Flowers-Mother's Day

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

Students labeled the parts of the plants.  They wrote the initial sound to the images, and colored it. We are doing well with our phonemic awareness (initial sound), writing our letters, knowing our letters, fine motor skills, and following directions.  This will be a part of their science journals, which we also contributed more to this week.

We continue to work on our number books. We worked on numbers 4, 5, and 6 this week.  We colored 4 people, 5 ovals, and 6 circles.  We cut out 4, 5, and 6 out of ads, and magazines.  We also put stickers on touch points.

We made our Mother's Day gifts: daffodil sun catchers.  Students cut on a curved line, followed directions, pulled apart tissue paper (pinching skills), Cut on a straight line, put the phrase in the right order (by hearing the initial sound and the front of the phrase), and more.  We then made our own gift bags: students required to write their name on the paper and then Mom, I love you, and Love were written on the board so they could write these as well.  

The template I made, yellow paper folded
in half.

Students cut out on curved line to make their outline.  The kept the inside of the template for later.

I cut a piece of contact paper double the size of the template, took of the backing, and laid it on the table.  

Students placed tissue paper pieces inside the frame.  

When they were done, I closed the contact paper, trapping everything inside.

I then drew a line on the center piece (opposite direction as the fold), and students cut on that line.  

 I rolled that piece up, taped with clear tape

I then cut four slits on the bottom (straight side). 

 I opened it up and used clear tape to put it on the front of the flower. 

Students glued on the stem and the leaves to the flower. 

 They cut out the three word templates (freebie) and glued them on the correct leaf (listening for initial sound of the phrase that belonged on each leaf).  They signed their name, and done!

Kind of a lot of work, but totally worth it! They turned out so cute!

Lesson plans for the week:

planbook.com

sgloudemans@stedwardk5.org

gloudemansplans

Apology & Update

I want to apologize for my lack of posting. This being my first year teaching in a school setting and I am becoming overwhelmed with all the paper work, meetings, programs, events, picnics, and assessment and planning that comes at the end of a school year.  

Wisconsin has their initial educators (and all teachers after a certain date) create a professional development goal and that goal must be approved by a 3 person board and then you work on it for 5 years, and they then evaluate your professional growth.  If you pass, your license is renewed and the process continues.  Because this is my first year teaching in a school setting but my third year with my license, I have to do this process in 3 years instead of 5.  I need my goal submitted for approval this month.  

To top it all off, I just moved back home after 2 years living 3 hours away so my friends and family find the need to cram in two years of missing each other in.  AND my sister-in-law got engaged on Sunday, so there is a family wedding in the next year.  

Wow, long story short, it's been crazy busy which is why I have not posted.

Lesson plans for this week:
Planbook.com
email: sgloudemans@stedwardk5.org
code: gloudemansplans

Technology Tuesday:
Magic School Bus!  I thought Magic School Bus may be a little above my student's heads, but thought it was worth a try.  They not only loved it, but have been quoting it, repeating it, and showing obvious retention of the information!  It made me so proud!  I found a YouTube site "Cartoons in English" that have the full cartoons as we have seen them, but it has captions at the bottom.  This is nice, because it brings in the literacy as well!  Love!  Click HERE to visit the site.

Graduation information coming soon.  I will share what I plan on doing at graduation, my program, my power point.  My only issue is the border I am using on it has a terms of use that is not for editable information-and I am finding this to be the case with all the purchased borders I have.  My only thought is to submit them with no border and provide you with the locations I found borders. The formatting would be complete and the images (which are free to put on the sites as long as I link back) so they could still be helpful.   

I hope to get back on the blogging trend soon, but I hope these help you slightly!  Let me know if there is info you want, info you need.  Leave me comments and I will do my best to comply!

Happy May!

More plants!

Students worked on the life cycle of a plant with a seed, sprout, flower, and spreading seeds.  They illustrated this in a graphic organizer that also had them writing the initial sound and using those fine motor skills to draw the cycle. They turned out cute!

We are very busy working on our number books.  For each number, we put that many stickers on, draw that many pictures, and find that number in magazines or ads and glue them on.  It is going to be another cute keepsake!

My Number book  is available at my TpT store!

 We also made flowers out of shapes.  Students worked hard naming the shapes, and following the multi-step directions and listening to the directional words.  They helped make our door look like it is growing a garden!