Noun Alphabet

Our next noun activity was to brainstorm a noun for each letter of the alphabet. Each child drew and labeled a couple of nouns using a portion of this form. This available on my Teacher's Notebook store.

After everyone was done we sorted the pictures by whether it was a noun that named a person, place, thing, or animal. Each set of nouns was mounted on a separate color of paper. It was interesting to hear the kids' talking about the noun "nest". Did it name a place or a thing? Love those discussions!

They loved this activity! Stay tuned to see what I am going to do with these noun squares next!

Noun Song

This week we are working on recognizing and sorting nouns. I teach the kids this song, which they LOVE! The song is available in my noun quilt in my Teacher's Notebook store.

If you can use it, please leave me a comment!

Speak Like a Pirate Day

We had some fun Monday in honor of Speak Like a Pirate Day. I took pictures of each of my students wearing an eye patch and a pirate hat while they held on to a Fur Real parrot. Of course, they had to make a pirate-like face because pirates don't smile! Then they each wrote a super sentence using the pirate form from Mrs. Candau's super sentences freebie on her amazing website. Next, I made a page with their picture and lines above for them to write the final copy of their sentence on. (Our first "published" piece of writing!) Here is a sample of what one looked like.Microsoft Word - Pirate Jordan

The kids had a blast doing this and put a lot of effort into their sentences. Some were bummed I wanted to hang them up for a while instead of letting them take them home right away. This may be our first class book if I can convince them! :) I also read aloud Pirates Don't Change Diapers by Melinda Long. It was a fun day!

Bee of the Week

Every member of my class gets a special week to be the "Bee of the Week"! I made this poster and enlarge it on our school copier to fit on 11 X 17" paper. In addition to sharing their poster, the Bee gets to bring in five to ten photos to share, two items for show-and-tell (only one of which can be a toy), and a favorite book to read aloud to the class. I also encourage parents (or another special adult) to come for lunch one day during the week. This item is available at my Teacher's Notebook store for $1.

Here's hoping you all have a special week, bee or not!

The Doubles Chant

I don't recall where this chant originally came from. Possibly Math Facts to the Max. (If you know please let me know.) My kids love it and the military march beat. I made it into a Power Point presentation for initial teaching and also a poster for my math wall.

I uploaded the presentation to Google docs so we'll see if it works. Click here to get it. (I've never tried this before, so let me know if it doesn't work.)

The picture shows a portion of the poster. Sorry about the glare! After we do the Power Point a number of times we only need the poster's minimal cues to remind us of the chant. It is fun to see kids who are doing math problems do the movements to the chant when they think no one is watching! Love that!

Double Chant