Monkeys, Monkeys, Everywhere!

We just went wild finishing our study on Monkeys!  The students had a great time reading nonfiction books, learning new facts, and creating their own little monkeys to hang in the hallway.

 We also added tropical trees and vines......

and to make sure that we stayed somewhat academic, we added our completed monkey reports (see our last post).  Have a great weekend!

Monkey Reports

We are having the best time finding research about monkeys.  I usually like to use the K-W-L chart as a starting point but I have found the above chart to be a nice change.  First I asked the students what they thought they knew.  Then as we found the information in books we put a checkmark to confirm that it was true.  We also recorded new learning in the last column.

I still LOVE to have the students organize information that we have found using the above chart organization.  We call these our notes!  Students keep a copy of their own notes in their research folders.

I also love having the students draw a visual for new vocabulary learned.  These terms will go in our glossary that will be put at the end of our monkey reports.

These are the pages that were included in our monkey reports.  A table of contents came first, our research report next, then our glossary which included new vocabulary learned, and finally our notes.  This report really helped us stay organized and focused and we had a wild time learning all that we could about monkeys!
Have a great week!

St. Patty's Day is on the Way!

I had the best time making these little rainbow treats for the students.  All you need is rainbow colored licorice sticks, gold coins, and long plastic bags to make this simple little rainbow treat.  I am hoping the students will love the treat as much as I do.  In fact, I think I ate one too many of the colorful licorice treats!  Have a great week!

Permission to Pin

A big thank you to Laura Candler for creating the Permission to Pin post that explains all of the Pinterest Terms.  You have my permission to pin anything from my blog.  In fact, I would be honored!  Pinterest is an awesome resource and a great way to find lots of new ideas.

Math Wall Charts

Oh, how I love wall charts in the classroom.  This is a wall chart the students and I came up with to use when we sort shapes.  

This is also a chart we made to when we need to use color words, size words, and words to describe how many.  The students added a visual to the index cards to make the words easy to understand.  These charts hang in our classroom all year and I notice the students using them all of the time.  Wall charts are wonderful!