This week has been crammed packed with fractions and contractions!! Two of my favorites to teach I might add. Of course we had to do "contraction surgery"! So fun! {I'm am soooo not an artist so they just got posted on an anchor chart} This idea came from Cara over at The First Grade Parade. {I get tons of ideas from her!} After a quick introduction it was time for some craftivities that will help them remember which words make up which contractions. We started off by making "contraction kites". The students wrote the contraction on the kite, the 2 words on the bows, and a sentence using the contraction on the cloud. We have made contraction kites for several years now, but there are so many other ways on Pinterest on how you can take the same idea and adjust it to fit any skill. If you would like the template for the kite click HERE. {very simple drawing by me, the NOT so artistic teacher, but Hey! it got the job done} We also made "contraction caterpillars". The students chose 4 contractions of their choice. They recorded the contraction on the caterpillar body and the 2 corresponding words on the legs. If you would like the template for the caterpillar click HERE. {Another very simple drawing by me} We have also been working on fractions this week. LOVE teaching fractions!! We started off by learning about equal and not equal parts. We sorted random shapes cut into different pieces into equal and not equal. You might recognize this from last year's fraction post. We also completed "fractionpillars" and "If you give a mouse a cookie" fraction activities as we did last year. The "fractionpillar" idea came from Cara over at The First Grade Parade. {I wasn't kidding when I said I get TONS of ideas from her, just fabulous stuff!} For some reason I didn't get a snap of those, but I will post later. Last week we were learning about U.S symbols. The 2 we focused on were the Bald Eagle and Liberty Bell as well as the Statue of Liberty. After reading non-fiction books found in our schools library and a short United Streaming video, it was time to record facts we had learned about each of them. For the liberty bell, they simply recorded facts about the bell they remembered from the text. {I pre-cut the bells for my kiddos so I don't have a template, sorry} For the bald eagles, I found this cute craftivity on pinterest and had to check it out! After following a few links it led me to Mrs. Lirette's Learning Dectectives. I found this wonderful eagle research! You have to check it out if you are planning to study bald eagles! Fabulous research ideas and recording sheets! They cut an oval for the body and traced their hands for the wings, added white on the face and 2 googly eyes and VIOLA! The cutest bald eagle you have ever seen! YAY for a 4 day week next week AND the week after {Monday is a bad weather day for us} Love Easter! Bring on the egg hunts! My in-laws church is bringing in a helicopter to drop 5,000 Easter eggs! That's one mega Easter egg hunt!! Hope ya'll have wonderful weekend and fabulous Easter!