It's SpringTIME (Plus a Free Bunny Craftivity)

Room 8 has been hoppin' this week.  On Tuesday, we started our new literacy and math centers for April.  My kids are always so excited to see what's in-store for them.  I love seeing the progress they have made over the course of the year, since each month's centers grow more challenging.

If you are not using centers in your class, I encourage you to starting looking around at resources and thinking about how they could work for you.  I love them because they allow for continuous review, a chance for some movement, and for collaboration with others.  They are totally worth the time it takes to set them up.

Tuesday was also April Fool's Day (every teachers' favorite holiday:) ).  In class we read some April Fool's Day books, did some writing, and made a craftivity.  Surprisingly, the kids were really pretty controlled with their jokes.  I, however, pulled a pretty good one on my sweet, gullible, little firsties.
Our class spelling test is always on Friday.  After group time, I announced we were going to have our spelling test that morning instead.  I handed out tests and began to call out the words.  Number one was April.  Number two was Fool's.  At that point they're on to me.  And number three was Day.  They went crazy when they figured out what was going on.  I'll definitely use that one again.

In math we continued to work on telling time. We did lots and lots of hands on practice using model clocks.  Students also identified time I showed on my big clock and recorded their answers on white board paddles.  

I created an anchor chart so we could work on some time vocab.  It's hard to tell by the picture, but I used a brad with the hands so that they are functional.

At the end of the week, I read one of my favorite Easter themed mentor texts, The Easter Egg by Jan Brett.  (If you do not have this book, you have to check it out.  It is wonderful).

It is about a young bunny, Hoppi, who is trying to create his first Easter egg to give to the Easter Rabbit.  He sees all of the other bunnies working on their eggs and he can't decide what kind of egg to create.  As the story continues, Hoppi chooses to help another forest friend instead of completing his Easter egg artwork.  Hoppi's selflessness is eventually rewarded in the end.
The message in this book is so special and the artwork is tremendous.  The Easter Egg is exactly what you would expect from Brett.

The Easter Egg can be used for many classroom activities: comprehension, retelling, context clues, inferencing.  It inspired us to create out own Hoppi artwork that will be brightening up our classroom for the next few weeks.

If you would like a FREE copy of this bunny pattern, click on the picture below.  It's a very simple project that is perfect for spring in your classroom.  It's always so fun to see how students' personalities shine through in projects like this one.  I wish I had taken more pictures of some of the eggs, especially the boys' eggs.  One had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and another one had a surfer being chased by a shark.  Too funny!

I also used this book for a writing assignment last year.  This writing assignment would work really well with the bunny craft.  If you are interested in reading more about it, click here.

Thank you so much for stopping by.
Have a great week.