Water Cycle, Clouds and a Winner!

Hi friends! I just wanted to let you know that Patty won a copy of my Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Literacy Unit!

We have started our weather unit and began learning about the water cycle, clouds and weather! Here are some things we are doing this year and/or have done in the past!

Put water in a clear glass. Spray shaving cream on top. This serves as your cloud. Put several drops of food coloring in the shaving cream. This shows students what happens when the clouds get heavy and it starts to precipitate! 

Your kiddos can write about and illustrate the steps of the water cycle!

This our cloud bulletin board. After reading The Cloud Book, you can have your students write about the different clouds and even make their own little cloud people!

After reading It Looked Like Spilt Milk, you can do this cute activity to review symmetry! Give students a blue piece of paper, have them fold it in half, then squirt some white paint in the crease. Have the close the paper and squish the paint around. Open and reveal their symmetrical "cloud!"

Have your students write adjectives to describe clouds around a cloud they make out of cotton balls!

I hope we can get to many of these activities again this year! And maybe you will be able to use some of them in your classroom!!

New iTeachSecond Blog! Let's have a GIVEAWAY!

Friends. 
I have a very exciting announcement to make!
I have decided to team up with some of my very best 2nd grade buddies to write for a collaborative blog.

That means ONE blog with TONS of great ideas from several super awesome 2nd Grade teachers!

One thing I L-O-V-E about this blog, is you will know exactly what to expect each day of the week.  For every day, there is a blogging theme.  Check them out!

I'm SO excited to get started on this new adventure, and am thrilled to invite you along for the ride.  Let's celebrate with a little giveaway! You can win my newest product, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Literacy Unit that I just posted!! 

Would you like to win it?? Enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Catch Up Time! Plus a NEW Gooney Bird Greene Unit!

SIX. That is how many more school days we have until summer! This year went by crazy fast when I really sit down and think about it.  We've been trying to make the end of the year as fun and memorable as we can, and I just wanted to show you a few things we've been up to since I last posted. This post is going to be kind of random, based on photos I have on my phone :)

We learned all about weather, clouds, and the water cycle! You can click here or here for more detailed posts from the past :)

 

We used shaving cream and food coloring in a vase of water to demonstrate what happens when the clouds get heavy and precipitation happens.

 

The kiddos wrote and illustrated the steps of the water cycle. 

 



We read some books, including The Cloud Book, to learn about different kinds of clouds. Then the kids made their own little cloud people and wrote about the characteristics of each cloud.

 

Our students, their families, and our PTA spoiled us during Teacher Appreciation Week! We definitely felt the love with all the sweet cards, flowers, gift cards, gifts, colored copy paper {11 packs!!!} and TONS of snacks!!

 



 

We are currently learning alllll about animals, and the kids are super interested! We have so many awesome nonfiction books that we are reading to them and they are loving them! We've learned about different habitats, so the kids made a little foldable/flip book thingie to compare four of the land habitats {woodland forest, rainforest, desert, and arctic habitats}.

 

 

 

We've also started our final countdown! We got started late, so our countdown started this past Tuesday. Each day we pop a balloon and there is a special activity or treat for the class. The first day was to chew bubblegum {which we can't do normally!} Yesterday was sit by anyone at lunch, and today was sidewalk chalk day!

 

 

 

We are using this as an incentive for behavior and getting work done. We all know that the end of the school year can be hard, and we had to do something to save our sanity :) If they get a negative on Class Dojo or have any incomplete work, they cannot participate in that day's activities. And let me tell you, it has helped tremendously!!! We are thinking we should've started our countdown earlier, haha. But the kids don't want to miss out, so they are really trying.

 

Do you have my Amber Brown is Not a Crayon Novel Study? Well, I made a Gooney Bird Greene Novel Unit that goes along perfectly with it! There are a lot of the same skills in both units, so it makes it perfect to have both books going on at the same time during your literature circles. It would also be super easy to implement the activities if you are doing it as your chapter book read aloud. You can check out this novel unit by clicking the picture below!

 

Click on the pictures below for a preview of some of the pages in this 39 page unit. Some of the skills that it hits are comprehension, cause/effect, visualizing, character traits, problem/solution fact/opinion, nouns/verbs/adjectives, common/proper nouns, and lots more!

 

Have a wonderful Friday, and hopefully summer isn't too far away for you!!



It Looked Like Spilt Milk: Symmetry, Adjectives & Clouds

Jessica, I have sent you What's the Main Idea? pack! Mary, I need your email address, please! Then I will email you the Easter Bunny Glyph Craftivity! Thanks to all who entered :)

 

I just wanted to share a couple little things we did today with clouds. They are very simple and great review! We read It Looked Like Spilt Milk. We reviewed symmetry, and made our own "clouds!"

 

 

We brainstormed adjectives to describe clouds, and made these cute little clouds! They wrote adjectives around their clouds :)

 

 

Easy, peasy! :)



The Water Cycle & Clouds

Happy Friday, friends! And happy {early} birthday to Amy, my team teaching partner! The kids and I threw a little surprise party for her! And she really had no idea!! YES!!! They spoiled her like crazy with lots of cards, notes, chocolate, gifts and gift cards! She felt so special! We truly have the best families ever!!!

