LOOK What I Did!

While blog hopping yesterday, I came across this cute art activity by Jacquelieh at Kids Artists Blog.

http://kidsartists.blogspot.com/2010/07/sunglasses.html

I pinned it on my board on Pinterest and it got repinned 200 times in the first hour. 

I immediately thought what a cute bulletin board for the end of the school year.  I needed to make it a little easier for first graders. So I  made 3 patterns for sunglasses and the insert to fit on each pair. I also created a several writing sheets to go with this art activity. I thought it would be cute if the kids drew and wrote 

"Look What I'm Doing This Summer!" 

or 

"Look What I Did This Year!"

Here is a copy of the patterns and

 writing sheets. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Grab them for FREE for the next 24 hours. 

Baseball Season and Poetry

Are you ready for some baseball? Baseball is big here in St. Louis, home of the World Champion Cardinals. Since it is still Poetry Month we squeezed in some more poetry writing. Up to the plate came the "Diamante Poem." Poems in the shape of a diamond, just like a baseball field.  With a little prep work of creating word lists, the kids had an easy time writing their own poems. 


I introduced "diamante poems" by using the Read Write Think website.  They have a couple of great examples and an explanation of how to set the poem up.  You can even create your own poems online and print them out.  My class warmed up with a few examples on the SmartBoard and then took the field to practice on their own. 

Here is the link for the Read Write Think Diamante Poems.

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/diamante/

 Here is how a "diamante poem" is set up.

First line - one word, the topic, Baseball

Second line - two words, Adjectives describing baseball

Third line - three -ing words

Fourth line - four nouns or a short phrase

Fifth line - three more -ing words

Sixth line - Two adjectives

Seventh line - one word, synonym for baseball, we wrote Cardinals!


Here are some pics of my team's poems!
I forgot my jump drive at school with my files on them, so I will upload the pages at school tomorrow, if you would like a copy. 
 I created a generic baseball writing page to use with any team.

Spring Poem - Guaranteed to Be Cute! and FREEBIE

This is Guaranteed an easy poem for your kids to write!

With April being Poetry Month, I am trying to have my students write their own poems.  I have used the following Goodbye / Hello Poem in both kindergarten and first grade classes.  They always turn out cute and are so easy for the students to create.  The Goodbye / Hello poem is about saying goodbye to winter, and saying hello to spring.  I start by brainstorming the differences between winter and spring with the students.  We create lists on the SmartBoard or on chart paper of winter/spring opposites or analogies.  Think about the weather, the environment, animals, clothing, sports, holidays, foods, and activities.  Here are a few word combinations my students came up with;

ice skating - rollerblading

winter coat - jacket

snow - rain

animals hibernate - animals are active

Christmas - Easter

hockey - tennis

snow drifts - rain puddles

snow boots - tennis shoes

You get the idea.  

After brainstorming and making lists of winter words  in  one column and spring words in another, it is time to write.  Start the poem with 

Goodbye ___________(insert a winter word or phrase)

Hello _________________(insert a spring word or phrase)

Goodbye __________

Hello ______________

Keep repeating to the end.  If the students ended up with one line left over, they wrote "Hello Spring!"

Mount the poem on 12 X 18 construction paper.  I created some colorful "Hello Spring" titles for them to choose from.  Students then used fun foam shapes such as bugs, frogs, and flowers to decorate.  I had some  diecut shapes for them to use also.  

The students had an easy time creating their poem and they loved decorating their page.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

Here is a FREEBIE!

I have created a packet of  bordered papers and the "Hello Spring" titles. It has several papers; plain lines and penmanship lines, depending on your grade.

Please become a follower here and on my Facebook page.
Click Here for to download paper and titles.

Poetry Month

April is poetry month and we started a off reading some of Shel Silverstein's poems just for fun. The kids thought they were a hoot.  I had them draw illustrations for several of his poems.  We then worked on writing our own individual poems. My hall walls are so bare so I decided to do a wall of poetry.  Our first project today was a color poem of sorts.  I laid out large chart paper with a color word written in the middle.  Students rotated to each color word in small groups and brainstormed things that are usually that color. When we were finished I gave each child an outline of a rainbow.  On each line of the rainbow students wrote the following:  

Red is...

Orange is ...

Yellow is ...

Green is ...

 Blue is ...

Purple is ...

They completed each line with words of things that are usually that color.  

They colored each line very lightly and added some clouds of cotton.  We will be adding some rainbow streamers to hang from the clouds.  This was a simple, no fail first poem for the students to write.  They turned out cute and will be the first project on our Wall of Poetry in the hall.

    What are you doing for Poetry Month?

Share your ideas!

Barefoot in the Park Freebie

Spring is in the air!  For some reason it made me think of walking barefoot in the grass.  So I created a pair of feet with some darling little grass clip art from The 3am Teacher. Two feet, two words, great for a cute little activity with antonyms.  It was quick and easy, and students loved brainstorming different word pairs to use.  Each child chose their own set of antonyms or opposites.  You will see below some even came up with unusual pairs as in "piano" and "forte".  If  you would like a copy to try out with your class.  The packet includes the printable below and opposite cards to use with your students for this project of other centers.
Just click HERE.

               

Baseball  Writing

To make it easy for students to write about baseball and create a baseball diamante, I created some vocabulary pages for them to refer to in our writing center.  Click HERE for the baseball vocabulary sheet.
Click HERE for the baseball -ing words.