Earth Day To Be Continued... SPED Collaborative Blog

So my kids loved the Earth Day activities so much that we will be continuing them tomorrow. Finding the Recycle Rex video was the best part. The kids loved it so much they want to watch it again tomorrow. It's only 12 minutes, so that's an easy request to fulfill. There was a swear word in the original video description, but the person fixed it when I nicely explained I was a teacher who wanted to use it for the classroom. Niceness gets you everywhere!

Here is a pick of my kids sorting Earth Day words from my Earth Day Activities Set. They had great team work! I was shocked to see how well they were able to also sort ideas into "reduce," "reuse," and "recycle." In fact, the only ones that were "wrong" were actually just thinking about the concept from a different perspective such as "use Popsicle sticks for a picture frame." I can see how this is "reuse" like they said, and recycle like I was thinking because it becomes something new.

One kid told me he "learned so much from this book!" So I thought I'd share it with you. If he says he's learning, then I'm not about to argue! Whoo Hoo! Honestly, this might be one of my favorite Earth Day books!


We'll be doing the rest of my plans tomorrow!

Also, I'm starting a SPED collaborative blog this summer. This is a very new idea and we're still working on getting contributors together. If you are a special educator and interested in being one of the authors, please let me know by sending an email to teacherlisasclass@gmail.com

Earth Day with Recycle Rex

I'm a California girl! While we are known for sunshine and beaches in my state, we are also HUGE on recycling and saving the planet! When I moved away to Arizona for college, I about had a heart attack when I couldn't recycle at my first apartment. I threw away things that I would have been yelled at for not recycling here in CA. Eventually they caught up and I could recycle things after a couple of years there. I just remember it feeling so WRONG to thrown plastic and glass bottles away. It was drilled into my brain from childhood.

When I started teaching I thought...where did I learn this? Then I remembered RECYCLE REX!! He's this adorable little dinosaur that teaches all about recycling and saving the planet! (which now makes me think of the Captain Planet cartoon...)

When I was teaching about Earth Day in my first year as a teacher, I just HAD to find Rex! And after many hours of scouring the web, I found him! There are soooo many educational resources on the Recycle Rex page that are ready to print and go. They have things for kids of all grade levels.

CLICK HERE for the Recycle Rex main page!

Click Here for the Recycle Rex Activity Book!

There is also a cute Recycle Rex video you can watch. I found the full video on YouTube which is great, but Be Warned some of the comments have swear words! I plan to show the video on my computer by not show it until it's in full screen version just in case!

What is your favorite Earth Day activity?

Earth Day Activities! Exciting News! Fun Frames + Symmetry Clip Art

Happy Sunday Folks! This week my students will continue their plant unit and working on their special areas of need (fine motor, verbal, comprehension, etc.). I've hit the point in the year where I'm trying to decide how many units to fit in before the end of the year. I have about a week or so worth of materials left for the plant unit. Plus, tomorrow we'll be doing Earth Day Activities from the set I made a couple weeks ago. I better print them out and laminate them today!! 

I could have sworn I posted about this when I made it, but apparently not! Here are a few snapshots from the set.
It has 6 activities:
-Classify conservation methods into 3 categories (reduce, reuse, recycle)
-Earth Day writing prompt
-Blank Earth Day stationary page
-Earth Day Vocabulary (for use in writing station)
-Vocabulary Matching Worksheet
-Vocabulary Picture Matching Cards

Sort by Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

I got an exciting message this morning!! I was contacted by Howard B Wigglebottom (yes the bunny!) this morning! He wants to do an author visit via Skype with my class!!! The kids will be sooo excited when I tell them. The original time they suggested was 9:00 EST which would make that 6:00am here in California! No matter how excited my kids are, there is no way they would start school 2.5 hours early! Howard was kind enough to change the time to later in the morning. We will be chatting in the end of May!!! Yay!

I'm not completely sure how I got this lucky, but I think it is a combination of  my blog and the response activities I made to go with the book below. My kids just LOVE Howard! I can't wait until I have it officially scheduled to chat with the author and I can tell them the great news :)


Next up I wanted to let you know about some of my latest clip art creations. One is a set of Symmetry Clip Art I did as a special request from Mary at Teaching with a Mountain View. She wanted some real life objects that show symmetry.

 These are a couple new sets of frames I made yesterday. There are 8 colors of each frame, plus a line art copy included in the sets.

NEW Earth Day Clipart! Giveaway Reminder!

Guess what! The Spring Break countdown has begun!! In 4 days I will have 10 whole days of freedom! I'm super duper happy about the fact that our break starts on FRIDAY! In lieu of spring conferences, our school opted to extend spring and winter break by a day. Whoo Hoo!

Although, I'm an over-achiever and will likely schedule simple conferences after school with my parents next month anyway. Secretly, spring conferences are my favorite! I LOVE showing parents how much the kids have learned. I'm super particular about keeping work samples and parents get so excited to see the jump in their kid's abilities and see how much they have learned.

This week my kids will have the ENTIRE playground to themselves! Our school does overnight trips twice a year and 3rd-6th grade will be gone for 3 of the 4 days this week!

My class will be going on our trip the week after spring break. Yep, you read that correctly... I am going on an OVERNIGHT field trip with K-2 SPECIAL ED! Oh geez... it's super fun, but I pretty much don't sleep. My record is 1 hour of sleep, usually I get about 3-4 hours. Between middle of the night bathroom trips, "I miss my mommy!" "what's that noise?" and my general paranoia that a kid will wander off into the woods while I'm sleeping, I just don't sleep. My buddy (extra chaperone/counselor) usually brings a car adapter coffee pot for the two of us! More on that when the trip gets closer... Have you ever done an overnight trip with your students? How did it go?

My class will be doing a whole bunch of Easter activities this week. Be prepared for lots of pictures of cute little bunny and basket projects! I really love letting the kids decorate with the cotton balls! Is it just me, or do cotton balls instantly make projects cuter?!

I am a crazy person and signed up for the CrossFit Games Open and did that yesterday, plus a full game of soccer this morning. If you're curious what that is, you can see it here. Anyway...I'm so sore and tired that I could hardly walk around the grocery store today. This lead me to being a bum productive person on my couch all afternoon. I am having SOOOOO much fun creating clipart with my new Bamboo! I want to make a new Earth Day emergent book and some hands on activities so I decided to make some new Earth Day clipart! The clipart is available for you to use for your projects too! I drew them all myself, and I'm pretty proud of how they turned out. Not too shabby for my first weekend as a clipart artist! All those years of doodling in class has paid off! Haha!

Yesterday I made my very first clipart set and it's TOTALLY FREE for you! I know the Manic Monday Rule is not to link to TPT, but small problem...this file is too large for my Google Docs! I don't figure you'll mind too much! Just click on the image below! I'd REALLY appreciate some feedback if you use it, just in case I need to improve some things. I was experimenting with different techniques and programs. Also, I'd love it if you sent me the links to things you create!

Also, don't forget to enter my Easter "Time" giveaway! What you'll win here! a Rafflecopter giveaway