St. Patrick's Week!

What a week filled with rainbows, leprechauns and fun! As it was St. Patricks week most of our classroom work focused around leprechauns and clovers. Even our math was clover related! Students absolutely loved it and it really helped them get excited for the big event! Here are a few fun projects that we did over the course of this week:

Torn Paper Rainbow

Incorporating art and fine motor practice we made torn paper rainbows. Students had to tear the paper themselves, make sure they glued it in the right spot and try to make as little white show as possible. A harder task than it may sound! It was a wonderful activity requiring them to focus on the task at hand. Here are a few of the finished products:

Wishing Rainbows

In an art and writing activity I had students think of 6 things they would wish for if they were granted these wishes from a leprechaun. Students copied my prompt on their cloud and then worked on their own or with a partner to write out what they would wish for! It was a great reflection activity as well as working on their writing abilities, including sounding out words. They also make our classroom look so cheerful as I hung them at the back of the room!

Leprechaun Guided Drawing

With this week leading up to spring break students had difficulty focusing. Thus we worked on this ability by doing a project that was focused on following directions and focusing on the task at hand. During this guided drawing students had to stay with me as I drew in front of them and follow my directions exactly. This was hard for some students but most of them turned out great! I also gave them some free reign when it came to coloring their drawings after they finished. I am very excited to hang them out on our art wall!

Leprechaun Traps!!

Perhaps the most anticipated and exciting activity of the week was the building of our leprechaun traps! Students had to make a drawing of their plan for their trap first, then once it was approved they could begin their construction. Students were so creative and came up with great ideas of how we could catch those mischievous leprechauns when they come out the night before St. Patrick's Day! After they built their traps they painted them and set them out in the room to try and catch a leprechaun. Unfortunately they didn't catch any but the leprechauns left clues that they were there! They knocked over chairs, took our books off their shelves and left footprints behind! The kids were pretty excited to discover that the leprechauns also left a chocolate coin for them :) FINALLY we were able to also catch those leprechauns on camera. Check out the video below to see what happened! Students watched it at least 4 times over the last 2 days!!

The leprechauns left footprints behind too!

They even knocked over chairs!

They spilled our white boards and markers! They left a note saying better luck next time!

Wow! What a fun week to end on! Please note that I put progress reports in your child's Friday Folder so if you have any questions please let me know! Enjoy your spring break!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Friday News Flash

Sorry for the short post today but as we are heading into spring break I have done a lot of testing with students this week that took up a lot of our time! The good news is that all of the students have made SO MUCH GROWTH! I am thrilled with the results and I will be sharing some of that data with your in their next Friday Folder, so keep an eye open!

Our biggest project this week was our leprechauns! We have been reading books about leprechauns and we even made our own! Of course any time we do an art project there is usually a writing part and this one was no different. Students got to make up a story about their leprechauns (one wrote about their leprechaun being naughty because they steal gold!) and had a wonderful time getting to be creative with their writing! Here are a few adorable pictures of their leprechauns and some examples of their writing.

My leprechaun is nice. He gives his gold to people. I love my leprechaun!

My leprechaun is nice.

I know this was a very short post but next weeks will make up for it as next week we have the highly anticipated LEPRECHAUN TRAPS! The students can hardly wait to try and catch those leprechauns that come out on St. Patrick's Day :) I will capture all those wonderful moments to share with you next time!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Read Across America Week

What a fabulous week for student reading! Students really stepped up their game this week. Thanks to all the purple reading tickets you turned in Mr. Hickey dyed his hair pink in front of the whole school, which our kids enjoyed immensely :) Also our class had over 40 reading tickets returned which is over 800 minutes of reading! Thank you for all your help and support making our kiddos great readers! To start us off, here is a picture of our door decorated as Thing 2, Mrs. Gant was Thing 1. Thank you to those parents who helped decorate! Both doors turned out great!

We started our week with a wonderful trip to downtown Portland to see Bad Kitty. The students laughed the whole time. What a fun experience, one that I am sure they will never forget. Although having McDonald's for lunch was also a highlight for many :) Once we got back from our field trip we brainstormed our favorite parts and then did some writing about them. Here are a few examples of students favorite parts:

I like the song "Love Love Angel Kitty" (notice the exclamation!)

This next picture needs a little explanation. In the play Kitty is very naughty and so her and her brother of sorts "Puppy" are sent to obedience school. At this school they meet a bunny who thinks he is a super villain calling himself "Doctor Legomorph." He was a crowd favorite and what the student below chose as his favorite part as well.

I like the rabbit when he said Doctor Legomorph

Wednesday was Dr. Seuss' birthday, so to celebrate we made cat in the hat hats! A fun project that students wanted to wear around everywhere! We also read The Cat in the Hat and students wrote about their favorite part of the book. As we move on in the year students will be doing more and more writing because as I say all the time, the more you practice the better you get! Here is a picture of one students hat, and some examples of their Cat in the Hat writing.

I like when Thing 1 and Thing 2 came

In this next example you will see a repetition of a similar idea, but that is ok. I have been pushing students to have more than one sentence and they are doing it! I am so proud!

the cat came in the house. When the cat is on the ball because it is silly.

I like when the cat balance with the cake on his head. I like it because it was funny.

Finally we ended our celebration of Dr. Seuss by buddy reading with a 3rd grade class. Our class absolutely loved reading to the 3rd graders and listening to them read a story. What a fun way for your kids to practice their reading confidence and fluency. I had many students practice all day so they would be ready for when the 3rd graders came :) 

The countdown to Spring Break has begun but spring has sprung in our classroom. Kids are growing and changing left and right! It is such an honor to be able to see these amazing changes. Until next time...

Smiles,

Miss Adams