Lots to Celebrate!

It is almost SPRING BREAK!! I cannot wait, I am finally going to see my family in Texas after a loooong time!
There are a few things I wanted to share with everyone before I venture off tomorrow!
The other month I emailed the author of the "Biscuit" books. If you don't use these books in your classroom for your struggling readers you should! My kids ADORE the books. It is now at the point that they ask to bring them out during.....RECESS. It is a teachers dream to hear those sentences!
I decided to email her after my teacher BFF did and got a response back. So, I told her all about my students and how her books have enabled my struggling readers to feel like they are reading big kid books, while still reading on their level. She emailed me back a lovely response and then a few days later.....we got this!

Six brand new books for us plus a new Earth Day book!

A letter to us about why she is a writer!!

Y'all we were so excited!! My ones that are obsessed were besides themselves! They are now looking in the back of the book asking me if I have other ones! It warms my heart that she was so giving to our classroom. Thank you so much Alyssa!

So, as you can see she sent us a cool Earth Day book with Biscuit. We will be reading it tomorrow and then completing this writing activity.

How I Help Planet Earth! 

THEN....we are heading outside for our Earth Day picnic! We are eating on towels, and then playing with bubbles, jump ropes, flag football, and other stuff! Ms. Simoneaux and I will also be face painting! I cannot wait!

Hope the rest of your week is great!

-Ms. Thomas :)

Antonyms and Synonyms

This week we were talking about synonyms and antonyms! Thank goodness for Cara Carroll and her already amazing ideas because I used them to help my kids get a good understanding of this skill. I used her antonym and synonym cards to pass out to each student and then used a little worksheet I typed up to help them grasp what the two are! They turned out really cute! Here are the two worksheets I used:

Synonym means the same!

Antonym means the opposite! 

We haven't had spring break yet....ugh! My firsties and I both need a little break! 

Happy (almost) Friday!

-Ms. Thomas :) 

Ugh! Another week of Social Studies? What to Do?

As I sat down to plan tonight, which I thought would be for Science, I was surprised and sad that according to our district pacing guide I had to plan for one more week of Social Studies. GROAN.

I don't know about all of y'all but Social Studies is sometimes really hard to get creative with. I do my best, but many times I find myself at a loss! 

We have been discussing wants and needs, goods and services, community helpers, and leaders. I came up with a few things for those, so we did schema charts and some writing activities.

Well, this week we are discussing homes around the world. Not sure if anyone is doing that out there right now, but I made a mini-book about homes around the world. I am hoping this will spice up our week! Here it is:

Homes Around the World Mini-Book

Let me know what you do to spice up your Social Studies instruction! :)

-Ms. Thomas :)