A Bad Case of Stripes {Freebie}


This week it's all about review, review, review.  So, I decided to review cause and effect with my kiddos.  Every time I review this skill with them, I am so impressed that they remember what a cause is, and what an effect is.  They are a bunch of smarties!

I hadn't yet used A Bad Case of Stripes to cover this skill, so I decided this week would be perfect for it!  (Click the image to see this item on Amazon).


There are so many different cause-effect relationships in this story, so what I did this time around was read the story aloud, stopping at different parts to discuss cause and effect.  First, I had the students use think/pair/share, then I let volunteers share their answers.

When we finished reading the story, the students made these flap books.


Printed on each flap of the book was a cause from the story (ones I purposely did not discuss during the read aloud).  The students lifted the flap and wrote the effect.  I also had them illustrate each effect on the backside of each flap, next to their description of the effect.  Finally, they colored the front side of each flap.




After we made the flap books, I had the students write their own who, what, when, where, why, and how questions about the story.  We've been working on this lately and the kids really enjoy it.  Since we were pressed for time, I had them write three questions.



Then, I had them cut out their three questions and play Quiz Me (my version of Kagan's Quiz-Quiz-Trade, minus the trade part).  Basically, I gave them 6 minutes to mingle about the room and quiz their classmates. They love these kinds of activities!!

Now, if you've made it this far, you deserve a little something!

Here are the templates I used for this review lesson.  To grab a {FREE} copy for yourself, simply click one of the images below to download them from Google Docs.




Enjoy!!

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Let's Have a Lemonade Tasting (A Fun End of Year Experience)

Today we had a Lemonade Tasting, and it was so much fun!  I typically do several themed days at the end of the year.  We've run out of curriculum, the kids are in summer mode, and it's an easy way to keep them engaged with meaningful learning up until the end.  So, what goes into a lemonade tasting?  Let's find out!



As the students walked in to the room today, they were greeted with these pink and yellow ribbon streamers.  To attach them to the door frame, I simply taped them with Scotch tape.  Nothing fancy, I promise.  Then, I taped a few lemon slice cut outs to the ends of a few pieces of the ribbon.  You can grab the lemon cut outs HERE.


We started the day by making new words from the words "cold lemonade."  Some really great words they came up with include "noodle," "candle," and "melon."  


This got them ready for the next thing: the lemonade tasting!

We headed outside to our courtyard where I served the students small portions of pink and yellow lemonade.  Small, as in, those are bathroom sized cups.  ;) 


To add a bit of novelty to this experience, I made drink tickets for the students to cash in when they grabbed their lemonade.  This actually helped make sure the process remained orderly.  As a student approached the table, he/she dropped his/her ticket in the provided bucket and then grabbed the matching drink.  They loved their little tickets!



After the tasting, we came inside and conducted a whole group poll to find out which flavor of lemonade was most popular.  The students graphed the results and then answered some questions about their graph.




I gave each student a wristband (card stock cut into strips and labeled "Team Pink" and "Team Yellow") to represent their favorite drink. This helped them to be consistent during the poll.  Second graders sometimes forget their choice when participating in activities like this. Hehe.  Plus, they thought it was pretty cool to sport their paper bracelet for the day.


You can grab the drink tickets and bracelet templates HERE.

After graphing our favorite picks, the students brainstormed words to describe their favorite lemonade and then wrote opinion pieces about which lemonade they liked best.  The opinion pieces were written in these super fun shape books. 



After all that sitting and writing, it was time to get up and move a bit!  We played a game of  I Spy.  We used these lemonade themed money word problem task cards to review our problem solving (and money counting) skills. 



Finally, we practiced our parts of speech skills by completing this lemonade themed word sort.  Some of the words really got them thinking and it was fun to hear them talk it out with their teaching buddies.  The question of the day was whether they should put "drink" in the noun or verb category.  It was so great to hear them think it out.  Ultimately, they decided it went with the verbs so that each category would have an equal number of words.  So logical!   (But, for the record, I would have accepted its placement in either category).



Our Lemonade Tasting was lots of fun!  The kids absolutely loved it!  Best of all, they were engaged in all of the activities and didn't even realize that they were still learning!

All of these activities, plus more can be found in my Let's Have a Lemonade Tasting! pack on TPT. 

What are your favorite end of year themes?

DON'T FORGET IT, PIN IT!





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