Plants and Insects

We've just finished our study on plants and insects. We began both with a schema chart. (I love doing these because it gives me guidance on what the majority of them already know.)

You see my sensory table became a "garden center" for a few weeks. It is full of insects and a butterfly matching game. The Easter grass was messy though! 

I also hung up a couple different pocket charts. One is mainly for some vocabulary and the other is a word family sorting game. The butterfly cards have staples on them and I used my net from a puzzle I have to "catch" the butterflies. (The net has a magnet on the end.)

Thanks to my co-teacher for bringing me over some goodies for my kiddos to create and eat their own insects.

We planted our own seeds and made our sprout houses. (Free in my TPT store)

These are simply a few seeds of your choice and a paper towel in a zip-lock baggie. Make sure that when you wet the paper towel, you wring it out really well or you'll get too much moisture and moldy seeds. I speak from experience.

We labeled flowers and threw in an Earth Day project too!

Well, this is just a small portion of all the fun activities that we've been doing. Next up...........OCEAN!! Would you like a sample of my new ocean bundle?

Here's an "Add the Room" for you! Hang the cards around the room and your students will need to find the matching ocean animal to write and solve the addition problem on their recording sheet. I hope your kiddos enjoy it! Click on the pic.

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!

Plants and Insects

I know many of you are currently doing a plant study or insect unit. I have created a bundle that includes activities for both of these themes. Check it out below.

Click on the pic or click HERE!