Apples

Its been all about apples these past two weeks. Here are a few of the many math and literacy activities we did.

We worked on this worksheet in reading groups. I cut out clipart pics beginning with the letter we've studied and put them on colored apples. The students would color an apple on their sheet that matched the apple they were looking at. Then we figured out the letter the picture started with and wrote it in the box below.

We read 10 Apples Up on Top. We sequenced the numbers and balanced them on our own tiger's head. Then for fun we tried to see how many apples WE could balance up on top. This was so much fun!

Noone got more than 3 :)

This is the poetry notebook poem of the week. We are finding more and more popcorn words each day!

We made these cute apples with paper plates. Then we cut up Popcorn words and built simple sentences.

Apple Graphing

We read several versions of Johnny Appleseed and made our own pots to wear.

Applesauce!

Reading Rotations

I started Reading Groups this week. This is always my favorite part of the day. I love small groups and the "organized chaos" of the room at this time. Everyone is BUSY for this 50 minute block! I was a little hesitant to even attempt rotations this year with the amount of students. I have 22! In past years when I had 16-18, I was able to do 3 groups where they would rotate from teacher/seatwork/literacy center. With the numbers I have this year I decided to add another spot in the rotation to keep the groups small. Luckily I was able to secure one of the TA's in the building to be with me at this time EVERY day. She will have her own teacher station to work on Dolch words and Word Study. So far it it is going GREAT!!! Here is an image of what my CRAZY chart looks like:

We are taking it slow. Right now I am talking them through how to read the chart before we start and making sure everyone knows where they need to go when I have them switch. Each station is about 10-15 minutes. Many of them have already gotten the swing of things. 

Monsters and Shapes

This week we worked a lot on Shapes. I always loved the Hubbard's Cupboard Shape Monster Book, so I decided to expand on that and create a "monster theme". Here are some of the activities we did.

In Math we sequenced numbers to ten with partners. Then we filled out a matching worksheet.

To complete the sheet, students colored the monsters in an AB pattern.

Popcorn Word Match and Write

This was a new station I added to Reading Group Rotations. Students point and read the sentences and then write the missing words in the sentences to match.

I created my own shape monster book that was a little easier to assemble than the Hubbard's Cupboard version. They glued the correct shape to each page.

After reading the book we made our OWN shape monsters! Each table got a large shape and a bunch of small shapes to decorate with. They had a lot of fun with this and they turned out so CUTE! Students were given a homework assignment to bring in items or magazine cut outs with shapes. They presented the items they brought in and fed them to the correct monster.

The final product on display!