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As some of you may know, I had somewhat of a “deprived” childhood. I’ve never seen Bambi, Winnie the Pooh, Sesame Street, or a whole assortment of commonplace children’s shows and movies. I’ve never been to any zoo. And I don’t remember ever eating a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich before the age of 15....
In an effort to spread some link love and, frankly, introduce some people to my book blog, I decided to zoom around the blogosphere and check out what the book blogs are blogging about! (How many times did I say book and/or blog in that sentence?) :) So here we go: --The Bronte Blog (which, by the way, is a wonderful one-stop shop for all things Bronte) lets us know that Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre have been featured recently in a comic strip! --Fleur Fisher is reviewing Lettice Delmer, by Susan Miles--which is, interestingly enough, an entire novel written in blank verse. --Books and Movies completely intrigues me with the news that an unknown Enid Blyton manuscript has been unearthed! I was a huge Enid Blyton fan as a child. --Besides hosting the Saturday Review of Books (which, unfortunately, I didn't make it into this week), Semicolon is reviewing Madeleine L'Engle's Certain Women. Which reminds me that I've never yet read anything by Madeleine L'Engle. I know, I know! --Carpe Libris is reviewing Angel Sister, by Ann H. Gabhart. And this sentence really makes me want to read the book: "I read Angel Sister in a short amount of time because I didn't want to leave the story for even a few minutes." -- Reading to Know is reviewing James Scott Bell's No Legal Grounds--another review that makes me want to read the book! She calls it a "good, fun legal thriller." Bell is another author who I've heard great things about, but never yet read. --Kristen Billerbeck's A Billion Reasons Why is the focus at WordVessel. I've read several novels by Billerbeck, and loved them all. --By the Book is participating in the Friday Book Blogger Hop, which I really should start taking part in! My poor little book blog just doesn't have very many readers! The blog hop is asking the question: "Do you ever wish you'd named your blog something different?" --The Ink Slinger--one of my favorite reviewers--is doing something similar to what I'm doing right now. He's posting links to some interesting stuff around the blogosphere. Check it out! Hope you'll head over to these excellent blogs, and tell them I sent you! :)
so i started reading Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint
Learning about trees was a fun activity for my first grade students this week! We learned about the importance of trees on our environment and all the things that we get from trees.
This week started out with another cool box creation! My neighbors brought me another box, and the cardboard corner pieces begged to become a ball track. We rolled ping pong balls (yes, I rolled some too,) whenever the box was available. I finally retired the bean box midweek, when all the beans were spread all over the floor. Twenty-one ping pong balls are easier to pick up than 3000 beans! One of the things I wanted to include this week was more science. We started learning about trees by brainstorming what the children know or think they know. This is called activating prior knowledge - basically, if they're thinking about something, it's easier to add new knowledge onto what they already know. We made models of trees; a half art, half science activity. As they painted we talked about the parts of the tree, and I introduced the word "trunk" - I was surprised no-one knew that word when we made our chart! We talked about making the roots under the ground as big as the branches above, and that roots branch out too. Here are our finished trees, with all the parts labelled. Another tree project we did was one with concentric circles for leaves. We looked at Kandinsky's paintings of concentric circles, then made our own. The oldest kiddos cut out their own circles, the younger ones had precut circles. We talked about shapes a lot this week! You can see all our beautiful concentric circle trees at www.artsonia.com. Here's what the children knew about trees a couple of days later. They were very impressed to know chocolate comes from beans on a tree! They learned new vocabulary - trunk, learned about more products from trees (cardboard, hockey sticks, rubber, maple syrup), and learned that green leaves breath and make food for trees, and make oxygen for us to breathe too! I'm impressed with how much these 3-5 year old kiddos know! We also learned a lot about turtles this week - mostly sea turtles. We did an awesome art project: On the first day we water colored an ocean background with cool colors. The kiddos worked very hard to cover their papers with color! The next day they painted the turtles. I showed them a model of a sea turtle, and we noticed the shape (oval), counted flippers, and noticed that the front flippers were long and curved. They followed step by step directions to make beautiful turtles. When they were dry the teachers cut them out, and the children glued their turtles onto the ocean background. Beautiful! You can see all of them at www.artsonia.com. Our turtle study wouldn't be complete without acknowledging a certain group of 4 teenaged turtles. I knew TMNT would engage the kiddos, particularly some of the boys who often wear turtle clothes to school, but I didn't want a day of Ninja wars and t.v.-related pretend. Here's our compromise: I made a chart comparing Ninja Turtles to sea turtles, and the children told me all the answers for Ninja turtles. Next, I read a beautiful realistic fiction book about a loggerhead turtle: One Tiny Turtle, by Nicola Davies. As I read, the children listened to find out what loggerheads eat, where they live, how big they grow, and other cool facts. The kiddos remembered all the relevant facts! We finished our turtle theme with a snack that looks like one. I put peanut butter on Ritz crackers, and the kiddos added almonds for heads, cashews and peanuts for flippers, and topped it with another cracker for the carapace (shell). Of course, we did our usual activities: upper and lower case letter crafts, hand and foot prints, and our abc albums. Some of the hand and foot print art doesn't require much work from the children, and I've been thinking that perhaps I need to change that. Painting hands, and especially feet, this week, reminded me of what a fun sensory experience it is for the children to feel the brush as it spreads the paint, and the lovely squishy feeling of paint between their toes. They love this activity, and that is enough sometimes! For more hand and foot print ideas, check out pinterest. Finally, here are some trains we made while talking about and reviewing the names of shapes. This clever idea came from Counting Coconuts.
Hey everyone, I found the cutest idea on Pinterest for a classroom family tree. I thought it was so adorable, so I thought I would try to make one for my class. I drew a picture of each student separate and a tree... so then I could move them around independently until I thought it looked right. I'm so excited about how it turned out! I'm going to give my students a black and white copy for Valentine's Day so they can color it like a coloring page :). Here was my inspiration... This adorable classroom family tree is from First Grade Fabulous Fish. Here is my classroom family tree that I drew for my kiddos! I made a duplicate of this picture and put each students name next to their picture, incase they can't tell which one is them. :) I'm so excited! I think it turned out pretty cute... and I know my kiddos are going to flip when they see it. I was going to color it for them, but the more I thought about it, I liked the idea of letting each student color their own. :) Enjoy!
These trees with numbers are great for students learning to connect numerals to quantities. These trees can be used in several ways: 1. Numbers 1-20 include apples with matching quantities for students to match the apple to the tree. 2. Numbers 5-20 can be used to play a game. The student can roll a die, then cover one number on the tree with a pom-pom or chip. The first student to fill the board wins. *dot cards or number cards can also be used to play (also included in the set)
Free tree songs, rhymes, and educational videos for a variety of ages; perfect for homeschool or classroom for a tree theme, apple tree theme, or seasons theme
Dr. Seuss quote about tongue from The Lorax: “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”
Here is another share of our activities at our homeschool. It is a simple activity using the book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein Hope you find it useful! Hello! My name is Angelica and I am a homeschool mom of two wonderful kids. i have used TpT for many years as a resource and this is my w...
Today we read the classic story The Giving Tree! Such a great story that really gets the kids thinking about friendship and caring and using their imaginations in a different way!
Do you use anchor charts in your classroom? The kids love anchor charts, and they are a great way to practice reading skills! I created th...
Learning about trees was a fun activity for my first grade students this week! We learned about the importance of trees on our environment and all the things that we get from trees.
How to make hand print art that looks like a tree when you're teaching your preschooler the letter T.
A Mom's Quest to Teach: Create a Tree for the Letter T with your preschooler
