Matter Matters

Hello Everyone!
I hope you're having a great weekend!! It has finally stopped raining here and we were able to get outside for a bit.  The sunshine felt so good!!  And the dogs....They were so ready to play, play, play!!  We finally wore them out, so it's now time to get some school stuff done! 
We have parent/teacher conferences tomorrow all day, so my first big job was to get ready for that, organizing test scores, writing samples, math notebook samples, etc.  I really love meeting with parents and sharing what their little ones are working on. And getting to know my kids better by getting to know their parents is so incredibly helpful!!! I'm very thankful for a full day to meet with everyone!
So, with that all organized, I now have time to share my new Matter unit with you.  It has a little bit of everything for our young scientists, but there is an emphasis this year on the properties of matter, and not so much the states of matter. Here are some quick pics!

I will take some pictures this week of kids working on this.  Hopefully I'll have time to share those in a bit!  Till then, here's the link to the downloadable unit so you can get started too!!!  I hope you and yours have as much fun as my kids have had so far!

CLICK HERE for the printable "Matter Matters" unit!!

Thanks for stopping by this little blog!  If you have any questions, problems, or concerns, please don't hesitate to holler at me! I am not too sure the comment section has been working lately, so just email me!

firstgradewow@gmail.com

Thanks, All!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Interdependency Terrariums and The Cactus Hotel

Hello Everyone!
I have a few minutes while waiting for some yummy veggie pizza to bake in the oven, so I thought I'd share a bit about what we've been doing in science.  We finished our unit on living and nonliving, and jumped right into a closely related topic, Interdependency.  The kids have had fun just learning how to say that word...and of course relating it to living things.We learned the def.- the relationship between two or more things- where each one benefits from the other. Last week we learned what plants need to survive and what we and other living things get from plants, so of course we had to make our terrarium!!  So much fun.  We are in the process of watching what happens and recording our observations.

Want to try it? Click HERE for the unit! It's free!

This week we concentrated on a wonderful book which shows great examples of interdependency. Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson.

 You have to get this book if you want kids to be amazed at how things depend on each other. Another great book to share during this unit is Desert Giant by Barbara Bash, an expository text which reads like a narrative!  

While reading the Cactus Hotel, we kept track of the dependency details on our anchor chart.

We will then create a little book to organize and share our thinking.

Want this little unit?

You can get it HERE!! CLICK!! :)

If you downloaded this from me last year, you will find that I've added a little extra science activity that has to do with cacti. Quick, inexpensive, and effective! :)

I love when we can add a "hand to head to heart" learning experience to every part of our curriculum!! 

OOPS! There goes my oven timer!! People depend on plants too!!

Have a good night!! I'll be back soon to tell you about our 100th day celebration, some fun winter activities, mentor sentences, some amazing opinion writing and so much more!!!! Stop by again soon!! Thanks for stopping by today!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Soil and Rocks!

Hello Everyone!
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there...and to all the dads, grandparents, friends, and others who also fulfill the mom role. Your job is so important!  Celebrate your commitment and love!
 I had a wonderful day spoiling my mom and hearing from both my babies---from afar!! Yes, they will always be my babies no matter how old they get!!!  I love you, Jordan and Toby!!!
I have so much to share from last week!!  We had one jam packed week, which about took me out, but we do survive, don't we? I haven't had time to go through all my pictures, so that post is going to have to wait.
I do want to share what we have coming up...our study of soil and rocks!!!  Oh. My. The kids loooooove this!!!  Sometimes we forget how much kids get into our little science studies!! I have shared my soil unit before, but I worked on adding to it, cleaning it up, and am now ready to share.  Here are some pics from the 39 page unit.

you can get my unit....

IF YOU SIMPLY CLICK HERE!!! ROCK ON!!

Hope you can use a bit of it!!  I know my kids are going to have a blast!! 

Well, that's it for today.  I promise I'll be back to share our week.

Thanks for your patience!  And thanks for your support of this little Window On Wonder!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Rainbow Floats, Prepositions, and Chicken Life Cycle

Hello Everyone!
And Hello, Saturday! What a crazy, busy, fun week of learning!  I can't believe how tired I was...and very thankful to have this morning of peace and time...except for the cleaning, the yard work, the  laundry, the grocery shopping, you know, all the "stuff" you don't have time to during the week when you work full+ time.  But...I wouldn't have it any other way!
Anyway, I wanted to show you some fun word work we did this week. We were working hard on oa and ow words, so it was the perfect time for our Rainbow Float unit!

As a special memorable treat on Friday, we made Rainbow Floats!! 

(please note--these have not been edited)

Of course we had to write about our treat!  I don't think the kids will forget about oa and ow!!

Here's the link to the OA OW unit if you want it!

We also worked hard on prepositions this week.  I shared my preposition unit already, but I wanted to show you the end products for using Rosie's Walk as a mentor text.

Our cute little preposition anchor 

What? An interactive anchor? 

Here's a link to our preposition unit! CLICK!

Oh! I also wanted to share with you the hand to head and heart visual we made to culminate our study of the life cycle of a chicken. This was def. a feat of organization, and perseverance. The kids did it all except for the eyes.  I finally got some of those circle punches!  They are on sale this week at Hobby Lobby! Hooray! If you want to do this, make sure you have a hefty chunk of time!  

As you can tell, I almost always have a hands on visual component to any unit of study! Some may think this is just fluff, but I will tell you that this hand to head "fluff" is incredibly beneficial on so many levels. The activities not only help cement the objective to be learned, whether it be science, social studies, math, reading, or writing, but they are also lessons in listening, following directions, problem solving, organization, creativity, sequencing, fine motor development, visualization, differentiation, etc., etc., etc.  Yes, for many of the visuals, there is a lot of guidance, and teacher direction, but sometimes kids need that component to help build confidence.  Please know that I give my kids plenty of free creative development opportunities as well.  The key is to strike a balance. 

Anyway, off my soapbox...If you would like the chicken life cycle unit and didn't grab it a few posts ago...You can get it HERE!

Til next time, have a great weekend! I'm off to get all that fun weekend stuff done! Thank you so much for stopping by for a peek through our Window!

Joyfully!

Nancy