April Showers

Aloha friends!  Can you believe it is mid-April already!!??  The countdown has begun and I cannot believe how few days I have left!  



We get out on May 24th.  That is 27 days left to make sure my kiddos are ready for 3rd grade!!  I think they are ready, but I always get a little nervous around this time.  Did I do enough, what could I have done better?

Why are we so hard on ourselves?  I know I have put in as much work as possible to meet everyone's needs, but somedays I feel like I need to do more.  Let's just say I am getting a bit burnt out. Blah!!  I have not been my usual chipper self lately and I don't like it :(

Well to alleviate my stress and give the kiddos a break too, I plan to change things up a bit over the next few weeks.  I will keep you posted on some fun things I have in mind :)

I wanted to share with you a project I have been working on over the past few weeks.  Last week we made some spring flowers.



We looked at some pictures of different flowers and then I told the students I wanted them to create their own to display on our bulletin board.  I said they could use markers, crayons, watercolors or whatever they had on hand in their toolbox.

I love how creative they were and how each had their own style.  Some were teeny, tiny and some were quite large.


I added them all up to our bulletin board and added some clouds.


This week I wanted to add to our board to complete it.

Since this is poetry month I thought it would be fun write our own poems after reading so much of it ourselves.  I decided to teach them how to write a Cinquain.  


I showed them the pattern and then we wrote one together.  It was great to review our adjectives, nouns and verbs!  They caught on very quickly and I told them I wanted them to write their own about rain.  We brainstormed some vocabulary and they got busy.


Once we wrote out rough drafts I gave them a raindrop to write their poems on.  I had to show them again exactly how to write it.


We had a few mistakes, but once they got it down they came out great!






I love the way it all came together.  They really enjoyed reading each others poems and sharing their own.  It was a great way to review parts of speech and learn a new form of poetry.  It was also simple enough to get even my reluctant writers to complete it.

Just click on the pic below to grab this template :)



Freebie Fridays

What fun adventures have you been up to this week?  I'd love to hear what you have been working on, or what exciting things you have planned.






10 comments

  1. I love, love, love this!!! I'm teaching the other 2nd grade tomorrow (since their teacher does PE for me once a week - we trade) and I think I'll do some poetry! Thanks for the inspiration, as always!
    Nicole
    Teaching With Style

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    1. Thank you Nicole! I hope yours come out great!

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  2. I love the poetry! So So fun! I was hoping you could also drop by my blog and join the linky! It's my first one, so I'm trying to get the word out as much as possible. It's all about the dollar. Anything you can buy, sell, find, or love that is a dollar!

    www.ateacherwithoutaclass.com

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  3. What a lovely, springy display. The kids did a great job. We made springy flowers too. Have you seen the new Emeraldalicious book ?? Very nice for Earth Day, we are working on rhyming poems to go with the story. Today is our Vow of Silence, to recognize children in the world who have no voice. The kids are pumped, can they keep the vow ???? A peaceful, very powerful day ahead.

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    1. Emeraldalicious?! I need to check that out! I hope your Vow of Silence day goes well, I can't imagine that working with my talkers!

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  4. This would be great for us. We are studying the water cycle/weather in science, have learned about nouns, verbs and adjectives and are experiencing severe thunderstorms all this week. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of writing "How to Draw a...." books that we hope to publish with eBook Magic. Maybe we can throw in a little poetry next week! :)

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    1. Sounds like what you are doing is fun! I haven't hear of eBook Magic. I will have to go take a look:)

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  5. Beautiful display! We are working on poetry now and yours would be fun to add! I love the artsy part, too! Thanks for sharing!
    Gina
    Beach Sand and Lesson Plans

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Mahalo Nui Loa For Commenting!!

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