Bubbles and Bats

Hi all,
We had a whirlwind week and weekend, so I’m finally getting to this lonely blog. I thought I’d share some personal and school fun from this week. I’ll get right to it.
Also, this week while I had lots of fun with all my groups, my favorite activities were with my first graders and third graders. In first grade we focused on Mrs. Wishy Washy and her short i in her name. We reviewed short i, through games, sheets and a little book I made. This week we also focus on bubbles and bats.

Sorting words. Only short i words will do for Mrs. Wishy Washy. I only have a short amount of time for lots of work, so I always have the pieces precut.

This is in a set of mini books I made. I’ve been combining sight words and short vowels in these books. Each book has something for the students to add to practice the skill.

And I love this spinner activity from my sweet friend Cara.

We just finished the bubble activity and are starting the bat ones. In 3rd grade during our intervention time, we focused on the book Stellaluna. We hit lots of skills in our small group that students were struggling with on their last assessment. I took all of these skills and inlcuded them in my unit. I focused special attention on vocabulary and using context clues, as my students are really having some difficulty with this. Their limited vocabulary is affecting their reading and comprehension.

We did a text talk lesson, played a vocab matching game and then I assessed the students knowledge of vocabulary.

We also put the events of the story in order and then wrote a summary and focused on identifying the main idea.

Point of view and the importance of illustrations were another skill we needed to hit. This one surprising was harder for them, than I thought it would be, but it was a great lesson.

In addition to reading Stellaluna, students also read a nonfiction passage on bats and we compared the two pieces of text.

If you purchased this unit, I found a small typo and realized some other things I wanted to add, after completing the unit. Those items have been fixed and added, so you can download this unit again.

After this busy week, we rushed home and got ready for a wedding this weekend.

How handsome are these two boys?

And a tired little Landon with the beautiful bride.

My husband also finished a project for me, and I’m so in love! This pretty barn door wall art was just hung in my office. We found the idea on one of my favorite new blogs. The Hamby Home.

I love my sweet hubby. We’re slowly making this house a home.