Life Cycles: Research and Writing

Do you love teaching about life cycles? I sure do! In this blog post I give a lot of different examples of research and writing with frogs, chickens, praying mantis, butterflies, bumble bees and ladybugs. 

There are a lot of great mentor texts to use when you are teaching life cycles. Here are some of my favorites: 

Gail Gibbons has a lot of great mentor texts for teaching life cycles. 

Make a butterfly research lapbook. You can have your students make a beautiful cover and any templates they complete will be stapled inside the lapbook. So fun!  

Chicken Lapbook: 

Frog Life Cycle Craftivity: 

Frog Lapbook: 

Ladybug Life Cycle Writing Craftivity: 

Pumpkin Life Cycle Craftivity:

Sunflower Life Cycle Research Journal: 

In this journal, the students plant a sunflower seed and then record their observations each day.

Praying Mantis Lapbook: 

Spider Lapbook: 

If you're interested in checking out my Life Cycle BUNDLE click here. You can also check out these resource individually from the BUNDLE. 

Happy Teaching!

Love, Kara 

Hippity-Hoppity...Easter's On Its Way! 

Don't you just LOVE the spring time? It's full of fun and exciting activities to do in the classroom and outside! I love Easter time because of all the pastel colors, warmer weather, bunnies and chicks. Its a time for renewal for everyone!
I'd like to share some of my Easter activities that I do in my classroom. I have read some great Easter books. It's so hard to choose which ones to read...they are all my favorites! 

I like to do a lot of different writing and art activities with my students. When I read Rechenka's Eggs, I have my students write a procedural story about how to dye Easter eggs.  You'd be surprised at how many students have never dyed eggs before. So this is so exciting for them!  After they have written their story, then they watercolor an egg of their choice, and then glitter it!  I hang these in the hallway and they look absolutely gorgeous! If you're interested in checking out Rechenka's Egg, click here

I also have this resource by itself with just the Easter Egg Procedural Writing. If you're interested, click here

You can also use a lot of different reading skills with these stories: Author's Purpose, Retelling, Main Idea, Theme, Characterization, Cause and Effect, Story Elements, and Inferences. Here are some of the skill cards that I use for my pocket chart: 

Following these skill cards, you can use your reader's notebooks as a follow-up or extension activity. Here is one that I use for cause and effect. Notice that I put the skill card on the "teacher" side and the student template on the "me" side.  

When I read the Easter Egg by Jan Brett, or the Easter Bunny's Assistant by Jan Thomas, you can have your students write a persuasive piece about why they would like to be the Easter Bunny or the Easter Bunny's Assistant.  The students can make an Easter Bunny craftivity with their writing. If you're interested in checking out The Easter Egg resource, click here

The students can fill out an Easter Bunny Application and answer questions about if they would make a good Easter Bunny or not. They can also fill out an Author's Purpose template about their story that they wrote. After completing the application, students can write their persuasive story using the writing template. Isn't writing fun! These can be glued onto the Easter Bunny and hang in the hallway. If you're interested in checking out the persuasive writing craftivity, click  here

I've also had my students make an Easter Bunny Bag to use when they go hunting for Easter Eggs: 

If you just want your students to have fun writing about their favorite thing about Easter, check out these cute writing craftivities! 

                                        My Easter Chick 

            

                                                        My Easter Lamb

                                        My Easter Basket 

If you're interested in checking out this resource, click here

Who loves to try and catch the Easter Bunny? Here's a fun writing craftivity! 

If you're interested in checking out How to Catch the Easter Bunny, click here 

How about math? You can use Easter Eggs to write addition or subtraction facts and the students have to match the egg with the correct answer in their Easter Tray. This is so easy to make and the students LOVE it! 

I hope you can find something that you would love to try with your students! 

Happy Easter Everyone! 

Love, Kara 

                                      120th Day Celebration- Texas Style! 

If you LOVE having a 120th Day celebration with your students, check out his blog post! We dressed up as cowboys/cowgirls and had a Texas themed celebration. We also asked some parents to help out for our stations. Here are some great activities you could do with your students! 

120 Exercises: 120 Jumping Jacks, Sit-ups, head rolls, shoulder rolls, jumping on one foot, etc...

120 Cup Stacking: The students can stack 120 cups and make their own structure: 

120 Snack: We used 12 different ingredients: cheerios, goldfish, gummy bears, m&ms, raisins, white chocolate chips, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, fruit loops, Kix, and cheese-its etc... We used the plastic chip trays from the dollar store. The students had baggies that they put their snack in to eat later. 

120 Necklace: We used 12 Penne Pasta for the 10s and 12 Wagon Wheel Pasta to separate the 10s to make our necklace. 

120 Hats: 

Race to 120: We used plastic horses and a foam dice to roll to race to 120 on the floor mat. 

120 Quilt: Each student made a number to make a 120 chart on the carpet. 

120 Commitments: We wrote on the stars about making a good choice and put it on the bulletin board. 

Snake in a Boot: The students used rubber snakes to throw the snake in the boot to see if they could make it. 

120 Penny Flip: the students flipped a penny 120 times and then colored in their mat. 

I hope your 120th Day is just as exciting! Have fun!

Love, Kara