skills fluently). They spin the spinner, use the number line to solve the problem, and then they get a piece to their robot. (Each part of the robot is a sum/difference to the math problems). We hope to have a whole robot built before March ends.
Now- for the last two days of Seussapalooza week. On Thursday, the students came in animal print because we read "If I Ran the Zoo." In hindsight - I realize I should have just had a "Wear something with an animal on it" day since boys don't typically have anything in their drawers with animal print. My bad, guys. But Mrs. Taylor and Sophia made a cute matching pair.
Once again, we made a class graph answering the question, "Have you ever been to the zoo?"
Then the students responded in their journals.
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| Yes. I have been to the zoo four times. |
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| Yes, I have and I went to see the monkeys with my dad. |
And then - there was Friday - Cat in the Hat day. The students came dressed as Thing 1 or Thing 2, Mrs. Taylor came as Thing 3. And I came as the Cat in the Hat. We had all sorts of fun activities. to do on this rainy day (just like the book)!
First, the students went on a word hunt for only the words that rhymed with their Cat in the Hat hat. The hats had one of the following word families: op, at, ug, and it. This was an extension of the word work they did earlier in the week with the green eggs.
Then they colored their hats...
cut them out and glued them onto a brightly colored piece of construction paper of their choice.
Next, we did our weekly learning test. Now - I know this doesn't sound like much fun - but they LOVE it. We pretend like they are at work in an office. Each child has their own cubicle and I only call them by their last names. I tell them they have a report due to me before the time is up and that they will be fired if they don't complete it. I don't know why - but they really love it when I play the mean boss.
Whatever works. They work quietly, stay on task, and submit their "reports." Then they wait for their paycheck. This week, their paycheck was.....
Oobleck!
After this, we heard the story of Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
And then the feast began and we watched a little of The Lorax. I'll leave with pics from the rest of the day and some very sage advice from Dr. Seuss.
