Ladybugs, Pumpkin Patch, and Pete the Cat

It is so nice to have a three-day weekend.  I spend so much time during the weekend on lesson plans that an extra day gives me a little bit of time for myself.  I drove to Portland to see my niece in a play.  She had one of the three female lead roles and was in most of the play.  She is such a great actress!

We have been learning about insects through our Bridges math curriculum.  I've added to that and have been teaching about ladybugs.  I read the book, Ladybugs, by Gail Gibbons to the class.

This book is full of wonderful information and great pictures.  The students first learned about the parts of a ladybug.  Here's the chart that we labeled.  This picture is from the book.

The students also learned about the life cycle of a ladybug (insect) using the following chart.

The students shared about this during ELD using sentence frames.  We recently started using Deanna Jump's Chit Chat to review topics that the students learn about.  The kids just love this.  It is such a great way to work on reading and writing skills.

The students have worked on labeling a ladybug on paper and describing the four stages of a ladybug.

We went to the pumpkin patch.  I had been out sick for one week and our field trip was my first day back.  We had a lot of fun!  We learned a lot about pumpkins in class.  We made a chart showing the life cycle of a pumpkin.

This past week we were reading and learning about the first Thanksgiving.  I asked the kids if they knew about the first Thanksgiving and all they knew is that they eat turkey and have dinner with family.  This week we will be continue our study about the first Thanksgiving.  This is our last week of school before Thanksgiving.  Parent-Teacher conferences take place in one week for two days.  The kids will be off school for one week.  I will do two 12-hour days of conferences and then be off for 3 days plus the weekend.  It will be nice to have a 5 day break.

I'll have more pictures and information about what we learn this week about Thanksgiving and how I teach them.

Of course, we have spent some time reading and learning about Pete the Cat.  The kids just love him.  I read all 3 books to the class, sang the song, and did several activities.  We made Pete the Cat from Deanna Jump's unit and wrote a sentence.  Last week we started our V.I.P.  The V.I.P. gets to take home the book, Pete the Cat, the stuffed Pete the Cat, a poster to fill out about themselves, and a binder to write about their time with Pete.  The kids are so looking forward to this.

I guess I better think about going to bed soon.  Tomorrow I hope to finish my lesson plans for the week of Nov. 26 - 30 since they are due on Thursday.  I finally figured I can complete them on time if I work on them the weekend ahead of when they are due.  I will drive back to Salem.  I hope to print some things and go to school for a little while.  I need to do some things to be ready for the week.

Enjoy your Veterans' Day!  I'm so thankful for the men and women who have sacrificed so that we can have freedom, including my dad.