Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Oviparous Animals, Earth Day, & a Diphthong

As much as I can’t stand those slimy little suckers, we’ve been learning about frogs the last few weeks. Amphibians {and reptiles} to be exact. Let me start by saying that our sweet little frog, Hopper, is officially DEAD. I found him belly up…on the bottom of the tank….this morning. YIKES. Apparently, my green thumb, or lack thereof, extends to aquatic animals as well as plants. Anyhoo…since reptiles & amphibians hatch from eggs, we’ve also been learning a little bit about oviparous animals. The kids LOVE that word…oviparous! We did a little craftivity today that the kids just loved!! Meet some of our oviparous animals…

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I had the kids write the definition of an oviparous animal {in their own words}, and then write a sentence about an animal that is oviparous. They loved it! Since we’ve been polishing our dictionary skills, this was a great way to reinforce definitions :)

As you all know, Earth Day is Friday. If you don’t have any Earth Day activities on your radar just yet, check out Rachelle’s Earth Day Unit {free!!!}. It’s packed full of fun stuff!! I like to have a Reuse/Recycle picnic on Earth Day. Just send a little note home telling the parents to pack a lunch for their kiddos and head outside. As the kids are eating, I have them sort their lunch trash into three little piles…reuse/recycle/trash. We gather up all the recyclables and recycle them together and then we all take turns throwing away our trash :) My kids have always loved that!!! When I taught Kindergarten, I had my kids make an Earth Day promise. Shockingly, I found one of my kids’ examples from 2006!! HA!! I’m definitely doing this with my firsties on Friday…

Dang! Look how faded that is!!! HA!!!oviparous5

This week’s diphthongs are oi/oy. Food must be on my mind because my kids did another activity that involved “feeding” an inanimate object. Dang. I switched it up a little a cut a little hole in piggy’s belly for this one. The kids had to feed the pig /oi/ words because, as one of my firsties said, “duh…pigs say OINK!!!” HA!

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For this activity, I had the kids roll a dice I labeled with the oi/oy diphthongs {using garage sale sticky dots}. The kids played in pairs and the person who fed the most /oi/ words to the piggy was the winner :) To keep track of the “feedings” I had the kids tally each time they rolled an /oi/. When they were finished feeding, they recorded the /oi/ words on a corresponding recording sheet.

Click on the pig to download the activity.

Happy hump day, sweet friends!!! Time for American Idol!! GO LAUREN!!!!!

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