Bunnies, Chicks and A Chance to Win!

This is the time of year that I love to teach! Not only do I get to hit all the fun topics (we are doing life cycles and our eggs are coming this week!) but the kids themselves are so much more capable and independent!

Last week we did a fabulous Egg Hunt craftivity and writing prompt from Valerie of All Students Can Shine. She blogged about how her class made the craft here. Once I saw it, I knew my class had to make it too!

I was so stinking proud of their writing! We started by writing a story whole-group. It was great! Everyone was thoroughly involved in brainstorming ideas, making suggestions and making sure it all flowed together. My little ELL guy who usually doesn't take part in discussions had his hand in the air nonstop! Here's what we wrote together:

Once we had written the story whole-group I sent them back to their seats with their own paper and they got to work writing their own versions. I even had several students request multiple sheets of paper - I had to run down to the copy machine to make extras since I hadn't planned on that! Here are some examples:

 
Once we were done with the writing (and what is it with my kids and coloring this year, none of them enjoy coloring at all - its like pulling teeth to get them to do it!) we got to work on the bunny! I worked with them in groups of 5-6 and everybody did a great job, although I did have to repeat instructions a lot. It boggled my mind that I had to keep repeating "Trace 2 ears." because so many kiddos were apparently under the misapprehension that bunnies somehow only have one ear, regardless of the fact we were sitting right in front of my example! Sigh....

I didn't get any pictures of the basket weaving part because my phone died, not to mention, trying to do this with 26 kiddos and no aide was a little tricky! I did this part whole group because I am crazy that way. I mean, who knew "Over, under, over, under." would be that difficult for kids to understand?! Luckily we got through it without too much trauma on my part, and I have to say that the results were well worth it! Here are some of our cuties:

So, yes, we are actually getting it now! Those lightbulbs are going off daily, if not hourly! Today, after my kiddos had finished their work I was so proud of how they scattered through the room, eagerly working on different things. This pair was reading Elephant & Piggie books together - they each had a copy and one read the part of Gerald while the other was Piggie - wish I had been able to videotape it because the voices and expressions were priceless!

Others worked on sight word practice, still others were writing sentences with our spelling words on dry erase boards (I bought new markers last week and they are in dry erase heaven! It is amazing how engaged they are simply because we have colorful markers again rather than the standard black) and a few even asked for some dice so they could create math problems for their friends to solve! Gotta love it when they love practicing their skills and helping each other!

I mentioned that we will be getting out eggs this week. I am so excited! I created a Chicken Life Cycle pack for it, that you can find here:

I'd love to give a copy away to a random commenter, just Rustle Up a Comment below! The pack would be great if you hatch eggs in your classroom, but if you don't you can just skip the observation journal and still have 10 activities to use!