Playing With Owl "Poop" {An Owl Pellet FREEBIE}

Happy Thursday folks!  Lindsay here . . .

 

Did y'all watch the baseball game last night??!!  It. Was. So. Good.

 

I mean, we aren't really "baseball people" at my house . . . we are more like "hey-its-the-World-Series-so-lets-order-a-pizza-and-cheer-for-someone" people . . . Football season?   Totally different story though.  Chargers fans ONLY. :)

 

The point being . . . even we appreciated what a great World Series that was!  Go Giants!! 

 

Well . . .  it has been awhile since I posted anything on the blog (okay a LONG while!) but tonight I am here with a fun fall FREEBIE to share!

 

I have been having so much fun this year doing a science notebook with my kiddos!  They are so cute and SO SERIOUS about being little scientists!  So far this year we have learned all about apples, what living things need to survive, the life cycle of a pumpkin, properties of objects an owls!!

 

Here is a quick peek at my Kindergarten Science Notebook {Fall Edition} - you can click on the image below to get more details in my TPT store:

 

 

Just last week I wrapped up my owl unit with my kinder kiddos . . .

 

(Confession: I had never taught owls before. Ever. Like, never ever EVER!!)

 

Kerri, on the other hand, is an owl NUT.  And she has always told me how much fun her kids have every year learning about owls and checking out their owl pellets . . .

 

Owl pellets?  As in, owl POOP??!!

 

Gross!

 

Of course, Kerri soon corrected me that, in fact, owls do NOT poop out pellets, but rather cough up (regurgitate, if you will) the pellets, which contain the hair and fur of their most recent meal. :)

 

Lovely.

 

In order to lead my kiddos in becoming "owl experts", I jumped onto Amazon and ordered some fabulous new owl books.  My favorite was this one by Gail Gibbons:

 

 

Next, my kiddos and I started reading and using our science notebooks to diagram and write about our owls! 

 

Their awesome step-draw owls are my favorite!!!  

 

 

 

We also took the information that we learned and created a tree map of owl facts as a group . . .

 

  

And then again in their science notebooks!

 

 

Our FINAL owl activity was digging in to owl pellets!  I debated whether it would be better to have my kiddos each have their own pellet to dissect with their big 6th grade buddy OR if it would just be easier to do one pellet together as a group.

 

As a was perusing the Scholastic Book catalog I stumbled across this: Owl Puke (book + pellet kit). 

 

 

 

Yes, I know. The name is SUPER scientific, right?? ;)

 

Looking back, I actually think that for my kinders it worked really great to do this activity whole group under the document camera and discuss it as we went along . . .  Here was our set-up:

 



 (Notice the cup of coffee - I can't tackle an owl puke activity without my caffeine people!!)

 

 
 

And here is what we found!! I wish that I would have taken a closer shot of the awesome skull that we found (in the middle of the black paper). It had some gnarly teeth!!! We had lots of fun zooming the document camera in on the bones so the kids could see all the details!

 



To get my kids even MORE excited about this activity (and to give them something to do as they watched the action unfold on the board in front of them), I created this recording sheet {click the image below to download}:

 

The format of this FREEBIE follows my science notebook, but you could totally do it as a stand-alone activity as well!

 

I talked with my students about WHAT might be inside our owl pellet, and that it was most likely either a bird or a rodent of some sort.  Each student made a prediction on their paper by circling the animal they thought we would find.

 

Next, we unwrapped the pellet (it TOTALLY looked like a tiny Chipotle burrito if you ask me!!) and we drew it in the box.

 

Finally, we counted our bones, identified what type of animal our owl had eaten, and determined whether or not our prediction was right. (It was a rodent . . . you were just dying to know, right??)

 

So that's it!  I think I'm an Official Owl Expert or something now.:)

 

Hope you can use this FREEBIE with your own class! 

 

Have a good night!

 

Lindsay

 



Word of the Week Print and Go Activities!! (Plus a FREEBIE)

Good evening, Blogging Buddies!! Kerri here...

I am super excited because I just finished my latest creation...Tada!!

These Print and Go sentence scramble worksheets are the perfect INDEPENDENT Literacy activities for your Kinders and Firsties to complete on their own. Independently. Can I get an AMEN?? 

My students complete these every single week, and they love it, because they know exactly what to do, AND they are practicing learning new vocabulary and writing words and a sentence at the same time. GLORIOUS!!

Here's a closer look...

And here's a list of all of the vocabulary words that are included for the year... 50 in all!!

You can check this out in my TPT shop by clicking any of the pictures above. :)

Here's a FREEBIE Word of the Work printable that you can print out tonight and use in your literacy centers tomorrow!! Click the picture to download via Google docs...

Hope you all have a wonderful week!! Happy Fall!!

First Day FREEBIES and Our Lastest Giveaway Winner!

Howdy peeps! Lindsay here . . .

