Five for Fraturday Recap, Freebies & A Giveaway

I am so excited to be linking up with Kacey at Doodle bugs for her Five for Friday Fraturday.  It has been a while since I have been able to link up.  You know how life just seems to take over sometimes. 

I love sharing ideas and collaborating with other teachers and that is one of the reasons I started this blog.  However, I also like to use it as sort of a journal of what has been happening in and out of the classroom for future reference. SO, I am forewarning you this post is a bit LONG. There are a few freebies for you along the way though. 

It is going to be a recap of our 5 best events over the last 6 weeks.  Many of these ideas are for past events so possibly you can find something that you can tuck away in your back pocket for next year. If you follow me on IG you have already seen some of these pics.  If you don’t follow you totally should, it is just a quick simple way to share ideas. It is quickly becoming my favorite form of social media.

Since this is a rewind post in a way, we are backing up to February where we do a unit on American Symbols.  I always try to find ways to incorporate art into our lessons weekly.  It is fun and I feel it is important to make sure my kiddos are exposed to as many different types of activities as possible.  This year we made tear art flags.

After learning all about them, how many stripes and stars and why there are that many, we made these cute flags.  It was super easy prep.  You will need a red 8 ½ X 11 piece of paper, blue paper 4 X 6, then I gave each student a n 8 ½ X 11 white piece of paper to tear the white stripes. I did show them how to tear the paper into strips. Finally, they use a Q-tip and white paint for the stars.  I will admit some of my kiddos did better at counting out their 50 stars than others. But I am learning to “let go”, I may have control issues and want things to be perfect. So, once I passed out the supplies I just let each of them be unique.  I think they came out great!

We also made this great Abe Lincoln craftivity.  We are using the Guiding Readers units from Deedee Wills and Deanna Jump.  This activity was included and the kiddos loved it.  

I changed up our writing prompt just a bit.  Abe kept his important papers in his hat.  We wrote about what was important to us and then put this on our Abe hats. How cute are these…and they did a great job with their writing as well.

For March there was a lot going on, so I tried to narrow it down a bit. First up is totally not school related, sorry.  Every year we take a family vacation to the Nascar race in Las Vegas. Yes I miss 4 days of school, but I don’t miss school, unless there is an in-service of some kind. (I am the technology lead at our school so every other month I miss a half day.) Anywho, we spent a total of 6 days in Vegas and it was a blast. We create memories with our boys that they will never forget.

The week after I got back was St. Patrick’s day and we completed these fantastic Leprechauns.  It was a directed drawing FREEBIE from Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies. I just love how these turned how. 

I put together these cute treats for my kiddos, as well.  This bag topper can be found for FREE here from Rachelle at What the Teacher Wants.

We also made these Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow crafts. I saw two different ideas on IG and incorporated the two, thanks @mrsjumpsclass and @mrsmelissadailey for the inspiration.

I made the clouds and pots, you can download yours here for FREE. Thanks to Creative Clips for the cute pot graphic and KG Fonts. Just copy on white and black cardstock. 

We wrote what we were lucky to have, and then they cut them out.  Their answers were just so sweet.  Next we made a rainbow chain. I had 1 ½” X 11” strips of paper pre-cut. My para and I stapled them together to save time, rather than gluing them.  Yes, I am aware the colors may not be exactly scientifically correct.  Then the kiddos cut out their pot and used gold paper to tear into “gold pieces” that they glued on it. Use a small black strip (1” X 6”) for the handle of the pot to attach to the rainbow and you’ve got it! It was a great discussion about everything we have to feel “Lucky” about and fun too!

Next up was Easter.  It was a busy week, trying to fit in as much learning as possible. Which wasn't easy since the kiddos were so excited and squirrely with the thought of spring break coming up. They had a blast during our Easter Egg hunt. Yes, most of my kiddos are wearing PJ’s, it was spirit week too!

We also completed another directed drawing by Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies.  Get your FREEBIE here.  My kiddos just love completing these!

For my kiddos I made some cute bunny baskets.  I saw these on IG from @akindergartenlifeforme I thought they were adorable and just knew I had to make them.

 

You will need, a solo cup (color of your choosing), a pipe cleaner- for the handle, googly eyes, small pom  pom for the nose,  6-1 ½” pieces of pipe cleaner for the whiskers and foam for the ears, and hot glue.  Once you gather the supplies you will want to cut the ears first.  Then I put together an assembly line to put them together.

I will tell you that the hot glue does MELT the cup if you are not careful.  It would be best to use a low temp hot glue gun, but I don’t have one and so I used what I had.  After about the first 3-4 I got smart.  If you put the glue on the item first and blow on the glue to slightly cool it, then stick it to the cup, it worked much better than putting the glue directly on the cup.  For the nose, put a dime size amount of glue, add your whiskers, then add more glue allow to cool slightly then stick on your cup.  Once you are done, just fill with grass and a few candies.  The kiddos loved them!

Finally, we have been having a blast in our ELA block. As I mentioned above we are using the Guiding Readers units from Dee Dee Wills and Deanna Jump.  I cannot say enough good things about these units.  They are fantastic! The kiddos have enjoyed all of the stories and they are learning so much.  It is so exciting to see the growth in my kinders this time of year.  Their writing is really looking like…writing…lol.  Some of our favorite activities have been…

Each week we have been completing a beginning, middle, end sort together on the white board.  Then the kiddos go back to their seats and complete one independently. They cut out the pictures depicting the events of the story and glue them in order on a sentence strip.

We also completed a Venn diagram comparing “The Three Billy Goats Fluff” and “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”.  They rocked it! 

We also began talking about cause and effect. After reading our story for the week “The Easter Bunny’s Assistant”, a book which they loved.  If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and get it now.  We completed a chart together talking about what events in the story were the cause and those that were the effect.  Then they returned to their seats and completed the sequence on their own. 

Whew, well if you’re still reading give yourself a pat on the back.  This was a marathon post I realize. Thanks for indulging me.  If you haven’t checked out the other posts in the Five for Friday head over and check them out. 

Before you go, I have teamed up with some other great bloggers to offer you a fantastic giveaway.  Head over to The Twenty Something Teacher and enter!  Sorry the giveaway has ended.

 Have a wonderful Easter my friends!