Homework

A question that comes up time and time again, is always about homework. Do you give it, how much, when, ect.

I wrote all about it on my website:

http://www.kinderpond.com/homework.html

Here is a photo of this month's calendar. It's only a dollar at TPT. Check it out here:

February's Homework Calendar.

What I realized is that I do give a lot of homework!
And no everyone does not always complete it, but the students usually do complete it.
It is part of the reason that ALL of the students in my class leave me room reading.

I always think it is so cute to hear the children discussing their homework the next day.

Is there some skill that you need added to this calendar?  I'd love to work with you to create a custom calendar for you and your students.

Coniferous Trees

Today we talked about Coniferous Trees.

After we sketched needles and a pinecone, 

we talked about Uses of Trees

Here was the 5th graders:

 Here was the 3rd graders

We also used these as a reference:

Tree

We started discussing trees this week

I photo copied a diagram for all the K-2 children.

They had to label the parts.

3rd-5th graders had to draw and label.  

We also listed trees that were indigenous to where we live. 

We also sang this song to head shoulders knees and toes.  This is where I would love to be able to video my students to share what we did for our song.  Here will be my awful directions lol

Tree Song (Sung to Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes)

Leaves, branches, trunk and roots

Leaves, branches, trunk and roots

Trees are important to you and to me

Leaves, branches, trunk and roots

Leaves- reach up high- arms extended hands waving

branches- straight out like the Y in YMCA song

trunk- legs together arms tight to side (think cheerleader)

roots- spread legs apart

Now my brain is searching for a child I can use to show this- parents be aware that I may ask you for your help!!

Shout Out Saturday's

I came across some wonderful new blogs :)

http://ketchenskindergarten.blogspot.com/

http://myheartbelongsinfirst.blogspot.com/

http://mrsriccaskindergarten.blogspot.com/

Senses

We learned the senses songs

We broke down the senses so we could cover them all in two days!
We all have played the sight game a baby showers, so we played this game.  The kids did a great job!!

 Here are my funny looking glasses.  I asked them what their favorite thing to look at was.

 We did an eye color graph, as you can tell, I needed another sheet!  I already pasted three together!!!

 Another song we learned:

 I showed them this graphic and informed  them this graphic wasn't accurate but it was a good way to focus our thoughts :)

Bodies Day -Muscles

We talked about there three types of muscles.

I drew a gingerbread person.

 We learned that it takes 17 muscles to smile.

The heart is for the number of heart beats per minute- at rest :)

We tried this ourselves, we timed for 30 seconds and doubled it!

This was as quiet as it was EVER!!!!

Our Bodies- day 2

 With the younger children, I concentrated with 4 main organs:

I drew the lines on my chart {no photos :( }

Anyways, then I read the the clues and they answered the riddles.

For the K-2 children I had them just draw the pictures.

3-5 drew the organs and wrote a descriptions.

I used THESE.

 With the older children, I had them draw 10 boxes.  One child says to me, here are my 10-pack abs!!!!!!

 4th-5th grade

 2nd- 3rd

Yes this is a Jelly Belly!!!

Our Bodies

We started our body unit by using this unit:

Get your own copy HERE

I created this chart based on

this packet

I got this play from Scholastic dollar days.

 For the students, I high lighted part 1 in one color and part 2 in another.  I just split up the group in two.

Dino Day 7

We are nearing the end of our dinosaur unit.  We discussed which dinosaurs were carnivores and which were herbivores and which were both.

We sang this song:

 and this song:

 I saved our post-it notes from the beginning.

 We did a timeline:

Each day we added to our dinosaur chart about how tall and long the dinosaurs were.