The week in review. . .

This week I have been showered with an abundance of hugs, cards, and things from my "favorite things" list!  

I am so appreciative of supportive and caring families.  I love these cards because they have have such sweet little messages inside...

We worked on cause and effect this week, and did a lot of great activities.  Here are some cards that we sorted as I introduced "cause and effect."    

Cause and Effect Mini Unit

 We also worked on two prefixes (re and un).  Here are a few books that worked wonderfully with the lessons.

We used dictionaries for a vocabulary activity.  Students worked in pairs and small groups to write their own definition, write the dictionary definition, write the word in a sentence, and illustrate the word.  I used words with basic prefixes such as:  words recycle, impossible, unkind, unhappy, return, review, and prehistoric.  

Vocabulary Connection

We worked on our own class book of "fortunate" and "unfortunate" events. This connected to cause and effect really well, and the students had a great time thinking about their own life experiences.

 We've been writing lots of poetry lately and have begun working on a "poe" tree display in the hall.

I love this book because it's full of great poems about all sorts of things.

 So far we have learned about the couplet, cinquain, and limmerick.  Next week we'll learn about several others.  When we're done, we'll have a giant "tree map" with 7 different kinds of poems, an example that we've written as a class, and their characteristics.  I know that April is poetry month, but our scope and sequence has poetry near the end of the school year.  Even though we work on poetry all throughout the year with our poetry notebooks, rhyming words, syllables, and other word work activities that are poetry related, we really focus on the different types of poetry and their elements during the final six weeks of school.

 

The Mother's Day gifts turned out great, and we put the final touches on them today.  Hopefully the students will remember to shower their mom's with hugs, kisses, and presents this weekend!

To end our week we celebrated "Cinco de Mayo" (better late than never) with some fun literature and a small taste test!

The kids did a wonderful job using this triple venn diagram. 

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all the hard working momma's out there.  I'm heading out of town to hang out with my three handsome men and to surprise my mom and grandmother! 

Mother's Day 2011

Here are a few cute ideas for Mother's Day.  They are connected to literature and can be completed within a couple of days!  In addition to these ideas I will probably have my student make a portrait of their mom with a water-color background because they always turn out so adorable.  In the past I've also done a class cook book where every student chooses a dish or dessert that their mom makes really well.  Then they write the "secret recipe" of how their mom makes the dish.  It's a really great review for expository writing, and they are hilarious!

I spotted these at Dollar Tree several weeks ago, and I thought they would make a perfect gift.  Each student will decorate their own "mug," and we'll place a few tea bags inside.


This is one of my favorite books about "mom's."  It has all kinds of things inside (and I mean all kinds of things-mom's have to be prepared)!  The kids always enjoy making predictions about what's inside.  Then we read the book to check our predictions.  As we read we also discuss which things are absolutely necessary and which things are optional.

I LOVE this part of the cover!

 SO true!

 Take a peek at a few pages. . .

This book is called "My Mommy's Tote."  The author is P.H. Hanson.
There are zillions of other ways to use this book!

This year I'm going to try something new.  Since we've already read "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse." We'll use it for comprehension as we complete some comparing and contrasting activities and text to self connections.
Students will make a purse for their mom using cute scrapbook paper. Then they'll write about things that their mom has inside her purse that help her to stay prepared!  I also made a venn diagram for students to compare and contrast Lilly's purse to their own mom's purse.


I have included a few examples of the class cookbook and a min-book about mom's (My Mom the Superhero).  My students will probably trace and cut two purses.  Then we'll seal the sides and bottom.  Inside the top we'll add the "mom" book and "purse" writing.

Class Cook Book_mother's Day

Mother's Day Book

Purse Onal Greeting

Compare and Contrast_purse

my cup of tea

mom's purse

I love Mother's Day because I have a wonderful mom, because I love being a mom, and because I know so many loving and dedicated moms who deserve to be showered and appreciated!