All About Seeds!

Our book for the week was Seed Secrets.

After reading, we discussed the main idea and supporting details of the book.

We created a chart together and then the students worked on their own charts.

 "explode, coconut float on water, stick on bears"

 "stick on bears, float, fall"

"explode, stick on bears, helicopter"

I brought in a coconut this week!  We learned from the book that a coconut is one of the largest seeds in the world and that it can move by floating in water.

So we explored!!!  We shook it (to hear the water inside), we talked about the rough texture on the outside, and we figured out if it really would float.

Here it is floating!

I found this great video that showed how to easily open a coconut and I decided to attempt it!

Cracking Open a Coconut Quickly, Easily and Painlessly from Sonia! The Healthy Foodie on Vimeo.

Well...I couldn't get it to crack by using the back of a knife.  So I decided to place it in a plastic bag and then smack it against the concrete outside of my classroom.

That did it!  I drained out the coconut water and pried the coconut meat away from the shell.   We each got to take a little taste of both the coconut water and the coconut meat.  And most of the kids liked them both!

Trees, Trees, and Trees!

We have been learning all about trees this week!  We started off by reading a book about oak trees.

Then the lion cubs made a simple chart showing the life cycle of oak trees.

We learned about the parts of a tree and I created a pictorial input chart while teaching the students.

Then they drew and labeled the parts of a tree in their science journals.

Next, we unscrambled a sentence about an acorn which included "little" which is one of the high frequency words that we learned this week.  You can find my pack Unscramble This Sentence in my TpT store.

We also learned about pine trees.

I began by creating a Brace Map showing the parts of a pine tree.

Then everyone filled in their own Brace Map.

And the highlight was making these cute 3D trees from Robin Sellers (Christmas Tree Craft).  We had fun making them and telling each other about the life cycle of pine trees.

Our Zoo Thank You Book

We recently took a wonderful trip to the Los Angeles Zoo.  You can check out the post {HERE}

To thank Zoo Pals for our grant, we created an "All About" book to give to them.  And I loved the tie-in to our writer's workshop unit on informational writing!

We began by talking about all of the animals that we saw at the zoo.  I showed the kids a Powerpoint slide show of the animal photos that I took while at the zoo.  And we also looked at these great photo cards that I have in the classroom.

The front of the cards have colorful photographs and the back of the cards have information on each of the animals.

My students decided which animal they were going to write about and they got busy!

Here are some of the completed pages of our thank you book!

I think their illustrations and sentences came out fantastic!

The Los Angeles Zoo!

We were lucky enough to be able to take a field trip this year!  To the ZOO!  It has been YEARS since our Kinders have taken a field trip, and were so happy to receive a grant from Zoo Pals for admission and a bus!

It was a beautiful day in Los Angeles!  The bus ride is always such a thrill for the students!  They love driving on the freeway!

The teachers like to joke that we could load up the bus, drive around Los Angeles for an hour, then head back to school, and the kiddos would be just as happy as if we actually took a field trip somewhere!!!

We walked over the entire zoo.  I don't think we missed any animals!  We had so many tired kids that many of them took a nap on the way back to school!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Hope you all had a great St. Patrick's Day!

I made plans to do this cute directed draw of a leprechaun during the last hour of the day.  I found the directions from First Grade Blue Skies and you can grab it {HERE}

The little lions sat on the rug and watched me give the step by step directions to create this little leprechaun.  Here are a few of the drawings.

Love, love, love!  They are now hanging up in the classroom, all ready for Open House!

And everyone got to take home a little treat from me!  You can get the printable topper from A Cupcake for the Teacher {HERE}

Martin's BIG Words

Head over to Who's Who and Who's New for my latest blog post.  It's all about decorating my classroom door for Black History Month!

January Currently!

I'm linking up again with Farley's Currently!

Listening - The Rose Bowl game is on!  Love me some college football!

Loving -  My school district gets 3 weeks off for our winter break!  Yes, you read that right - 3 WEEKS OFF!  It's okay to be jelly!

Thinking -  I may or may not have had a few too many glasses of champagne last night.  I may or may not have slept until 10 am this morning.  I may or may not have started my day with 2 Extra Strength Excedrins to combat the headache that I may or may not have woken up with.  So I am now thinking that I should do a little cleaning...but I may or may not just think about it! Wink, wink! ;)

Wanting -  To do a little online shopping - perhaps TpT, perhaps Amazon...

Needing -  To take down the Christmas decorations, but ... (see Thinking above)

Yes - I am completing a Whole 30!  Day 1 today!

Maybe - I will finish a quilt!  I started one over 2 years ago!  Maybe I can work on it next week!  (see Loving above)   

I wish - I could travel to Ireland!  Wouldn't that be wonderful!