Oviparous Animals, Earth Day, & a Diphthong

As much as I can’t stand those slimy little suckers,  we’ve been learning about frogs the last few weeks.  Amphibians {and reptiles} to be exact.  Let me start by saying that our sweet little frog, Hopper, is officially DEAD.  I found him belly up…on the bottom of the tank….this morning.  YIKES.  Apparently, my green thumb, or lack thereof, extends to aquatic animals as well as plants.   Anyhoo…since reptiles & amphibians hatch from eggs, we’ve also been learning a little bit about oviparous animals.  The kids LOVE that word…oviparous!  We did a little craftivity today that the kids just loved!!  Meet some of our oviparous animals…

I had the kids write the definition of an oviparous animal {in their own words}, and then write a sentence about an animal that is oviparous.  They loved it!  Since we’ve been polishing our dictionary skills, this was a great way to reinforce definitions :)

 

As you all know, Earth Day is Friday.  If you don’t have any Earth Day activities on your radar just yet, check out Rachelle’s Earth Day Unit {free!!!}.  It’s packed full of fun stuff!!  I like to have a Reuse/Recycle picnic on Earth Day.  Just send a little note home telling the parents to pack a lunch for their kiddos and head outside. As the kids are eating, I have them sort their lunch trash into three little piles…reuse/recycle/trash.  We gather up all the recyclables and recycle them together and then we all take turns throwing away our trash :)  My kids have always loved that!!!  When I taught Kindergarten, I had my kids make an Earth Day promise.  Shockingly, I found one of my kids’ examples from 2006!!  HA!!  I’m definitely doing this with my firsties on Friday…

Dang!  Look how faded that is!!!  HA!!!

 

This week’s diphthongs are oi/oy.   Food must be on my mind because my kids did another activity that involved “feeding” an inanimate object.  Dang.  I switched it up a little a cut a little hole in piggy’s belly for this one.  The kids had to feed the pig /oi/ words because, as one of my firsties said, “duh…pigs say OINK!!!”  HA! 

For this activity, I had the kids roll a dice I labeled with the oi/oy diphthongs {using garage sale sticky dots}.  The kids played in pairs and the person who fed the most /oi/ words to the piggy was the winner :)  To keep track of the “feedings” I had the kids tally each time they rolled an /oi/.  When they were finished feeding, they recorded the /oi/ words on a corresponding recording sheet. 

Click on the pig to download the activity.

 

Happy hump day, sweet friends!!!  Time for American Idol!!  GO LAUREN!!!!!