Last Week in Pictures

Here's a look at what we did last week in pictures! 

Our reading story was Jan's New Home, so during social studies, we talked a lot about the differences and similarities between the country and the city. We made a venn diagram to compare and contrast these two places and then each student picked which they liked better and we did a little writing activity.

We discussed what the theme was and then identified the theme in Jan's New Home

While we were reading the story, we realized that the author never said why Jan and her family were moving, so we brainstormed possible reasons why they could be moving. 

Friday after tests we read The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, which went along perfectly with our reading and social studies lessons

We made Chinese dragons in honor of Chinese New Years

Is it too early to break out valentine's centers?? Maybe, but my kids and I were ready! They are loving these centers. 

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! :)

Jan's New Home...Character Spotlight

We've been snowed in! We haven't had school since last Friday and I'm lovin' it! I've planned all sorts of things to go along with our story next week, Jan's New Home. The story is about a little girl that has to move to another house. At first, she is very nervous and sad about leaving, but at the end, she starts to feel excited about all the new changes. This story goes along perfectly with the unit theme of Changes. Here is a character spotlight on Jan that I am going to have my kids make. I used the Paper Dolls cartridge on my Cricut to make Jan. My plan is to go ahead and cut all the pieces and let my kids make their own Jan doll to display with their character map.

I also found a neat idea in the Teacher's Edition of Reading Street. Since the characters in the story move to a new city, I'm going to use this time to incorprate some social studies and talk about different parts of the country. Each student will pick a place to live if they could live anyway in our country. We are going to use magazines to cut out pictures that go along with the area that the student picks. Here is my example to show the kids:

Any Scott Foresman teachers out there with any ideas for Jan's New Home? I'd love to hear them!! :)