Days in the Desert

This week we expanded our study of biomes, to include the desert.  My kiddos are like little sponges, so they are just soaking all of this information right up!  It is amazing to see how much they can absorb in a week, or even a day!

Once again, I headed to my local library.  I have a plethora of books in my classroom, but I never seem to have the ones I need, so I walk to the library down the street and find books pertaining to my theme for the week.  I love the library!  Here are some of my finds this week. . .

I am surprised by how much you can learn from some of these children's books!  I learned a lot about armadillos from this one little book.  It is true, they are pretty amazing!

We kicked off our study of deserts with a little powerpoint that I found by Stephanie Pope on Teachers pay Teachers.  As we went through the information about desert animals and plants, the kids made flashcards of some of the items (ex: Saguaro cactus, coyote, armadillo).  They drew an illustration on one side and wrote the word on the other.  After the powerpoint was over, we had a little review.  I gave clues and they held up the correct card.  They really enjoyed this!  We saved the cards to review a few more times throughout the week.

We practiced our informational writing this week.  My kiddos are becoming quite the little writers!  I had them write about deserts one day, and then the next day they chose one desert animal to write about.  The coyote was a class favorite!

"A coyote is very scary.  An armadillo can never get eaten.  A tortoise is bigger than a turtle.  A camel is a mammal.  A kangaroo rat has a long tail.  A saguaro cactus has flowers.  A yucca lives in the desert.  A saguaro cactus has flowers.  The flowers only bloom at night."

"A armadillo has a shell.  A armadillo has 4 baby.  A armadillo is gray.  A armadillo is a mammal.  A armadillo does not hatch eggs.  They do not get eaten by hide inside their shell."

Can you believe this is kindergarten writing?  This is without any editing on my part, and the second kiddo speaks English as a second language!  Needless to say, I think she speaks it pretty well.

I tied our desert theme to some of our literacy centers this week as well.  Take a look!

They sorted desert and rainforest animals and wrote the answers on their paper.  This activity is from GreatMinds123.

They learned how to draw an armadillo by following step-by-step directions.

They found the word wall words in their cactus poem.  I found this poem on the Teaching Heart Blog.

The kiddos practiced their spelling words by rubbing sandpaper letters.

They practiced their handwriting, as well as matching words with pictures.  Thanks to Deborah Perrot for this activity.

I hope you enjoyed learning about how we spent our days studying the desert.  Come back soon!