Guess what? Mrs. Plant's Press is now on Instagram!! As anyone who is around me much knows, I love me some pictures, so this a perfect place to share them with all my friends out there in cyber-world {especially since I don't get to blog as much as I would like with the addition of the little miss}. I am super excited about posting some more pics and seeing all of yours {I only have 2 right now, but there will be more :)}. Click the picture below to see my Instagram. 
To make this new venture even more fun, What the Teacher Wants and Apples and ABC's are teaming up to start Teacher Talk Tuesday...so excited!

On a different note, I updated my Nifty Numbers pack this weekend and it's on sale for $4! If you already have it, be sure to download the new activity sheets and if you don't have it, hurry on over and get it...the price goes back to $5 tomorrow night!



Praise the good Lord it's Friday! That means Five for Friday over at Doodle Bugs Teaching...
{Frames by Ashley and font from Mrs. Cupcake}

{Lori's Word Search -- Jennifer's Camp Sort A Vowel -- Angela's Morning Work -- Nicole's Handwriting Practice}



You can get the center here
Head over to Doodle Bugs to see everyone's Five For Friday...then hop over to TBA to catch all the great freebies!
fiveforfriday
This week we started our ocean unit and we are having tons of fun! We began yesterday by reading a general informational book about the ocean and then watching a little video about ocean life. Then, we sorted animals as to whether they live in the ocean or not. We also brainstormed a list of things we could find in the ocean.


These pages are part of my ocean pack or you can get them in a separate pack.

Today, we read Splash in the Ocean, which is one of my favorites. The kids love the song that goes along with it! After reading, we talked about action words and made a list of our own. Then, we made a new page for the book using our own animal and action word.



If you would like the writing sheet, you can get it on google docs here.

We've also been having some ocean themed fun with our literacy and math centers.







You can find the language centers and math centers in my TpT store or if you need both, you can also find the bundle there.
Next week we'll be starting our ocean unit, so I took a little time to go back and revamp my ocean pack. This has been my best seller and has lots of language arts and math activities to help you meet common core {and if you're state never adopted common core or is withdrawing, they'll still help you meet your standards :)}. Here's what you'll get:


You can get the bundled pack here for a discounted price or you can also just get the language arts or the math pack.
I also added There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell to my Spring Sequencing pack since we'll be reading that story during our ocean unit.
Now hop on over and like my facebook page for a chance to win this bundle! Happy Saturday!!
I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday this week. I used some frames from the super sweet Ashley Hughes to help "fancy" up my pictures. Hop on over and link up too!
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First, my heart goes out to all those in Boston and Texas. It is so sad to see the news!! My mom is in Boston this week and says the whole city is such a sad place...we are praying for both Boston and West!! {clipart from Melonheadz}. 

We finished up our insect unit with a little ladybug learning. You can get the sequencing pages here in my Spring Sequence pack (don't forget to re-download to get the new story!).
In light of all that's happened this week, it really started to make me think about what this world is going to be like for our babies. I think we sometimes get so caught up in standards and tests, we forget that we are teaching sweet children that are only 5 & 6, so today I let mine be kids and have some extra "play whatever you want time."
 I am so excited that I got to update my ocean pack! It is my best seller and is full of centers and activities to meet common core. If you already have it, go re-download and if not, check it out here.

Last, I am so excited about spending the weekend with this sweetie and ordering some of her beautiful new pictures!
Hoping all of you have a great weekend!! If you're not already a facebook fan of Mrs. Plant's Press, hop on over and "like" my page. There might be a little giveaway this weekend!
I absolutely love the story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I know it's pretty simple, but it's the perfect story to practice re-telling. I look forward to doing this story every year and it might be because of this super cute craft we make that my friends Bunnee and Deeanna came up with a few years back. {Deeanna has this activity in her TpT store.}
Let me explain....
While this activity does take quite a bit of prep work, it is so worth it and the kids love it! You need 8 plates for each child that have the circles cut out. The caterpillar is a sock that we dyed green, hot glued wiggly eyes to, and drew a mouth on. On each of the plates, we glued the food the caterpillar ate, then drew the leaf he ate, and drew a butterfly on the end to show what he turned into. The kids put the caterpillar on their arm and stick him through all the plates to help them re-tell the story. Here is is in action:


I think we got in partners about 5 times today retelling the story! The kids could not get enough and were so excited to take them home. Deeanna's pack has lots of other cute activities for the story, so scoot on over and grab it up!
We are continuing our insect fun this week by studying about butterflies. The kids are having so much fun watching our caterpillars make their chrysalises and they can not wait for the butterflies to emerge!!

We started our butterfly study by reading an informational book and then recording facts we learned. 
Then, we learned a little song by Dr. Jean to help us remember the life cycle of a butterfly and recorded what we learned on a big chart and then did a litle independent activity. 

We also painted a paper plate that we turned into a butterfly to hold our butterfly fact writing.
{You can get the writing page here for free - thanks to Cara for the font and Krista for the frame!!}
For our narrative story, we read Charlie the Caterpillar. This is such a sweet book to teach about being a true friend and also great to discuss how characters can change throughout a story. We charted how Charlie changed, then each child made their own story map. 

You can get this story map here for free also {Thanks again to Cara for the font and Krista  for the frame}
While getting ready to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar tomorrow, I noticed that the plums in my sequencing pack were actually blueberries! It's now fixed and if you have already purchased the pack, be sure to go re-download it. I added in another story {There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell} as an I'm Sorry :). If you need some sequencing activites, this pack has whole group and small group sequencing activities for 6 stories...click the picture for more details. 


Today we learned all about honeybees. We started by reading an informational book and recording what we learned about honeybees {and I have to say I learned some new things too!}. Then, we made some bees and wrote facts we learned from the story since we are working really hard to remember that informational texts teach us and give us facts.
{Excuse my misspelled word...after I took the picture I realized it and we had a quick little lesson on teachers making mistakes too sometimes :) }


We also made a little Venn diagram to help us compare fiction and non-fiction since we've alternated so much between the two this week.
In math, we added a few new centers...
This is from Deeanna's pack of bug centers

This is from my Spring Center pack

Also from my Spring Center pack
Yesterday, I posted about our firefly math activity and for some reason  my link to Deeanna's new unit didn't post. That activity and lots of other really great ones can be found in her Critters in the Garden pack.
Happy almost Friday friends!! I have my one and only formal observation of the year tomorrow, so I'm going to bed early :).
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