Well, I survived. Barely.

Our school district had its first day of school yesterday, but at my school the first day of kindergarten is the "Kindergarten Tea" and the parents and kids just come for 2 hours.

Easy peasy, right?

Well, it went really well, HOWEVER there were probably almost 60 people in my room with my 28 kindergarteners, their parents, and a few little siblings as well. And combine that with the fact that my room was probably around 95 degrees, it made for a HOT AND SWEATY first day!!

I'm proud to say that this preggo (that's me!) put on her big girl panties and survived, although not without copious amounts of sweating. And waddling.

After welcoming my kiddos and their parents, their first task was a classroom scavenger hunt - which they LOVED!!  They felt OH SO  important looking around the room with their paper and clipboard! :)

Here is a closer look at the scavenger hunt itself.  You can click on the picture below for a link to this FREEBIE in my TPT store!! :)

And of course the MOST exciting part was the treat at the end that they discovered in their cubbies . . .

 . . . Smarties for my lil smarties, of course!!!

Next I had stations at my five tables where each student rotated from table to table with their parents. Each table had an activity for the kiddos to complete (a dot-to-dot, tracing the ABCs, pattern blocks, etc. - which were all great for some informal observations as to what my kiddos can already do!) and an activity for the parents as well (sign-up sheet for volunteering, filling out my "getting to know you" student info form, etc.).

At this particular table I had the parents take a lil card and write a love note to their kiddo, which I then put into their pencil boxes.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of one of the completed notes - they were all so sweet and heartfelt!  Even though my kidlets could read their love notes on their own, they were SO excited to have a lil something from mom and dad when they got their pencil boxes today (the 2nd day of school).

If you would like to use this template, you can click on the image below to link up with this FREEBIE in my TPT store.

Aaaaaaand . . . I finally gave in and jumped on the bandwagon.  Here is my "1st Day of Kinder" frame that I used to take super cute pictures of my little kidlets with!  (I am lovin those funky letters - courtesy of the "Boho Birds" set from Lakeshore!)

And today . . . well today was our FIRST REAL OFFICIAL DAY of kindergarten.  So naturally there were some tears. And a few kiddos crawling around the floor, and some others lining up with the wrong class after recess . . . but overall, I think I have a super sweet bunch this year!

Even though we were all DYING of heat stroke, we did manage to do the cover and the first page of "My First Week in Kindergarten" packet. (Click the picture below to check out this FREEBIE in my TPT store!)  I have my kiddos do this packet at the beginning and end of every year and it is such a fun thing to put out at Open House to show my student's amazing progress! 

First my kidlets wrote their name and practiced NOT "scribble-scrabbling" on their cover page.

Then we did self portraits!  Again - such a great informal assessment to see their fine motor, what details they are adding to their pictures, etc.

And then tomorrow we will be doing writing and a dot to dot! :)

Well, that's all I have to share for now!  I hope some of these FREEBIES will come in handy for your class next year!

One more thing before I sign off . . . we have a winner for our magnet board giveaway! Drumroll please . . .

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats to Sue B!!!!  We will be contacting you soon about your fabulous prizes!!

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday night! I'm off to raid the freezer . . . surely there is a carton of chocolate ice cream in there after my long day of teaching, right??

Lindsay

Martin, Mittens, and the Mega-Flu

Happy three-day-weekend folks!  Lindsay here . . .

Happy Martin Luther King Day/Weekend!!  

Ahhhhh . . . aren't holiday weekends THE BEST?!  Everyone here at the Messner household has been thoroughly enjoying the past two days at home in our PJ's. 

Don't judge. 

I EARNED my right to spend AT LEAST two days in pajamas . . .  Let me tell you about my TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO-GOOD, VERY BAD week last week . . .

It all started a week ago Friday.  It had been a long week and I was SO looking forward to putting Baby Jack to bed so momma (me) could have herself a delicious glass of wine . . . And then, IT happened.

Projectile vomit. All over me. And him. And his ENTIRE room.

It was gross. 

Needless to say poor Jack spent the whole weekend sick with the flu and throwing up, and Mr. Messyhair and myself spent the whole weekend giving him snuggles and watching Sesame Street with him.

Then on Monday, it was my turn.

Horrible stomach pain, hours spent in the bathroom, nausea for days . . . it was really awful.  (Sidenote: Mr. Messyhair got sick with the megaflu as well -  he merely threw up once and was done!  Not fair!)

Sooooooo as if a sick baby, sick mommy, and sick daddy weren't enough, when I went back to school this past week I came to discover that I would be getting three more new students - in addition to the two new students I had gotten the previous week! 

Holy Pencilboxes, Batman!  That makes 5 new students in two weeks, for a grand total of 30 kindergarteners! 

Then, throw in a few more relapse fits of vomiting on mommy in public followed up with an acute ear infection (for Jack), and that was my week! 

