Planting Sunflowers!

We planted our sunflowers earlier this week and today we started  writing our nonfiction reports on Sunflowers.  I still love using this anchor chart to organize our thoughts.  We did this whole group and came up with lots of information about Sunflowers.

Next, the students were able to fill in their own chart.  They could use the information that we brainstormed as a class or any new ideas they might have.  We call these our "notes" and the students will refer back to these "notes" throughout the week.

We made our covers next.  This way we can keep our report papers safe and organized throughout the week.  

We then drew a diagram to show the different parts of a Sunflower.  We added labels and discussed how diagrams are important in nonfiction writing because it has words and a visual.  We will continue our project tomorrow and I will keep you updated on our activities.

Dirt Pudding





     April Showers bring May Flowers and we have had plenty of rain lately so we decided to make good old Dirt Pudding.  First, I showed the students the ingredients for this delectable dessert...1 pudding cup, 2 oreos, and 1 gummy worm.  Next, I then modeled to the students how to make the recipe.  We then wrote words we might need in our writing because the students had to write the directions on how to make Dirt Pudding on our First, Next, Then, Last planning sheet.  Once the students wrote the directions down and shared them with me, they could then make their Dirt Pudding.  The students thought it was a delicious dessert and their faces covered with pudding looked adorable!

"Egg-stra" Special Animals Hatch From Eggs!

We have been learning about animals that hatch from eggs in class.  The students each chose an animal that hatched from an egg and then wrote some sentences to describe the animal's egg.  The students then drew their animal to show it bursting it's way out of the egg.  The students loved cutting the middle of the egg and tearing the paper back a little to show the full effect.

We also made a graph of what kind of eggs we liked to eat.  The choices included hardboiled eggs, scrambled eggs, and fried eggs.   One student also admited that he could not stand to eat eggs so we added an extra row just for him!