What are some of your favorite books to read in the month of February?

Do you have tons of personal books in your classroom?  If you are like me, you do!  For the past two summers I have sorted, repaired, cataloged, and labeled all of my books.   It was quite a task, but now I can actually find the book I am looking for.  So much better than just rummaging through a random pile of books.  These are some of my favorites for the month of February:

 

 

I love Splat!!!!

I think I own all the "Night Before…." books.

 Are any of these your favorite?




If you are looking for some cute writing activities for the month of February, check out my February Writing Activities Bundle.    It includes graphic organizers, a February word wall, prompts, and themed writing papers.

I also have a sweet little freebie for you!  I offered it on my blog last year and here it is again!  Click here to get it!

Some great writing and art from my kinderbugs!

Wow!  This week seemed really long....wonder if it had anything to do with the full moon?!?!?  My kiddos were really loud and restless.

Even with the unrest, they have been working hard on their writing.   I am super proud of the writers they are becoming and they are loving the fact that other people can now read things they write.

Another thing I am loving is........ Thinking Maps!!!  My kiddos do too!!   They have gotten so good at creating them and using them to help them write.

Here are some samples of what we have been up to!

Valentine's Day circle map.

Samples of Valentine Writing from the circle map.

We also did some Groundhog writing........but I just realized I didn't take a picture of the Groundhog Day Tree Map.......arrrggg!  I will have to do that on Monday.

Groundhog prediction chart.

  We just began learning how to write a Response to Literature.

 My kids love all the Splat the Cat books so we decided to respond to Love, Splat.

Here is their writing and the Splat the Cat craftivity they made without a pattern.  I think they turned out so cute!

Here is a Tree Map for The Biggest Valentine Ever.  We are also using it for a Response to Literature but we haven't finished the writing yet.  I still want to make a flow map of the events from the story.  I will post more pics when they are complete.

 

And finally.....ever wonder what to do with all those plastic coffee cans????

We turned them into our Valentine Holders!!! A great big thank you goes out to Mark's grandparents for saving all of these for us!

Penguin Writing and Craftivity!

We have been learning all about penguins for the past two weeks.  We have read lots of penguin books and watched some National Geographic clips about the types of penguins.  My kiddos have thoroughly enjoyed this unit.  On Monday, I gave each child some black, white, and orange paper to make a penguin.  I didn't give them a pattern to go by........and oh my........they did not like it!  They had to figure out how to make it on their own!!!  It was quite amusing to hear them talk with their neighbors about what to do and why Ms. McBee wouldn't help them!  But......they turned out so cute and with so much personality.  Yesterday, we finished up our unit by making a tree map of some facts about penguins and writing about them.   

Here are some pics for ya!

I am so proud of their writing!  They did fantastic writing from the tree map.

Sharon