The good news is that after some serious prayer and counting of my blessings, I feel much better.  I'm blessed to have a wonderful (sick) family and beautiful students that I love to teach.  All THIRTY of them! ;)

Anyway, that's enough about pajamas and vomiting . . .

We have been busy little bees in Room 17 this month.  First we have been having fun with my Mittens & Marshmallows centers . . .

My kiddos especially loved the digraph sort and number before & after practice.  

You can check out my whole unit on TPT - just click on the image below!

We also had fun learning all about Martin Luther King Jr. over the past few weeks.  We did a super fun "egg-speriment" and freebie worksheet from Ffion Thomas you can get HERE.  My kiddos had such great predictions about what they thought the brown egg was going to look like when we cracked it open - imagine their surprise to see both eggs were the same on the inside!

And finally, I created a few little vocabulary cards to use as reference for my kiddos during our study of Martin that I thought I would share with y'all. :)  My chitlens felt oh-so-grown-up using big words like "harmony" in our discussions!

(Click on the Martin below to download file)

Well, that's it for now.  Hope you all enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend today.  In your pajamas of course! :)  I'm off to get in a few more snuggles with that sick baby of mine!

Lindsay

Spandex, Space, and Symbols of America

Hello folks!  Lindsay here . . .

Well I hope you all have been soaking up the Olympic goodness this past week . . . the competition, the stories behind the athletes, the spandex . . . ah yes, the spandex.  And we're talking men's swimming spandex here folks.  You know what I'm talking about . .  .

Other favorites/weird fascinations of this year's Olympics include the Queen parachuting during the Opening Ceremonies . . .

 . . . the American gymnast guy with the lucky towel (Do you think he takes it on dates?) . . .

 . . . and, of course, beach volleyball players.  I heard they all have bodies like this.  Hmmm, maybe I will be a beach volleyball player when I grow up! ;)

Aside from showing pride in my country via sitting on the couch watching the Olympics, I have also been finishing up some goodies to share with you all!

First, as promised, I wanted to share with you all some of the goodies that I used during the America unit I did with my kinders at the end of the year.  My kidlets got to take their darling America books home on the last day after our graduation program.  Such wonderful keepsakes!

Here is a sneak peek at the inside our one of the America books - the art projects that went on each page was a mixture of TLC projects, projects from Deanna Jump's America pack, and step-draw activities that I did with my kiddos.  We did one symbol a day: we watched a video or read a story about each symbol, charted what we learned, and then my kiddos had to go and write about what they had learned - and they remembered such great details!

"Uncle Sam is on a poster. He is not really a person.  I wish he was alive. I love Uncle Sam."

 "The bald eagle is 6 to 7 feet long. The bald eagle is on the quarter. He is a symbol for strength."

"The President has guards. He lives in the White House. You can be the president. You vote when . . . (continued on second page) . . .

"The Liberty Bell cracked when they first hit it. They hid it when they had a war." (True story)

"The flag has 50 stars. The flag has 13 stripes.  I know the Allegiance.  Red = courage. I love America!"

"They plant (plant???) fireworks on 4th of July.  They only plant them at night. They plant them July. I love (continued on second page)."

"I know about the Statue of Liberty. It lives on the water. It's on an island."

Cute stuff, right?  I love, love, LOVE seeing my students display their learning in their own writing.  Soooooo . . . even though its the beginning of August and all of our patriotic holidays are behind us . . . I wanted to share my writing paper templates, book cover, and some color posters that I used to teach this units.  Hope your kiddos will impress you with their fabulous writing too!  Click on the heart below to head over to my TPT store and download this patriotic freebie today!

Secondly, I wanted to share with you my newest literacy centers thematic pack: There's No Place Like Space!!

Yes, I'll admit it. I get all excited to teach my kidlets about space every year.  It is SUCH a fun unit and my kids are always so intrigued by all of the planets in our Solar System!  They have their favorite planets, they love to act out a simulation of the planets' orbit around the sun, and they get the biggest kick out of trying to guess how far each planet is from the sun (usually the biggest number they can think of) . . . something like "Seven katillion twenty hundred and ten".  Close.  Sorry kid.

To help feed my students' apetites for all things amazingnly galactic, I created these fun, hands on and ready-to-print literacy centers. 

In this pack you get:

-Asteroid ABC order
-Scrambled Sentences Flying Through Space
-Blast Off! Sight Word card game
-No Place Like Space Making Words Activity

You can click on the spaceship below and head on over to my TPT store to pick yours up today!

And finally, just one more thing . . . Teacher Bits and Bobs is now on Pinterest!!  That's right folks, now you can check out our latest products, favorite blogs, and inspiring teaching ideas as you waste time  spend time gathering teacherific goodness from Pinterest!!  Sign up to follow us today!

That's it for now! I have a date with the couch and Micheal Phelps in about five minutes.

Night!

Lindsay