Shapes, shapes, shapes!

My school uses Everyday mathematics and one of the lessons is to have students make shapes out of string in small groups.
I took some pictures (as I always do!) of this activity and got some really good shots!

triangle

square

pentagon, or as the kids called it: a house!

"long triangle"

...and my favorite - the star!

Use Shapes to Make Pete the Cat

So, you may know that I LOVE Pete the Cat! I (and many others at my school) used a great Pete the Cat tour of the school - found on Pinterest, of course! 

I also use Pete the Cat to teach colors - ideas galore on Pinterest! (I'm sorry, I don't make my own things, I am huge believer in "no need to re-invent the wheel!") This week, I also used Pete help me teach shapes. We learned a new shape a day (circle on Monday, square  on Tuesday, triangle on Wednesday, and we will do rectangle on Thursday, and Hexagon on Friday.) My class really has a handle on shapes and it rained today and I was really excited to try this out, so we did it early! :)  
This pic is a link to the site I pinned.
I pre-cut the shapes because (I'll be honest) I was afraid of what might happen letting my little ones cut that much this early on....

Here's what I did...I used my document camera and went through making Pete step-by-step. I had the shapes already cut and in sandwich bags (with an extra set for my example). I called out shapes and gave directions and you know what? They did GREAT! I should have trusted that my kiddos could handle cutting. (Then again, it may not have gone as smoo...nah, I'll leave it alone.) 

So here they are! My ADORABLE little Pete the Cats!

And this is where Pete lives in the classroom. I move him around every now and then, but he's been on the book shelf this week! :)

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!

This week we are studying insects! In the fall, near Halloween, we did a unit on spiders. Now it's all about insects!

I found a cute song on youtube to teach the parts of an insect, but of course I can't access it from school! So I wrote the words on chart paper and taught my kids the words and we do it our way! :)

Here is the link to the song on youtube:

This song is so cute and an effective way for kids to learn the body parts of an insect! 

Today we made this little project as a science and math lesson - bugs and shapes AND following directions!

This one was the model I made, and students were given squares of each color paper. I told them what shapes to cut and how to label and then I showed this one and had them glue their insects together!

When the insects were complete, I let my kiddos choose where to hang their creepy crawlies in the room! Very cute!