 

We have been having lots of fun learning about the water cycle and clouds this week! We read The Water Cycle, which is perfect for our 2nd graders!

 

 

Then we taught them the water cycle song which they LOVE! This is seriously the most enthusiastic class when singing this song! So I recorded them, but I cannot get my video to load :( Not even the sound!! BOO! They sound adorable!! Anywho, the song goes to the tune of "She'll Be Comin' Around the Mountain." It goes:

 

Water travels in a cycle, yes it does!
Water travels in a cycle, yes it does!

It goes up as evaporation,
It forms clouds as condensation,
It falls down as precipitation, yes it does!

 

We made a model of the water cycle, which I forgot to photograph {seems to be a bad habit of mine lately!} We discussed each part of the water cycle and illustrated it. Then I found the coolest, easiest idea on Pinterest to show the kids how it rains! They know that the clouds are made of droplets of water, and when the drops get heavy, it begins to rain. So with a glass of water, shaving cream and food coloring we made it rain!!

 

 





Just squirt shaving cream in the water. This is your "cloud." Then tell the kids that food coloring represents droplets of water in the clouds. Wait a few seconds, and the food coloring will come through the shaving cream and it will start to "rain"! The kids loved this! It was the perfect demonstration!

 

Oh, I must throw in that Bill Nye has a great water cycle video. He always does a great job at explaining and showing scientific ideas to kids. Plus, they just love him :)

 

We had our kids illustrate and write about the water cycle as an assessment. They did great!

 

 

{I forgot to take a pic of the 2nd page of writing!! Whoops!}

 

Today we learned about clouds! We read The Cloud Book  by Tomie DePaola. I LOVE this book! We also read some other nonfiction cloud books. We brainstormed characteristics we learned about the following clouds: stratus, cirrus, cumulus, and nimbus. Here was our bulletin board {cloud people inspired by Abby!}

 

{photo circa 2011.. I've been horrible at photographing this year!}

 

Then we had our kids write a fact about each cloud on notecards. They glued those to blue paper, and on the back they got to make their own miniature cloud people! Cute, cute!

 

 

We have a couple more cloud activities to do on Monday, then we will move on to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and really start getting into weather! Then SPRING BREAK!! :) :) :) 

Clouds!

My kids have been SOOO into learning about clouds the past few days! On recess duty I overheard some of them saying, "Look at those Cumulus clouds! It's going to be a nice day!" Love it!

If you are teaching about clouds you must read

It is very informative and leads right into the characteristics of just about every cloud!

We focused on the following clouds: Cumulus, Nimbus, Stratus, and Cirrus. After much reading and discussing, we made a chart together to compare the four types of clouds. Excuse the handwriting and crooked lines! This was definitely a quick, last minute thing :)

I borrowed this adorable idea from The Inspired Apple to illustrate the four clouds:

Aren't those cloud friends just the cutest? What a great visual aid to show where each cloud belongs in the sky! All of my kids now know that Cirrus clouds are the highest and that Stratus clouds are like a low, gray blanket in the sky :)

 Of course my kids were practically begging for their own cloud friends, so they each wrote about the four clouds and made their own mini cloud friends. They turned out so cute!! I am so proud of their writing--many of them needed TWO sheets of paper for their writing, which is a BIG deal for them :)

So, so cute :)

The Water Cycle!

Yeah, yeah. I know it has been awhile since I last posted!! As I said in my last post, I was gone a few days before spring break, and last week was the first week back and I felt like I was just trying to get caught up! I fiiiinally feel somewhat caught up (even with it being conference week!!!)

We started our weather unit for science last week. The kids are sooo into it! We have been reading a LOT of nonfiction books about different kinds of weather, and many of my kiddos are checking out weather books in the library to share with the class! Love it!

We have been focusing a lot on the water cycle. Everyday we have been singing this little song with hand motions that goes to the tune of She'll Be Comin' Around the Mountain... It goes like this:

"Water travels in a cycle yes it does,

 Water travels in a cycle yes it does.

(move hands around in circle)

 It goes up as evaporation.

(palms up, rise hands up to head)

 It forms clouds as condensation.

(form cloud-like shape over head)

 It falls down as precipitation, yes it does!

(wiggle fingers and make hands go down like it's raining)

I promise my kids will know the water cycle for the rest of their lives because of this song :)

I made this water cycle poster for our weather bulletin board:

We have done a lot of reading about the water cycle. We made little moveable water cycle diagrams. We also sequenced and illustrated the steps of it.  As with many science concepts, just reading about the water cycle was a little difficult for my kiddos to really visualize, so I found a great Bill Nye video about it, and I heard a lot of, "OHHH!!! I get it now!"

After spending a few days on it, I had my kids write about the water cycle and illustrate it using yarn, sequins, and cotton balls. They did a fabulous job :)

My kids' parents just loved these at conferences tonight! :)

We are going to start learning about different kinds of clouds in the next week or so! I am really excited :)