All About Squirrels and Take Home Journals

This week we've focused on learning more about squirrels.  We've been reading informational books, writing facts, and we made dreys today.

For writing this week students made an informational book. They had to create an opening, write 3 facts, add a digram, and write a wrap up sentence.

Of course when learning about squirrels we also had to read MY favorite squirrel books...Scaredy Squirrel!!  Have you seen the new one about him going camping?

I truly love this little character and can make many connections.  My husband often tells me I'm scared of EVERYTHING!!

I did a directed drawing with them on how to make this little guy. They came out adorable and they were so proud of their work.

For reader's workshop we focused on, "Good readers make connections."  We all connected with Scaredy and shared our fears. The kids came up with some pretty creative ways in which they would conquer their fears!!

This FREE worksheet is on my TpT store (Connections to Scaredy Squirrel Worksheet).

We've also been working in our Take Home Journal each Friday. Students write a letter to a family member sharing what they've done during the week.  I don't edit their spelling (unless it's a sight word) but this is a great time to boost their confidence to write more.

We've been focusing on capitalization, ending punctuation, and adding details.  When I meet with them we highlight the periods and count up how many sentences they've written.  I write the number at the top and they try to write more the next week.

As you can see below many wrote about our field trip and good ol' Scaredy!

Next week we'll be completing a Venn Diagram, comparing a real squirrel to Scaredy.