Cloudy and the 50th Day

So, my plans to post last week were thwarted when I was thrust into becoming a CSI detective.  Let me just tell y’all that I would make an EXCELLENT investigator should anyone ever need a private eye.  For real.  I successfully caught someone impersonating someone else & TOTALLY trying to scam one of my friends on Facebook!  I SO felt like I was living in a Lifetime movie last week!!  I had NO time for anything other than sleuthing.  Now that that whole saga is over…*I think for now anyway*…I’m ready to play catch-up.

We learned all about clouds and the kids had a BLAST!!!  Actually, I think I might’ve had a *little* more fun than them :)  I don’t know why, but I LOVE teaching about clouds and the weather!  SO fun!! 

I was inspired by my sweet friend, Abby, to make these fun little cloud guys.  These were such a great visual to get my kids to understand what kind of clouds are high/low in the sky. 

We also made little cloud anchor charts that my kids used throughout the week for writing. 

We described clouds…

And we even made little cloud flip books…inspired by the fabulous Anna Brantley over at Crazy for First Grade …and practiced labeled them, too.

For word work, we practiced writing our popcorn & spelling words in the clouds :)  This was definitely a class FAVORITE!!  I thought of my grandpa ALL day…the classroom smelled JUST like him ;)

The activity that had the class talkin’ for DAYS after it was over was this great little craftivity we did after we read the book, “It Looked Like Spilt Milk”.  The kids did a little writing… “Sometimes clouds can look like...” and then we followed it up with a little “get-your-hands-dirty” kinda craft.  We just mixed equal parts glue and shaving cream together and painted it in the shape that we wrote about.  When the mixture dries, the cloud stays puffy and it gives a little when you touch it.  It was the COOLEST thing!!!! 

This was the cloud my sweet student teacher made…

And this is one from one of my sweeties…

 

We made our “Very Busy First Graders” spiders and hung them from the ceilings.  Last year we put them on the door, but I’ve yet to touch the door since the school year started :)

We also learned about bats!!!  I didn’t take pictures of most of our work, but here’s our little “bat cave”.  I made a big giant bat full of bat facts we collected as we read several different non-fiction bat books.  I had the kids make little paper bag bats and then write two facts on the pink strip {we did this for writing one day}.

We’ve definitely kept ourselves busy these last few weeks!  Now we’re getting SUPER excited about the 50th day next week!!!  Woo hoo!!!!  I’m pretty sure I lived in the fifties in my former life {ha!!} because I SOOOO love anything and everything poodle skirts and cuffed jeans.  We’re excited about celebrating our halfway to the 100th day!   I’m getting all my fun stuff ready for next week when we enjoy the 50th day festivities!!!  Here’s just a little sneak peek…

If you’re interested in incorporating some of these craftivities into your 50th day plans, you can check out my newest little mini unit on TpT… “Cruisin’ Through the 50 First Days of School”.  I included the templates and directions and several other fun little activities…

It’s usually $5, but you can grab it for $4 until Thursday!  EVERYTHING in my little shop is 20% off ‘til Thursday.  I’m giving away this little mini unit to the first person who leaves me a comment and correctly guesses my favorite 1950’s artist and/or song.  WOW…that covers A LOT of ground ;) 

Alright now…time to watch my boys WIN!!!!!  GO RANGERS!!!!!!