March Madness

I just wanted to drop in really quick to show you a few more snapshots of our week...

This week we focused on opinion writing.  And... to get my students excited about writing, we created these cute basketball buddies.  My boys are OBSESSED with basketball and football so this craft was just perfect!

 The prompt - Of the 68 teams in the March Madness tournament, all of them will lose except for the champions.  In your OPINION, do you think that you learn more from winning or losing?

We started off by brainstorming the benefits of winning and loosing. My students then created their own web in their writing journals.

 Here are a few snapshots of their final pieces.

They were so excited to create their basketball buddies!

We are all Kentucky fans, but I had one Louisville fan... the only buddy with red legs!

This kiddo wanted his to be a little different!! He put a lot of thought into it!

If you are interested in this cute writing piece and craft you can find it HERE!

 This week we also focused on magic e long /i/ words. I have to say that I SERIOUSLY LOVE our new interactive word work!!! It contains activities that I have used for a few years, but I finally made it a bundle and put a bunch of different activities on one page.  I also love that it has two levels so that it meets the needs of all of my students! If you are interested you can find the magic e bundle HERE or the entire word work bundle HERE. 

And... another thing that I LOVE... Our Spring informational passages!  They are perfect to engage students while reinforcing text features and the informational standards! In this picture one of my guided reading groups is learning about the Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle.

I always require my students to underline the evidence in the text that supports their answers.  In this picture I let my students use colored pencils to underline and write the main idea and three supporting details.

This week we also finished up learning about landforms.  

 This idea came from my team teacher and best friend!  You see, she loves social studies and I really like science.  We are the perfect pair!  I'm not exactly sure where this idea came from... it was probably Pinterest inspired.  I whipped up the landform writing paper really quickly so that our students could write the definition of the landform.  I don't have the download with me but I will upload it here tomorrow if you are interested!

We also made salt dough landforms. And it was so much fun!  You just add two parts flour to one part salt and add little water until it feels like dough.

 Our landforms are drying tonight and we will paint them tomorrow!  I will have to update with a picture of our completed projects!

Woohoo... tomorrow is Friday!!! Only one more week until spring break! And... next week we are going to be learning about weather and I just LOVE teaching weather!!!!