Scott Foresman and Such!

I thought I would share a few things that have made both Scott Foresman's Amazing Words and literacy centers somewhat easier lately.  None of these ideas is all that original or earth shattering BUT I really like the results I am seeing with these centers.  The BEST part is these jobs require NO COPYING and the grading is quick and simple! Woohoo!

I downloaded these rhyming cards from Lana Holzer's blog http://acreativeclassroom.blogspot.com/ and had them laminated.

The kids practiced matching them up to one another and you can see, it got a little silly!



They had to choose their favorite pair...



and write their own rhyming sentences.

This is a bit of a challenge so I tried it with my higher group first.  They worked on this while I Progress Monitored for NWF last Friday.

They did a good job and "got" the concept.  I will do this with my other groups but with more guidance.

She even made up a third line!

I just looked over and saw this and my heart melted.  I have never even shown them the Whisper Phones!  Why, I do not know, especially after I see this!  I love these kids.

Ok, another literacy center that I have incorporated once a week is for the kids to write and illustrate four of  the Amazing Words from our story on a Four Square paper.  I usually have them complete this as a center on Wednesday.  (On Monday, they make a Four Square paper using the letter of the week.)  I am loving their illustrations and the reinforcement it provides for the practice of these words that are often not the words that I would choose as "Amazing" from the story.

They have to read the words to me before they receive an "S".

At the listening center, the children illustrate a picture from the story but I have them write a sight word from that week as practice.  I know they should be writing a sentence about the story they just listened to but I have them writing their little fingers off so I ease up on them at this center!

Our America-Statue of Liberty

Our hall display-a work in progress...

We have been working a little each week on the Our America unit that I got from Deanna Jump.  I am loving it and so are the kids.  We learned about the American Bald Eagle a few weeks ago and this is the only picture I took.  Shucks!

This week we learned about the Statue of Liberty.  We read The Story of the Statue of Liberty suggested by Deanna in her list of books to use with the unit. This is the directed drawing we used from her unit. 

We worked step by step-they loved this!

So intent...

The finished products.  Aren't they great?  All of this artwork will go in an American Symbols book along with the fact sheets they are making for each symbol. 

You can see their eagles made from their foot and hand tracings.

Next we wanted to know how come the Statue of Liberty is green so we started with our own pennies.

They documented what their pennies looked like before the experiment and chose a sentence to describe their penny in their science journals.

Next we added a few drops of vinegar to the pennies to simulate the salty water that the Statue of Liberty is subjected to in the New York Harbor.

This was another opportunity to use the Scientific Method and work through it step by step.  Deanna Jump has printouts for this for free on tPt.  These are the hypotheses the children came up with!  I was impressed.

A day later, take a look!

The shinier pennies turned the greenest!

They documented what their pennies looked like after the experiment on their own. 

The last step was to come up with our own conclusion.  They are getting very good at coming up with thoughtful ideas linking A to B in these experiments.  I can't wait to begin my liquids, gas and solids unit!