Earth Day and Parts of a Plant

Monday was Earth Day.  We read a book about the holiday and discussed ways we could help take care of the Earth.  Then we made some Earth pictures with funny faces and wrote about what we would like to do to take care of the planet we live on.

We discussed the parts of a plant this week.  We learned about the roots, stem, leaves, and flower and what jobs they have.  We split our class into 4 teams and each team was in charge of making a giant part of a plant:

The roots group

The stem group

The leaves group

The flower group

Here is the finished project!  It is a humongous flower out in the hallway.  We worked on writing sentences about each part of the plant all week long and labeled our flower.  The kids were pretty proud of their work!

We also made our own individual flower pictures and labeled the parts of the plant.

Here is a video the kids have enjoyed while learning the parts of a plant:

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Centers and math time were a lot of fun this week!  Here are some highlights:

 Adding numbers using seeds

 Writing about what would happen to the Earth if we didn't take care of it

 Finding word wall words in a book about Earth day

 Picking two numbers out of a garden glove and adding them together

 Counting syllables

 Matching silent e words to their pictures

 Writing an acrostic poem about spring

 Planting flowers by counting by tens

 Reading words and drawing pictures to match

 Comparing numbers and figuring out which is greater or less than

 Using some fun stamps to build plants on paper

 Practicing listening for vowel sounds in words

 Adding two numbers and then counting on from that number

 Reading books in the reading center about plants

 Making books about the life cycle of a plant

 Practicing the sh, ch, th, and wh sounds in words

 Writing equations that equal ten

Making partners with numbers using a ladybug mat

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The computer lab is unavailable for use on Fridays because other classes are doing their end of year testing.  We took advantage of the extra time and beautiful weather and had a fun time playing outside on the playground together! 

Niki was our star student and enjoyed showing us a movie that makes him laugh!

Silent E

We had a fun time this week learning all about the silent e that is found at the end of many words.  Here we all are with our magic e wands!  We practiced changing words like cap to cape with the wave of the wand while saying, "Silent e, silent e!"

We practiced changing words on our own with our magic e wands as we hunted for words around the room.

We used our magic word changing skills to create new words on paper and illustrated them as well.

During center time, we used clothespins with the letter e on them to figure out which word needed the silent e.

On Tuesday, we learned that silent e is like a ninja...sneaky and quiet.  (See video below).  We made ninja masks for our activity.

Here we are ready to go change words with our ninja e skills!

We found pictures around the room and decided if they should have a silent e or not.

We also built silent e words with our word tiles.

And spelled silent e words we found hiding around the room.

We learned all about the -ake word family this week.

We hunted for words with magnifying glasses that ended in -ake and then wrote our own words too.

Here are a couple of our favorite videos about silent e:

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On Wednesday, we made torn paper rainbows.

We wrote poems about our favorite color of the rainbow to go with it and they turned out so great!

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In math this week, we talked more about making several different "partners" with one number.  The kids were very good at this!

We played a game on our own after working together as a class to practice.

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During centers this week, we found word wall words in a book about spring.

We practiced our American Symbols one more time with a matching game.

We sorted spring words by syllables.

We put frogs with equations on them into ponds with the correct sum.

We found itty-bitty word wall words on spring pictures.

We practiced rhyming with a fun little poem about a windy day.

We found missing letters in spring words.

We practiced listening for the beginning and ending sounds in words on a rainbow mat.

We read our teen numbers as fast as we could with a Pete the Cat game.

The kids enjoyed reading around the room with pointers and had fun making sentences with our word wall.

We listened to a story about rain.

We sorted addition facts written on rainbows by their sum.

And we used the gel bags to practice spelling our word wall words.

 

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Maddison was our star student this week and enjoyed sharing her special things with us!

Happy 6th birthday to Brynley and Sam!  Thanks for the fun sidewalk chalk and yummy cookies!

Maeby and Evelyn were awarded student of the month this month for being considerate.  These girls watch out for everyone and are always there in a heartbeat if someone is sad or needs help.

Thanks silly girls!  :)