Using Natural Resources {Freebie}

Today was a crazy day. I taught so many things and I have no idea how we fit it all in. Strange contractions... Mother's Day writing... natural resources... fractions... comparing numbers... insect body parts... and the life cycle of a butterfly! I guess if I listed out my day every day it would look like that... haha!

But I want to tell you now about our natural resources lesson! After we read the pages in our social studies book about natural resources, we filled out a little graphic organizer just to review what we learned.

Afterward, the students grabbed any picture book and looked for things in the pictures made from natural resources, specifically, trees, metal, and oil. They listed the things they found in a table.

And after THAT, we went to the computer lab and used the NCES Create a Graph site. We inputted our data into the website and it cranked out a little bar graph for us!

Do you teach about natural resources? Because I put all of this fun stuff into a little pack for ya! Click on the screenshot to download it from Google Docs. Let me know if you can use it!

{frames by The 3AM Teacher and fonts by Creating Keepsakes}

In the midst of our crazy day, it rained and rained, so we missed both recesses. By 1:15, we just couldn't take it anymore. So we went outside and played Red Light Green Light!

Good end to a good day. :)

It Never Rains in Florida!

Today we studied seasons and weather in Social Studies and made a foldable! I don't do a ton of foldables but my class really loves them. I think they're into the little flaps, haha.

They had to draw a picture of the season and then write a little something about the weather during that season.

Part of what we learned today was that different parts of the country have different weather at the same time. We talked about how people from Illinois go to Florida during the winter because it's warmer there than it is here, and then I learned from my class that it NEVER rains in Florida! Isn't that interesting?

In other news, our little zinnias are coming up beautifully!

And while I was by the window taking this picture, I noticed our sweet kite glyphs that are making our room so cute!

This glyph is from the Great Glyphs Around the Year e-book from Scholastic. 

I got it during one of the dollar specials and it is pretty sweet. I especially loved this particular glyph because there was no gluing involved! We have been totally out of glue since before Christmas... yikes.

And I leave you with this which made me die laughing today! I hope you're enjoying the last day of April, because starting tomorrow......

Flow Charts (Freebie!)

How was your long weekend? I had a four day weekend and it was lovely. I read a LOT, especially this wonderful book.

Any Tina Fey fans out there? I have just started getting into 30 Rock and I think she is HILARIOUS.

I totally forgot my camera at school because I was in a rush to leave since I had class tonight, but I can still share some things!

Today in Social Studies, we learned about flow charts. Our unit has been about government, and we used a flow chart last week to learn that when community members work together, they can make changes! Our book's example was that the bus stations in Harlem were taken down to make road repairs, but were never put back up. The kids were super, SUPER concerned about the poor people of Harlem being cold in the winter. Thankfully that problem was solved.

Today we reviewed flow charts and made our own. They had to come up with their own problems and potential solutions. So far, the best problem was, "There was one prince and two princesses."

This is big stuff, people.

Anyway, when I was looking for a flow chart online for them to fill out, I couldn't find anything that looked like what I needed, so I made my own. You can have it if you want! Just click on the picture. Let me know if you take it. :) 

And here are a few pictures for ya... sadly, from my phone.

Here's the pupster in his little seatbelt harness on our way to el banco yesterday. Unbeknownst to me... el banco was not open! Oh wells. We had a fun little ride. 

My first box of cookies came in!! I got 2 more after this. And it is only the beginning...

And another Hey Girl for your viewing pleasure. This one made me laugh so hard, especially because my boyfriend totally knows what TpT stands for!!

Leaders Foldable

So 100th Day sort of threw us off... and Chinese New Year... but we really are studying our government! Today we learned about our leaders. We talked about community leaders, state leaders, and country leaders.


They had no idea what a community leader was even called, so they didn't know their own mayor. Also they didn't know who our governor was! So we learned a lot. The funny thing was that, in our book, the governor example is Arnold Schwarzenegger and the president example is George Bush.


I asked if any of them recognized Arnold from anywhere and they just looked at me, puzzled. Five minutes later, one said, "Um, isn't that the guy from Kindergarten Cop?" Yes, my friend, yes it is.


Anyway!


We made a foldable type of thing to help us remember our leaders. I don't know if it really counts as a foldable per se since no folding actually occurred. Regardless, it was a type of graphic organizer and the kids loved it!

As you can probably see... we wrote the name of our community (which I have removed, just use your imagination) with the name of our mayor in the little circle, Illinois with the name of our governor in the middle circle, and United States with the name of our president in the outside circle! It also helped them understand that the president leads more people and has more power than the mayor and governor!


They took their bullseyes home today to teach their parents about our leaders! Although I found one on the floor after school..... boo.

Tomorrow we learn about elections! I'm excited to push a read-aloud into Social Studies - check back tomorrow! :)

December Currently!

I'm so happy the December Currently is here!!

This past week was our Gingerbread Week. We read 5 different gingerbread stories, compared and contrasted them, and did a few fun activities. Here is our CLAPS (Characters, Location, Action, Problem, Solution) chart which helped us compare each of the stories throughout the week.

As you can see, we read The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Baby, The Musubi Man, and the Cajun Cornbread Boy.

They ALL loved Gingerbread Baby the best!

We made the gingerbread glyphs that I got from Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade!

We also did a ginger taste test graphing activity which I got from Tales of a Teacherista! I didn't get any pictures of the actual tasting, but the kids loved it. We tried ginger ale, gingerbread flavored marshmallows, and ginger snaps. They could not get enough ginger ale!!!! And they detested the ginger snaps. We had fun. :)

Unrelated to gingerbread, we made new window decorations. I think 3 months was long enough to leave up our apples, right? We made Christmas-themed tissue paper/contact paper things this time.

Okay, go link up with Farley!