Bats and Turkeys

Return from a Hiatus 

        I apologize for my prolonged absence! I have been extremely busy the past month and had to take a blogging break (as much as I HATED to). I am convinced I would have lost my mind if I hadn’t! On that note, this post is a hodge podge of the last few weeks in first grade.

       The two weeks before Thanksgiving we were learning all about bats. I purchased two bat units on TpT (Erica Bohrer's Batty for Bats and Rhonda Baldacchio's Bats! Bats! Bats!) and downloaded a FREE Stellaluna supplement pack I found on Pinterest. I used the FREE activities for centers, they were perfect! To start off the unit, I gave each student a sticky note and had them write something they “knew” about bats on it. Then each student shared their writing and we put the sticky notes on our Bat Facts and Misconceptions chart. Each students’ sticky started on the Fact side, and then were moved throughout the unit to the Misconceptions side if necessary.  

                                            

During the unit we made several anchor charts: 

Then, as a culminating activity each student wrote a nonfiction book about bats. They used the various activities we had done throughout the unit to help them, as well as the nonfiction books we read. They did a GREAT job! Students created the cover, table of contents, a vocabulary page, a fact page, and a diagram. Some students made two fact pages! Here are some pictures:

    I was inspired to create this nonfiction book template by Deanna Jump. She has a similar nonfiction book template in her Penguins unit. I simply changed the font and background; only because we will make a Penguin book in January using her template. 

   We also made turkeys! We read the Junie B. Thanksgiving book and made a Thankful List just like her class. Here it is:

Then we made Thankful Turkeys:

In math we made Fact Family Turkeys:

     When I was at my parents’ house in Michigan I snapped some pictures of the wild turkeys to share with my kiddos. J

    I hope to be back no later than Saturday to share what we have been doing in science and math this week, and our A House for Hermit Crab activities too!