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!

Classroom Friends

We have been talking a lot about being a good buddy to our classmates.  I love the slogan "Be A Buddy Not A Bully" because the students seem to remember it very easily.  We brainstormed action words that we could do to be a good buddy.  We came up with listen, share, care, take turns, be nice, use kind words, help, say hello, and smile.  

We wrote each word on a heart and placed them around our poster.  The most interesting part of our discussion was when we talked about words that would be the opposite of these words.  For example, the opposite of smile would be frown and the opposite of be nice would be mean.  These opposites could easily describe a bully.  We wanted to keep our poster positive so we just listed buddy words.  This activity was exactly what we needed at this time of year to help us focus on being good buddies to our classmates.

The Very Useful Purchase!

I love to scrapbook!  Every other Wednesday I go to a scrapbooking class and after the class I walk out with new and clever ways to make my scrapbooks and cards more creative.  Almost always, however, I feel guilty for buying things I use for my favorite hobby.  So I end up justifying my purchases by trying to find ways to use these tools in the classroom too.  This little 3/4 inch punch made by EK Success is one of those purchases.

I bought it with no real purpose but now I have found many.  The punch is durable and kid friendly.  Students can punch their own circles out to make........ 

patterns.

I also used the circles when I created our Making Ten index card books.  (Students have to flip the pages until they can show ten.  They then record the circles on a recording sheet)

Students can also sort the circles in a sorting tray,

and match the correct numeral to the dots in our index books.

The students have also used the circles to make their own number lines, locate corners on shapes, and use as counters in both adding and subtracting.  So now, I feel like my students and I have truly benefited from this purchase that I thought was unnecessary.  In fact, I would strongly suggest this punch to any classroom teacher in a second!  Have a great day!