Lots of Learning about Lifecyles

I love teaching about life cycles every year! This year since I am in 2nd grade, we have lots of science standards that focus on lifecycles. We are currently in the process of growing our caterpillars. My students are excitedly watching them grow daily from the itty, bitty caterpillars that came into our classroom a week ago. They are writing about the lifecycles in their science journals and are so excited to see them create their chrysalises.


I always enjoyed doing these life cycles in kindergarten as well. I was looking over some of the emergent readers I made when I was in kindergarten and decided to give them a face-lift. I think they look much better with the new clipart from Creative Clips. I have posted them in my TpT store for $1.25 each, but ALL of my emergent readers will be on sale this weekend (Friday, Saturday, & Sunday) for 10% off! Click on the links below to purchase:

The Life Cycle of a Butterfly emergent reader

The Life Cycle of a Chicken emergent reader

These books have also been added to my Kindergarten Emergent Readers bundle and the price has increased to reflect these additions. If you purchase this bundle now, you will receive all future updates for FREE even as the price of the bundle continues to increase!

Five for Friday - May 1, 2015

Today I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party. This week has brought lots of new challenges. I teach in a large elementary school with about 800 students in grades pre-k through fifth so this week our upper grades (3rd-5th) have been taking the ACT Aspire which is the new state standardized test for SC. Because they need monitors in their classrooms, my TA has been pulled everyday for most of the day. This also meant that we had a shortened special area schedule which meant less planning time so I have had a very tiring week!

Last week on Friday afternoon, we had some new visitors arrive to our classroom - 6 Painted Lady caterpillars! We recieved these caterpillars through a grant by our local International Paper mill! My kinders and I were both so excited about their arrival! They have been amazed at how much they have grown in just a few days. I can't wait to see their faces as they form chrysalises and grow into butterflies!

This week we have studied plants. We talked about the life cycle of a plant and made this anchor chart (I am NOT an artist!). Then my kinders drew their own life cycles and wrote about it. This little guy did a great job on his writing!

We made this flipbook from Kindergarten Crayons where they had to sort the plant pictures by the number of syllables. This was a great review for my kinders while I was assessing for interims.

This was an idea one of the other kindergarten teachers saw on a blog. She made picture vocabulary cards of plants that either grow above or below the ground. Then my kinders helped me sort them to make this anchor chart. This was a great activity because they got to use the vocabulary they have learned all week.

This afternoon our school did a balloon release to raise money for Relay for Life. Our school is a big supporter of Relay for Life in our community. This is the first time we have done this particular fundraiser but it turned out well. The kids were so excited!

Now head on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching blog to see all the other photos from this week! Have a great weekend!

Lots of Lifecycles!

Heads up...this will be a long post, but I wanted to catch you up on what has been happening in my classroom for the past 3 weeks! 

For the past three weeks we have been learning about life cycles. First we learned about insects. We read The Grouchy Ladybug. Then we made a grouchy ladybug and wrote about when we feel grouchy.

My kinders loved learning about all of them but especially the butterflies. We learned all about the life cycle of a butterfly through books and made an anchor chart together.

They wrote a mini book about the lifecycle of the butterfly and did an excellent job. Here are some pictures of one of my kinders' book:

Each child's book was different because they all told what they thought was most important during each stage of the life cycle of a butterfly.

At the end of the first week, they wrote about their favorite insect. I was amazed at how many different insects were chosen, but here is one:

For week 2, we learned about reptiles and amphibians. This was a favorite of all my kinders but especially my boys. They loved learning all about them. We made charts with pictures of the animals and which family they belong to:

Then together as a class, we wrote about what reptiles and amphibians are, can, have:

These charts really helped my kinders with their writing in their science journals. 

For week 3, we learned about the life cycle of chickens. My kinders wrote about what chickens can, have, are. 

My kinders used these charts from their science journals to do their writing about chickens. 

At the end of week 3, we read the book Chickens Aren't The Only Ones and my kinders were able to fully grasp that many animals lay eggs. They loved the book and learning the word OVIPAROUS! This is their writing after reading the book:

The past 3 weeks have been so exciting for my kinders and for me. They have loved doing informational writing and reading informational books and I have been amazed at how much they have learned!

