Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Insect Week

Our insect unit is now over and we did some pretty fun activities. We began our study with a cute little concept map, created by my amazing co-teacher. (Inspiration found HERE)


We learned about entomologists and decorated our entomologist poems with fingerprint insects.....too fun! They really took their time and created several different ones. (Yes, we learned that spiders are NOT insects, but so many wanted to try to make one, so......why not?)





 We also made praying mantises (is that the plural???)

(Many of the activities shown are from Deanna Jump's Insect Packet http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Insects-Math-and-Literacy-Fun-125131)

We read "Hey Little Ant" and completed a cute little opinion writing craftivity that be found HERE. Thanks Cara Carroll! I had actually never read this story before, but I loved it. The ant is trying to convince the boy not to squish him. The author leaves the ending open, allowing your students the ability to write what they think the boy should do and why.


Some of our favorite math activities included making shape insects and categorizing and graphing the shapes that were used.




We also rolled our dice in dice (LOVE those things) to create addition sentences. Of course we had to use "ants" as manipulatives! 



Okay, the last thing I just have to share is my thrift store find! It's a "bug" version of Jenga. I wrote our sight words on them and the students have to read the word on the one that they pull out. They LOVE this. I only have one rule.....Play it on carpet.  Oh my, when that plastic falls on our tile floors......AAHHH!