Happy Easter weekend! I know I get so excited about changing seasons, but there’s just something about this time of the year that is magical. We’re in Fredericksburg, TX for the weekend doing some shopping, spending time with family, and visiting some vineyards, but as we drove in yesterday it was just rolling hills of Bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush. So. Beautiful.
Anyway, I’m not here today to talk about flowers. But I am here to join some of my blogging buddies to share some great lesson ideas, apps, and other classroom must-haves!
This time of year it’s amazing to look back at where kiddos began and where they are now, and I’ve particularly been reflecting on writing lately. I feel like I’ve been pretty darn successful this year on gradually releasing my kinder friends so that they can be awesome little writers – so I wanted to share a lesson idea that fits perfectly with Spring!
A couple of weeks back we did a unit on Weather. When you’re doing a unit on weather, you have to talk about clouds, right?! So I started thinking about how to help my little friends become more descriptive when writing about clouds (let’s be honest there was a lot of “Clouds are white. Clouds are fluffy,” which is great but I wanted to push them a bit further). I was inspired by Mrs. Schmelzer’s [blog post] from a while back.
Then I had a light bulb moment! I remembered 2 awesome books that talk about the shapes that clouds can appear to take. If you’ve never read “It Looked Like Spilt Milk” by Charles Shaw or “Little Cloud” by Eric Carle with your kiddos, please jump on it!
I just think that they’re both such great options for discussing clouds that we read both! After reading these stories we came up with a new list of describing words for clouds (much more expansive now).
Then came the fun part (and my secret way of motivating my little writers, shhhh!). Each kiddo designed their own clouds using cotton balls and glue.
Now that we have some super cute, child-created clouds what do we do? We write!
I just love seeing what little ones come up with, don’t you?
I hope that this lesson idea will be helpful for you, and I hope that you will visit some of my other blogging buddies to see what they are sharing about!
Great writing idea! I love those two cloud books. I will have to remember this idea when we are in our weather unit. Thanks! 🙂
Amanda
First Grade Garden
This is such a cute idea! I can't wait to use it with my second graders. They will looooove it!
Mrs. Dailey's Classroom
Let me know how it goes!
It Looked Like Spilt Milk was one of my favorite books to use when I taught primary grades!! Love the tactile activity connected with writing!
Such a cute idea for writing. I'm sure they love creating their own little clouds which make writing about them that much easier and fun!
Mrs. Plemons' Kinderrgarten
What a cute and fun idea!!! I'm sure the kids love this! And I love the writing part of it! Thanks so much for sharing!!
recipeforteaching
That is a super cute writing idea!!!! I love it! Thank you for sharing it!!
Absolutely! Hope your kids love it!
I love this idea! It is so encouraging to see your kinders writing. As a first grade teacher, it helps us when we get students who have had many experiences with writing in kindergarten.
Jasmine
Buzzing With Mrs. McClain