Calling All Earth Day Superheros….

We had so much fun today learning about our Earth, watching a Bill Nye video on recycling, reading Fancy Nancy's Earth Day book.  My students took all that they learned and created an Earth Day booklet and publishing it with their very own Earth Day Superhero!


Here's the cutie superheroes ready to save Planet Earth from my class:

 Here is a peek inside the Earth Booklet

If you would like to do this activity with your class, you can pick up a copy at my 

Teacher's Notebook Store.

 Happy Earth Day!

Mirror, Mirror… We have Courage one and all!

We have had a lot of fun this week working on Courage.  For the past two days my students have been working on making Courage Mirrors.  They have also made some personal connections to understanding courage and being courageous by writing their own personal narrative on a courageous experience and making a Courage tab booklet.  I love how cute their "reflections" turned out in their mirrors!

If you would like to use this activity with your own students you can pick up a copy at my Teacher's Notebook store.  

Courage Unit Review

This week we are spending time reviewing our Courage Unit.  My students will be making a little booklet where they create an award for each character we have read about.  I am so excited to see how these turn out.  I did something similar last year - but it always gets better the second time around:)

 You can grab a copy of this activity at my Teacher's Notebook Store.

Brave as a Mountain Lion

This week we read the story, "Brave as a Mountain Lion," in our Imagine It book.  My students really enjoyed this story - I think mostly because they could really relate on how a character had to do something very ordinary - like be in a spelling bee - but was afraid.


We worked on Cause/Effect events from the story as well as characterization.  Then my class worked on making their own connections to the story by thinking about things they have done a million times and were very comfortable doing.  As well as how they fell when they have to try something for the very first time.


Here's some student work samples:

To help them come up with ideas for this project - we brainstormed as a class.  First characterizing Spider at the beginning of the story and then again at the end of the story.  

I am not very good at drawing cute "anchor charts" but my students got the point.

If you'd like to use these resources in your classroom - you can visit my Teacher's Notebook store and pick them up!  Thanks:)

Akiak : A Tale from the Iditarod

My students have been busy….busy…busy.  We use the Imagine It! Reading series and I can't believe we are almost to our last unit.  This school year is just flying by.


This week we are reading a great story about a dog's courage called, Akiak: A Tale from the Iditarod.  My students have fallen in love with this story.  It has led to many discussions about how animals can show courage and be just as brave as people.


I thought I'd share a cute activity that they are working on…

I think he turned out adorable!  I can't wait to hang these in the hallway.  They are working on sequence this week - so they had to "draw" the major events in the story.  Then they used their drawings to write the sentences.  

Student Samples:

Love the blue eyes!

I made up a little packet to share on Teacher's Notebook.  It included the patterns to make Akiak as well as a variety of writing forms/prompts.  I also made a little scavenger hunt where my students have to look back in the story to find some things.  Hoping to help them remember important details about the story.

Click on the picture below to visit my Teacher's Notebook store to get this great resource!

The Empty Pot

My class just finished reading, The Empty Pot, by Demi in our Imagine It reading book.  I love making predictions with this story as most students never think it's because the seeds have been cooked.  I created this little extension activity to add enrichment to the story.

If you are interested in doing this activity with your students, I have included all the printables and directions.  Just visit my Teacher's Notebook store to pick it up:)