Alligators & Penguins & Skunks-- Oh My!

 

After break, we began our Animal unit.  It never ceases to amaze me how much kids love to learn about animals!  We kicked off this great topic with a visit from Wild Things, Inc. , out of Salinas, CA.  If you are in this area, you should check them out!  You can take a trip to their facility (which we used to do when there was money for buses) or they will come to you with a variety of fantastic live animals!  We did the "My Backyard" assembly, which features animals native to North America.  There are many facilities throughout the country that do programs like this, you just have to call around and ask! 

Our stage was still set from our Gingerbread Man play before vacation!  Love it. 

Baby alligator

Milk snake: "Red touches black, friend of Jack.  Red touches yellow, dangerous fellow."  That's how you can tell the difference between this friendly guy and his dangerous near-twin, the coral snake.

 

"Flower" the skunk.  She's been descented.  Thank goodness!

Furry ferret. 

Red-kneed tarantula! 

 

 

Needless to say, the kids really enjoyed this experience!  We followed up with some Animal Writing (FREE) using this template I found on TpT.  We have not completed the task-- I will have to upload some photos when we get there!

 

This week, we begin our penguin unit.  This is one of my favorites every year, too!  I have decided to give you my  Penguin Counting Pack FREE!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD.

 

 

 

Please leave me some love and follow my blog if you like the unit!  I would love to share more with you! 

 

 

 





 

Tablet For The Teacher & Snowman CVC Freebie

ACK!  Vacation is almost over!  Where I work, teachers go back this Monday, Jan.7 for an inservice and students return on Tuesday.  It has been a great break, though.  It's so nice to have time to relax, sleep in, and get things done that normally have to wait! 

We have spent a good deal of our break cleaning, packing, and purging our house for our move in February.  While it wasn't a fun way to spend our time, I am thankful we had the time to do that outside of work!  Now for the next several weekends we will continue to hopefully reduce our "stuff" and get packed up.  We are moving to a nice, big, beautiful house so it will be a wonderful change once we've accomplished the work that lies ahead.

I have been thinking about the return to school and what to do those first few groggy days back.  Our new theme is "Animals" so I usually cover forest animals as well as penguins.  And even though it doesn't snow here in the Bay Area (hardly ever), we will do some fun snowman activities to "Winter-ize" our classroom.  I made that word up, but it should be a real word, don't you think?!  ;-)

So here is a fun Snowman CVC Freebie for you.  I am going to do these on blue construction paper and give the kids white crayons when they're done to add snowy details.

If you download it, please follow me and leave me some snowy LOVE in the form of a comment!  Thanks!

Also, have you heard about the "Tablet for the Teacher Sweepstakes" going on at Teacher's Notebook?  Click on the banner at the top of my blog for more information.  You can enter once per day from Jan. 5-31!  Good luck!

And I will leave you on this note, a joke shared with me by my 7 year-old yesterday:  What does a frog like to drink with his hamburger?    CROAK-a-Cola!

Yep.  I love vacation!

Winter Puzzle Freebie

Happy New Year!

I just finished some number order puzzles.  They are free if you click here.

I made options for 1-10 or 11-20.  You can print in color or B&W.

We will be working on numbers 11-20 this month, so I am going to make several copies of the color ones and laminate for centers.  I hope you can use them, too!