Reading is a HOOT!

Well the first quarter has come to an end! What a fast, fun filled couple of months it has been. At the beginning of the year we introduced our AR reading tree... 

poor thing it was totally lacking some love. I am happy to say that our tree no longer looks like a lonely winter Oak longing to sprout some green. We are now officially becoming a Live Oak (fun fact: Live Oaks differ from regular Oaks in that they are "alive" and green throughout the winter, while other Oaks are dormant and leafless) and wearing our leaves proudly. 

If you're unaware of how our tree works, let me catch you up to speed! Our tree has a branch for each student in our class which is denoted by their precious little owl. When a child reads, tests, and passes a book based off of their current AR level they get a leaf! The goal is to get 50 leaves by the end of the year!! I can't wait to see all the before and afters of watching our tree "bloom" throughout the year. Keep checking back to check our progress and if you're feeling super ambitious read with us! Currently our favorite book is, "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything". We're especially really excited about all of the onomatopoeias we find in that book, but that's for another post. :) 

  

Ants! They're Hard Workers

Happy fall y'all! We've transitioned nicely into the weather change and we've begun our new SRA Imagine It! unit. For the next five weeks we will be working on the theme "Let's Explore!" So far the kids have really loved talking about all the various things they can "explore".

This week we are reading the selection story, "Ants! They're Hard Workers" and, you guessed it, talking about this tiny six legged insect we see so often but might not know a lot about.

The first thing we did in learning about ants was to read the selection story, "Ants! They're Hard Workers" We learned about various types of ants, the body parts and their functions, and even how ants build their homes.

Next, we got right to work labeling our ant! We talked about each body part and it's individual function and used our books to help us label an ant of our own! Once we labeled our ant we colored our ant to depict the different ants we read about. 

The kids really loved making these! If you want to make them you can find them here. 

After we spent some time learning about the various parts of the ant and labeling it's body parts we started doing a little research! Each group was assigned a different ant discussed in our selection story and they were to use their books as one resource of information and then the internet as a second source to gather interesting facts about their ant. Once they had enough information, such as, where does this ant build it's home, what kind of jobs does this ant preform, what kind of enemies does this ant have, and any other fun facts, they were to write down their findings and illustrate a picture to share with their classmates. 

       

 

Stayed tuned for all of our adventures yet to come with this exciting new unit!! 

Until then....go explore!