here a chick, there a chick...

AAAAAAND....we have chicks!

I love this unit, because hatching chicks is so memorable to these little guys!  What a great way to get a hands on learning experience, too!  I gotta tell you...I have a little boy this year who has been SOOOOOO excited about chicks.  I think he started asking me when we were going to get them in our Dinosaur unit WAY back in FEBRUARY!  And since then, it has been an ongoing question. :-)  It was fun to see the class get excited about our chicks hatching today, and especially fun to see this little boy trying to contain all his enthusiasm! 

We have begun naming the chicks.  Meet Fluffy. 

Fluffy had a big crack in his egg when we left school yesterday, so I had a hunch he would hatch while we were out.  He sure did.  There were 2 chicks already hatched when we came into school today and this morning we got to see another hatch.  "Fluffy" was so funny, b/c he was so protective of the other one while it was hatching. 

Meet Mr. Wiggles. 

He was named Mr. Wiggles b/c even though his crack in the egg was significantly smaller than Fluffy's yesterday, he was just a wigglin' around in his egg. 

Lastly, (for now at least), we have Lucky.  I'm not sure why they wanted to name this one Lucky, but they all liked that name, so Lucky he shall be!  Lucky was the one that most of the class got to watch hatch.  They had all went to recess, and before they left, I'm not kidding, there was a good size crack, but nothing I was expecting to hatch anytime soon.  I checked on it towards the end of their recess and the crack was all the way around the egg.

I knew it was coming soon, so I got out my phone and 3/4 the class was in the classroom while it happened, but some were still washing up while it hatched.  I showed the video to those kids who missed it.  Their excitment is contagious!  I love it!

So, here is our infamous Lucky!

 We still have 3 eggs left in our incubator and 2 of them are cracked, so we will see what happens.  I will be updating this post through out the week as we get more and more pictures of our chicks, so keep checking in with us. 

More QR Craze

I hope everyone had a great Easter!  The month of April has just seemed to have flown by!  We will be doing our study of chicks, and other oviparous animals, this week and next.  This is always a very memorable theme for the kids, especially when they get to see the chicks hatch.  We will be getting our eggs on Friday, and they should start hatching on Tuesday!  I am so excited!!  
Until then, we are busy, busy, busy with our day to day. 

 Here is a center that is always fun.  I have found this center works better mid-late year when the kids can understand better CVC words, word families, etc.  So, in this center they pull out the letters in their name, put them on top.  If a kid has a short name or a vowel-filled name, I let them use the letters of their last name too.  Then in the divided part, I have them put a vowel in the middle, and I usually have them make a word family and try to make words from that.  That is how I found is easiest for them.  

Before Easter I started some work on QR Codes again.  I wanted something new that the kids could do at a center.  I came up with some QR codes where the kids scan, write, and put them in ABC order.  After that, I thought, "hey, I could use the same format and do more with rhyming words too!"  I also did some place value ones as well.  This week we are doing rhyming, and next week we are going to work on the ABC order.  All of these will be available on my TPT store, but for now, the ABC order is the only product up and ready to go.  

I do have a piece of advice, the qr codes are all in a row, so I found it beneficial, to put scrap paper on top of the ones you are not scanning, so it doesn't scan the wrong one.  
Click here to view the ABC Order QR codes on my TPT store.

  

this and that...

Long time, no blog, huh?  Time got the best of me, I suppose.  So let me fill you in on what we did last week.  First off, I came in Monday morning to find this:

Yes, several of the plants sprouted over the weekend!  I was so shocked to walk in to this when Friday there was nothing.  

In between our Math chapters, we reviewed with a fun place value game.  Its simple:  roll the dice and add up the ones, until you hit 10, then trade them in for a 10's circle. 

We had to add some Easter goodies into our week, so we wrote a friendly letter to the Easter Bunny!  

How sweet is that?  

This week is a short week, so I'm not sure how much we'll get done.  If I am not back on before Easter, everyone please have a blessed Easter!

the many uses of a divided tray...

Ok, so this week I find myself swamped in work! --Not for this year though, I'm already thinking of new things to implement, new ideas to try, and with three small kids, the more organized I can get now, the easier it makes my life come August.  I'm working on reading groups activities/organization, I am working on a new behavior system that makes misbehavior less of a guessing game for the parents, a new classroom makeover, my minds justa' adding on to the already large "to do" list.  When I'm trying something new though-that I think will benefit the kids, its not even like work, I get all excited. Thankfully, I've got some awesome co workers that inspire me to try new things.   Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week.  

Here is a center we have going on this week.  

If I have any advice for primary teachers, it  is BUY THESE TRAYS!  I use them for SOOO many activities!!  We do CVC work with them, we make CVC words from our names...a ton with them.  And they are only $1!!  I got mine from Walmart a few years ago during the spring/summer.  

In this particular center there are spring caterpillars, each a certain word family, and they make those word family words in their trays with magnetic letters (or whatever letters you have available).  I had them take a Dry Erase marker and write them on the caterpillar instead of using the recording sheet.  The recording sheet would be great for first grade, though.  

Here's me with my plug:  (cough, cough): The caterpillars and the recording sheet are part of Spring Bundle unit on TPT.  Click here to see it.  Have a good rest of the week, everyone!