Five for Friday with a freebie

 I'm linking up again for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching. 

We had a busy week at school! 

1. We started poetry. I introduced it with a cute Fancy Nancy book about poetry. Then I read them a few different types of poems. We made this tree together. The flowers have the answer to the question, What is Poetry. They gave me some ideas and I gave some ideas. The trunk has some different types of poetry. For our first activity, we did  a very short poem using a subject, adjectives and action verb. We  brainstormed adjectives and verbs for each of the words that remind us of spring (butterfly, sun, leaves , etc.) Then we played around with it by moving stickies around. (For the actual poem we would only have one sticky on each side). Then each student used this butterfly anchor chart to help write their  first poems. I wrote about this last year. You can read about this in more detail here.

adorable frame by: Surfin-Through-Second

There was a beautiful day so we went outside to write more poetry. We had already written a poem together, so they were anxious to try one out on their own. We talked about how poets get inspired, so we were going to get inspired by nature. We also talked about how poetry is often a picture in words. We were trying to make this picture in words about what we saw, felt, heard around us outside. I made an anchor chart of spring words. Then I wrote the words, I see___, I hear_____, I smell_____, I feel______ on the chart as well. This was a way to get them started. They didn't have to use that but if they were  stuck, it was a way to get them going. For example, they could  say I hear chirping birds. I smell flowers growing... Some did this, others wanted to try to rhyme (like we did with our class sample) while others just went off on their own. It was fun to read these poems!

If you'd like the paper that we did our spring poems on, you can download it here or by clicking on the picture.

frame by That Girl 

2. We did some activities from my Spring into Literacy Pack for morning work and reading groups. 

3. We are working on subtraction this week. Please ignore my attempt to draw a hand with fingers. Ha! You all know I can't draw! We are REALLY working hard on subtraction strategies, mainly using addition to help us subtract or counting up. We did a lot of story problems as well. I always love doing these with my class.

4. We began our rock unit. We add to our anchor chart as we learn. This little activity below is all about  making observations about rocks. It's an AIMS activity. 

5. Working on 2nd grade May centers so I can make a COMBO pack too. This is 1st grade's May centers. Hope to be done VERY soon! My husband's cousin is in town tonight so no work for me. Going out on the town! Maybe Sunday night though. :)