Short a

 We had a blast this week learning more about short /a/, Johnny Appleseed, and doing art projects.  Last week, we finished reading our big book about story land!  It is like the last big book we read (with the monster and alphabet island) but it is about 3 kids going to story land.  The kids LOVED reading these books, and I am sad that there are no more books.  In the big book we just finished, there was a character named "know-it-all".  He knew everything about writing and putting words together to make sentences.  His name was perfect for him.  The students got to draw a picture of know-it-all and the other characters that that story was about.  These are some GREAT pictures and I smile every time I look at them!  I have said this before, but our class is full of wonderful artists!

 

This week in reading and language arts, we have been reading and blending short /a/ words.

This was an art project that had to do with colors and short /a/.  They had to fill in the blanks on the paper under the cat.  All of the blanks were supposed to be an /a/, and they figured that out pretty quickly.  The note on the cat says, "I am a cat.  I have on a hat.  The hat is _____________."

They got to choose whatever color they wanted to for the blank.  We even had a rainbow hat!  I loved it!  Each cat was so unique.  I love to see what is going on in the kids minds through their art.

During centers, we made Pam the Lamb to help us with our /a/ sound.

They finally got to use their liquid Elmers Glue for this project.  

The excitement on their face when they found out what kind of glue they were using was priceless.

It is so cute to see what 6 year olds get excited about.  

I wish I would get excited about things like that!

 We also started writing in our journals.  I let them have journals in their desk that they can work in after they are done with their work, but I have special journals that they can only use when I give them to them.  We learned how to write in a journal, what we write about, and we worked on our writing skills.  While I was cleaning my classroom at the end of last year, I found these wonderful spacers!  The students can use them when they need help making spaces in between words.  I almost bought some, so I am really glad that I found some in the room from before!

Finally, JOHNNY APPLESEED DAY!!!!  Technically Wednesday is Johnny Appleseed Day because that's when his birthday is, but I decided that we should celebrate it on Friday, and it was a BLAST!  We all had such a fun time.  We made Apple Pancakes during math time.  We learned about reading a recipe and how to put the ingredients in.  Everyone got a chance to put something in the bowl for the ingredients.  I was really nervous that everyone wasn't going to get a chance...but it worked out just fine!  And everyone got to stir it 5 times each. 

 I was really impressed with some of their egg cracking skills!  They did a great job and didn't get any of the shell in the pancake mix.

 We even did Johnny Appleseed centers!  For the apple book I was supposed to bring an apple seed...but I forgot.  Oops.  Maybe one of these years I will remember.  We still learned about the life cycle of an apple!  I think everyone really enjoyed making a Johnny Appleseed puppet.

 These are the books that we read yesterday.  The Johnny Appleseed book is such a good book to introduce Johnny to the class.

It was a very fun week and I just smile thinking about how much fun everyone had learning!

I love being a teacher!

I hope everyone had fun at the school carnival last night!

Thanks for all you do, parents!