Bats, Sentence Imitation, and Ode to my bloggy-girls!

It's BAT WEEK!!!

(Graphic - Melonheadz)

My kids are LOVING bats!!

They loved spiders too...

It's amazing how interested in these things kids are. 

I love that they are loving what I'm teaching!

(my kids LOVE when I use the chalkboard - haha!)

To start with, we did a Circle Map (Thinking Maps) and divided it into two parts.

The top part is going to be everything that we already know,

and the bottom is what we learned.

*Notice we already have a misconception...which is good!!

First, we started with Stellaluna....

I mean, what other book would I start with??

THEN, I used Bats, but Gail Gibbons...

This is just the first of the Non-fiction books I will be using

So, today, we compared how these two BOOKS are alike.

Ummm....

Can I tell you??  That is some hard stuff for them!!

The kept wanting to tell me about the "characters" in the books...

I think I know what we will be doing a lot more of...

comparing non-fiction and fiction books.

We've been doing some of the bat centers from my bat unit this week...

I HAVE to remember to take pictures during centers, but it's sooo hard since I'm working with small groups - haha!

Go check it out!

TpT  or TN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted to share with you something that I have learned from our resource teachers at our school.

This is a district made thing...

and it's something I actually like!!

SENTENCE IMITATION

ok...

so don't kill me here.

BUT,

You know those D.O.L thingies that WE ALL do??

You know.

find what is rong with this sentence and phix it

type things??

Yeah...I did them ALL THE TIME too!

WELL,

I am IN LOVE WITH THIS!!!!

Our district has given us a book with these sentences that come from our reading series (again, I don't use the reading series, so I just find sentences in the books that we read).

But you do one sentence a day.

Then, with the students you talk about...

"what do you notice about this sentence?"

And let me tell you...

grammar and phonics and writing lessons, ALL IN ONE!!!

And they DO notice!!

I just make the sentences match what we are working on in class...

nouns and verbs (spiders sentence)...we also worked on commas in a series.

Below, we've started our bat books, so I'm using those sentences.....

plural nouns, past tense, i_e words, AND I've put in some science with the baby bats called a pup sentence.

here are some student examples...

Today, our sentence came from Stellaluna...

our phonic's skill this week is blends, s-blends actually, 

BUT...they even found those blends!! I was SO excited!!

Seriously - I love this! And it can work for ANY and EVERY grade level!!!

The next step?

Is for THE STUDENTS to be able to write a sentence that imitates the skills they find in the one I write.  We'll start that next week, I think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You remember when I showed you our currently from Farley that we do in class each month??

(go HERE to check them out!)

WELLLLL....

I can't leave out my girl, Reagan's monthly activity we do!!

TADA!!

It our October Geometric quilt!!

This one was a doosy - I don't tell them how to get to the shape...they all start with squares and have to get to the right size and shape...

after a while, I showed a few though...

(go HERE to check them out!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LAST, but not least!

I am SOOOOOO stinkin' proud of my girls Farley and Reagan for getting their workout on and striving to become healthier!!!

Take a look (HERE) at how AWESOME Farley is lookin'!!!

And HERE, Reagan tells us how much she LOVES burpees!! 

lol - yeah...right...like anyone could love burpees!

so, I have to show you...here I am in all my glory...

We are doing PLANKS with side leg "lifts" ON A BENCH!!!

haha!!

I was SOOO proud of myself!!

A) for not falling

B) for having that much core strength to be so straight like that!!

I LOVE going to bootcamp after school!!

yes, we do it outside...

in Florida...

but it's SOOO worth it!!

It was a long post - sorry!!! But if you made it this far - THANKS for stickin' around!!

LOVES to ya!!