What I am teaching this week...Columbus Day, Verbs and Puncuation

Happy Sunday friends! Today I am writing to you from the lovely Chicagoland area. I flew home to spend some time with my parents and sisters this weekend. It is always nice to come home and be a "kid" again. Even though it was a very short visit I am really glad I did. Great ME time!

This week is all about Christopher Columbus.  I know some places might not touch on this historic figure many places are off of school on this day. I use this piece of history to incorporate the concept of never giving up. If you have a dream and want to accomplish something keep on trying!

Now I do go over this history of who he is, what he wanted and how to was able to do that. I have found 3 books that help us gather facts about why Columbus wanted to do this and how he succedeed.

  

This book is my favorite way to learn about Columbus. It is perfect for any K-2 class and gives a good back story about who he was as a child and how he got his ships for his voyage.

This book has a great rhythm and rhyme and tells the students about who he is and why we celebrate him. 

Once we are done reading I found this great anchor chart made by 
                                       A Cupcake for the Teacher

I have a few graphic organizers for my students to fill out depending on their level 

To help with building vocabulary my students will have this write the room activity this week as well as some word work activities

                 All of these activities are from my Columbus Day mini unit

                      Click the cover to see everything I have packed into it.

I also found this ABC order FREEBIE from More that Math by Mo. I LOVE how it can eaisly be differentiated for my students. I also found this great reader from Creation Castle. 


This week we are also diving into Verbs. I have this anchor chart posted and see what verbs my students can come up with

As one of my literacy centers this week my kids will be working on verb task cards. Some students will be idenfying verb by looking at a picture, while others will be reading words and picking out the verbs from the list of words.

                                                                        Picture Cards

words lists

 For our writing center, we have been talking A LOT about punctuation. I have some reminder posters hanging up that remind us of what a SUPER sentence looks like 

but no matter what my kids always use a period. Sooo to expose them to all kinds of sentences I made these task cards where the students need to identify which punctuation is needed to finish the sentence

I am hoping this will inspire them to write more that just a telling sentence. We are also using words from events in October to spark their writing

It is going to be another fun filled, packed week! Are you off from school tomorrow? Have a great week!