Groundhog Day!

I know it is totally too late to use these ideas, but I figured I would share them anyways :) You can always 'pin' them for next year!! 

Yesterday we graphed the students predictions on whether or not they thought that Phil would see his shadow.  We were at an exact split..with half saying yes and half saying no. This morning we watched a video of Phil on ABC News online, it was great! The students were so excited to see Phil!

Then, we worked on some cute little projects. The first one we did with our book buddies and it was a little idea that I found on pinterest (that I think was originally pinned from The First Grade Parade). Students decorated and wrote about what they would have in their burrow:

"In our burrow we like to throw parties and dance all the time" SO CUTE!

If you want the patterns for the project, download them HERE

Then, my Kinder students worked on this cute little project...and they were absolutely obsessed with it! (It's so funny when that happens..some classes could care less about something and others absolutely love it!)

 The grass is stapled on the edges of the paper (not glued down), so the groundhog can pop up and down.  My students were walking around and pretending like the groundhog kept getting scared of its shadow..they would make little noises and hide the groundhog under the grass. It was so funny.  They even wanted to bring this project with them to the playground so they could REALLY make him see his shadow. 

Next, our class is moving on to our career unit! :)

Non-Fiction Writing

The students have been doing AMAZING in non-fiction writing this week.  On Monday we made a KWL chart for Black Bears, Tuesday we did Polar Bears, and today we did Grizzly Bears.  Each day for writing they have to write 2 facts they learned.  They are allowed to use the KWL chart for reference if they need to.  Check out some of the students non-fiction books so far:

 And our bears are still hibernating...

Bears!

Today we started learning all about bears! The children were super excited to bring their bears in and put them inside our cave (I will have to take pictures).  They were taking it VERY seriously.  They didn't want anyone to get near the cave, because they were afraid their bears may 'die' if they wake up in the middle of hibernation! 

Today we focused on black bears, but each day we will have a new bear to focus on with new facts.  We are adding our new knowledge to our bear books daily.  The students are very excited to become non-fiction authors this week! I will take lots of pictures tomorrow of the projects we are working on. For now...I have this cute little bear tracer that we used to hold up some bear facts.  But, I thought he may also be cute for Valentine's Day?! So, I am uploading a quick little Love Is...writing prompt with the tracers as well.  Click on the picture below to download :)

Penguins!

My kids have REALLY enjoyed learning about penguins this past week.  We started off the week with our can, have, are chart

 and throughout the week we read some fun penguin books, but we are trying to focus on non-fiction now with the new common core standards.  The kids can really pick up on so much information! Throughout the week they wrote about what they learned and made some cute projects!

 I also made a 'life size' emperor penguin for the hallway.  The children have loved measuring themselves against the penguin.  I have overheard so many children from other classes talking about how they are bigger or smaller than an emperor penguin!

You can check out all of our Penguin centers HERE.

 Next week we will move into our bear unit.  The children are going to LOVE it.  They get to bring in a teddy bear on Monday and the bear will hibernate in our cave all week.  We will wake them up from hibernation on Friday, just in time for pajama day! Can't wait!