once upon a time...

We're traveling to a land far, far away this week to live in fairy tales!  And personally, I love it.  As do my 5 little girls.  The 10 boys in my class weren't exactly enthused but I think they've found that playing pretend isn't just for girls.

We started the week with a general study of fairy tales.  I love Abby's anchor chart of the elements in a fairy tale.  She also has some awesome ideas if you're looking for new ways to explore your favorite stories.

We also made crowns and magic wands to become royalty ourselves.

Yesterday we looked at the 3 Little Pigs and compared the original story to The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka.  They wrote about whether they believed the pigs or the wolf's story.

We explored the concept of magic and brainstormed stories with magical elements then wrote about what we would do if we had magic fairy dust.  Guess which is the typical boy answer & the typical girl answer.  ;)

Today we looked at Cinderella.  LaNesha's fairy tale unit also has Cinderella activities and I love how she's adapted the glass slipper for the boys.  We became fashion designers today {dream come true!} and had a decorating contest.

We also used LaNesha's venn diagram from Another Day in First Grade to compare The 3 Little Pigs to Cinderella.

{Then I realized that Mother's Day is this weekend...as in only 2 school days away...so we may be breaking from fairy tales tomorrow to get that together.  Ah!}  But then we have the Kindergarten Ball on Friday.  You got that right!  Flower girl dresses, little boys in vests and ties...ah-dorable.  Haven't decided yet what I'm going to wear.  Prom dress?  Bridesmaids dress?  Decisions, decisions...but dressing up either way!  :)

bugs & insects.

I've kept you waiting so I won't put it off any longer.  Here are some more great bug and insect ideas for you!

We colored this page from Mr. Eric Carle himself then cut it out and glued the pieces in order on a sentence strip...for a crown of course!

Then we made super stretcher sentence caterpillars with one word on each segment.  Yay for wanting to use a lot of adjectives and stretch it out!

{plus a hint of our pasta butterfly life cycle on green leaves.}

Then we made beautiful tissue paper butterflies on wax paper for the windows.  Color scheme was up to each kid.

Some were patterned or planned and others were willy nilly but they all help make our view more beautiful!

Of course this was the day I left my external hard-drive at home with Deanna's bug unit so I had to quickly make up our own stationery pages with her awesome idea.

 I only had 2 colors of ink pads but think our fingerprint bugs still made cute decorations!  :)

Thursday morning was pretty rough {explained in my last post} so I was extremely thankful for The Magic School Bus Gets Ants in Its Pants to get the stay started more easily.  We used Kelly's cute pattern to record our ant facts.

Then we read Hey Little Ant and used Kelly's persuasive writing journal page.  Would you step on the ant?  Some said yes...

...and some said no!

We made insect pattern crowns by choosing bug picture squares {found in my bug box from who knows what!} and then continuing the pattern with pictures.  Loved them.

Lastly we read The Grouchy Ladybug and wrote about how we would cheer him up.

Be sure to check last week's post for ideas on bees, diagrams, entomologist tools and a few freebies.

Guess it's time for me to go finish off the leftover dirt pudding...worms included.  ;)

{a personal word}

If you'll please excuse my doing so, I need to postpone my bug and insect activities and just share from the heart today.  Come back over the weekend for bees, butterflies, caterpillars, ladybugs and ants.  But life has thrown in a change and I feel it necessary to respectfully do the same.

At almost this same time last year a friend and co-worker of mine was diagnosed with bile duct cancer.  It came on so abruptly that Karen was in school one day, got the results of some tests the next and she couldn't come back to finish the year.  She and I met "on the island" {as we like to say} when we started as new hires on the same day, laughing through new teacher trainings and trying to figure out what in the world was going on at various staff meetings as we learned how we fit in a new school environment.  I spent many an hour {virtually every afternoon} in her classroom that first year, getting to know her and her funny kids.

Through the eight years on the island we developed separate work friend groups but still remained close.  She's one of those people that I naturally hugged every time I saw her...even if we'd done just that same thing two hours prior while passing in the hallway.

It was she and her daughter, who was five at the time, who came up with calling me Mockie {a play on my maiden name} that is still around among those of us who have been here that long.  It's the only thing Karen would ever call me!

She was funny, positive, encouraging and had one of those personalities that was just contagious.  Even if we were griping about a work issue or venting about personal drama, I always left in a better mood because she was able to me laugh about anything.  Even while texting me from the hospital while she waited on her chemo treatment.

We got the word yesterday that she had passed and for the first time in the 11 month process I just broke down.  I feel like it was just yesterday that we were in the staff lounge having lunch and she was talking about going to the doctor for testing.  Now she's gone and I can't stop the emotions from coming.  Even though she didn't come back to work this year, I could pick up my phone and text her whenever I wanted to.  And now knowing that I can't, I feel like something's missing.

I fully believe in the power of prayer and that God could've healed her if that was His plan.  I don't know why it wasn't and I know it's not beneficial to drive myself crazy with but why but at the same time, it's really hard knowing a beautiful 43 year old mother is no longer with us.  If you believe in prayer please send one {or a few} up for her family, specifically her 2 children who I know will miss her dearly.

And maybe the next time a coworker or neighbor registers for Race for the Cure or 24 Hours of Booty or Relay for Life you might remember this story and find a few dollars to put toward their donations. It's amazing and disgusting how quickly cancer can come in and take a life.  I know our school family will never forget.

We love you Karen.  And we'll love on those kids til they're sick of us.

creepy crawlers.

I. Love. May.  We call it {May Days} at my school and I start thinking about it around, oh, March.  Minus fall, pumpkins and apples, this is my favorite time of the year.

In case you can't tell by my advanced artistic abilities, this week is all about bugs and insects!  We started our theme by flipping through the books in our library and reading a sight word book to learn the basics.

We learned this super cute song from Teach it With Class to help us remember the parts of an insect...

then made our own diagrams.

For math we used toys bugs on our picnic mats to practice story problems

 and played a counting game where we tried to get 50 spots on the ladybug.

{We used 1 ladybug per pair and beans as spots.  You could use chocolate chips or M&Ms too.  If your  manipulatives are bigger, each child could have their own ladybug board.}

 Today we focused on bees and did a great pollination experiment from Little Kinder Warriors using cheetos as pollen!

We also made bees with wax paper wings.

We began talking about entomologists and the tools that they use so we had to practice looking at all kinds of insects up close with magnifying glasses.

As we study I'm adding to our Bug & Insect journal pages.  Check back this weekend to see what else I've come up with.

Happy May Days!!!  :)