Apples Week

Wow, I now know why so many teacher blogs tend to disappear! With all the work of actually running a classroom, it is hard to find time to blog! I've been working sun up to sun down every single day, and still don't quite feel like I have a handle on things. But at least it is getting better... we're falling into some sort of a routine.

I like to do weekly themes, and during the first week of school I asked the kids to give me some ideas for future themes. But for the sake of being able to plan a little bit in advance, I had already chosen the first two themes. Last week we did Pete the Cat, and this week we did apples. Last week I was so rushed that I forgot to take any pictures and I barely even remember what we did. But this week was a little better, and I did get some pics to share.

Lets see... first of all, the ever important sensory bin. This week I poured in uncooked oatmeal, and added some apple pie spice to make it smell like apple pie! I had also bought these little apple erasers to use for a math game, and I added the extras to the sensory bin, Many of the kids love it! They get five minutes of free time at the end of our groups, and many of them choose to play with the sensory box.

For one of my math groups that is working on identifying numbers, I made a game called "Wormy Apple." It is played just like the game "Old Maid," but with a worm instead of an Old Maid. In case you've never played, players take turns blindly choosing a card from the hand of the person next to them, in hopes of getting a card that makes a match with one they already have. If they get a match, they set it aside. The Wormy Apple will exchange hands many times, and while the "winner" is the one who gets rid of all of their cards first, the good sport is the person who is left with the Wormy Apple when all of the other cards are gone. I made this with construction paper, but I might make a version for TPT if I get a minute. 

For my writing groups, I brought in a few actual apples, I made categories for each of the five senses on the white board. We went through and brainstormed words to describe the apples by sight, touch, sound, smell, and, finally, taste! This was harder than it sounds. They have a lot of trouble coming up with adjectives. Of course they all started off by saying "red" for the sight category, but then they couldn't get off the idea of color and kept naming random colors, such as blue. I had to really try to get them to look more closely at the apple. I was also trying to get them to veer away from using words like "good" as adjectives. But really, coming up with unique words to describe an apple is pretty tricky! Try it... we had a lot of trouble coming up with more than two or three words for each category.

Their favorite part of that activity was eating the slices of apples. Especially the golden apple, which they were convinced would give them extra energy. I think this is connected to Minecraft or something.

They then each chose a word from each category to describe the apple. We glued them onto apple shapes. At least they're supposed to look like apples. Some of the kids told me they didn't.

(This one says: My apple looks red. My apple feels light. My apple sounds loud. My apple smells flowery. My apple tastes sweet.)

On Fridays we always do a cooking project (and by always, I mean for the last two weeks, since that is how long we've been in school!) Last week we made Pete The Cat's Banana Pudding to go with the book Pete The Cat And The Bad Banana. It was basically just layering Nilla Wafers, vanilla pudding and banana slices in a cup, with a dollop of whip cream on top. This week we made mini apple pies. I found some packages of tiny graham cracker pie crusts at Safeway. The recipe was so simple, it was almost too quick... we just added a few scoops of apple pie filling to our pie crusts, sprinkled on some cinnamon and apple pie spice, and added our dollop of whip cream. (I enjoyed teaching them the word "dollop," because they like to add their own whip cream, and I didn't want them going crazy with it. I'm not sure dollop is an official unit of measurement, but it is a fun word, isn't it?)

Lets see... what else did we do?

I printed out this game from Kaylee's Education Studio. This is a game where you draw a card with an addition problem on it, and cover the answer on your worksheet. I colored the worksheets because I am a nerd like that, and I laminated them because I learned how to use the laminating machine and now I just need to laminate stuff all the time. We used the little erasers to cover our answers. I was actually afraid this game would go by too quickly for my short-attention-spanned math group. But it actually took us three days to play. THREE DAYS! Granted, each group session is just a half hour long, plus they always get there late and by the time I get them settled down we only have about twenty minutes left. But still... for three days, my math boys practiced addition happily. The reason we continued the game for three days is because they wanted to... they couldn't bear to leave the game unfinished. In fact, I'm pretty sure we're still not finished and we have to play it for at least ten minutes on Monday. 

With my 3td grade reading group, we read the book Apples, by Gail Gibbons. I love Gail Gibbons's books. They are so colorful and present such interesting information. Before reading it, we started a KWL chart, and then as we read we stopped so the kids could tell me facts they'd learned from each page. After we finished the book, I copied each fact down on a sentence strip. We sorted the strips into three categories: history, trees, and apples. I put magnet tape on the backs of the strips, so we could arrange them on the board in a sensible order. Then, for the next few days, the kids worked on copying the sentences and illustrating them. It was a lot of hard work for them, and I heard a lot of groans and grumbles, so I want them to see that their work created something pretty cool! 

Okay. I'm exhausted. I need to sleep.