Reptiles & Bugs...Oh My!

This week my kinders and I went on our field trip to Cypress Gardens which is a local blackwater swamp near Moncks Corner, SC. This is one of my favorite field trips that we get to go on each year. We usually do it at the end of our lifecycles units on insects and reptiles, but we had to go a little earlier this year because it was already booked up.

On this field trip, there are 3 fantastic parts: a guided wooden boat ride through the swamp, a class on the life cycle of insects with a trip into the butterfly house, and a class on reptiles where the kinders actually get to touch several reptiles including a box turtle and a corn snake.

Here are some photos from our guided boat ride through the swamp:


The cypress trees growing in the swamp




One of the alligators we saw lying on a log in the swamp



Another alligator (much larger one) with only it's head sticking out of the swamp

The bridge that crosses over the swamp - This was used in the filming of the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson!

Freebie Friday: Addition Story Problems

The view from my classroom door this morning!

Here is another activity that I created to go with our life cycles unit. I hope you all have a great Friday! 

Addition Story Problems

This activity sheet focuses on the Kindergarten Common Core Standard K.OA.2 (solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10 by using objects or drawings to represent the problem). I read the story problems aloud to my kinders and they drew a picture to represent the story problem in each box. Then they wrote the addition problem to go along with their drawing.

Please leave me a quick comment if you download this freebie!

Learning About Life Cycles

I have created a few more things to use during my insects/life cycles unit. During this unit, I start by teaching about insect life cycles and then work my way into other animal lifecycles like frogs and alligators.

To end this unit, we go on a field trip to learn more about animal lifecycles. This field trip lets the kinders learn about pond animals and their life cycles. They also get to visit a butterfly house and go on a row boat ride of the swamp. It is a fun and exciting time!

Bug Punctuation Sort

This is an activity that my small groups will be using to practice naming ending punctuation sounds and putting the correct punctuation at the end of a sentence.

Frogs CVC words activity sheet

This activity sheet has the kids practice sounding out simple CVC words. I still have kids that are struggling with hearing all the sounds in words. This is an important skill for their writing so I wanted to give them more practice.

Frogs Long Vowel Sort

This is a game I created to use with my small groups. It has frogs that the kids sort onto the correct long vowel log. It could also be introduced whole group and played in a literacy center/box.

I hope you can use some of these activities as well! If you download them, please leave me a comment! They make my day!

Spring Break Recap & The Opening of My TpT store!

Today was my first day back at school after having last week off for Spring Break. I had a wonderful Spring Break! I went to Easter services with my family. 

Me on Easter Sunday

I got some much needed rest and of course didn't get to do everything on my to-do list. I spent some time with family and friends, did some shopping, and read a new book I have been wanting to read for months. To top it off my hubby and I spent the weekend at the beach. It was fabulous!!

In other news, I have finally opened my TpT store after much persistence from my friends and family. I have posted a free addition sheet with counters that I made for my kinders to use today as we came back from Spring Break.  


While I was on Spring Break, I created and posted my first unit to TpT called Lovely Ladybugs. I used Scrappin Doodles clipart and I have to charge for my unit to be able to use it. I hope you will hop over to TpT and check out my unit. It is specially priced for the until Friday April 20th for $2.00. After that, it will be $4.00. There are literacy and math activities included in the unit. Please click on the link below to go to my store. I would also LOVE it if you would follow me on TpT! It would mean so much to me!

Going Buggy

When we come back from Spring Break, we will begin our life cycles unit. We are beginning our unit with insects. I absolutely can't stand real insects but love teaching about them...CrAzY right?! Here are some activities that I cooked up so far this week to go along with our insects/life cycles unit.

Bugs Subtraction activity sheet with counters

This activity sheet is similar to the one I created for Easter. It has counters at the bottom that the kids can use to subtract or they can do it without the counters if they are ready. 

Bugs Counting activity sheet (up to 20)

This activity sheet is a simple one that has kids practice counting sets up to 20 and writing the correct number. Recalling a number is a skill that some of my younger kinders are still have trouble with.

Here are some activity sheets I created when I was teaching first grade. I hope some of my first grade friends will be able to use these! 

1 digit addition bugs activity sheet (sums up to 18)

Bugs ABC order activity sheet