All About Ants

   As I was out in the garden and noticing all the little insects crawling around I realized that I should post some pictures from this past weeks summer school session. During our writing block we learned all about ants. We spent Monday reading non-fiction texts about insects and ants. We filled in graphic organizers and colored an ant life cycle. On Tuesday we read the non-fiction ant story from my unit and labeled an ants body parts. The kiddos then began filling out their informational writing graphic organizer with four facts that they wanted to share about ants.

 

 

   On Wednesday, we used our graphic organizers to begin writing a paragraph all together. I was very excited that the kiddos remembered their sentence structure, transition words, and punctuation! One kiddo even gave us the closing sentence, "Don't you think ants are fANTastic?"

   Thursday we group edited our whole group paragraph. I thought I was sneaky making errors for the kiddos to find and edit. Those kiddos are too smart because they found a couple other mistakes that I actually made and forgot about!

   Here are some of my kiddos getting ready to edit our own rough drafts before writing our final drafts.

   We used the writing template from my unit to write our final drafts on. My kiddos used their fingertips in black or red ink to make ants and then colored in a background. We used construction paper to make a picture of ourselves "peeking" over our writing. We spent Friday making the snacks ants on a log. My kiddos loved spreading peanut butter onto celery stalks and then sprinkling dried cranberries (red ants) and raisins (black ants) onto the peanut butter. Each kiddo kept coming back for second and thirds.

 

   Now I have a few weeks to work on my literacy and math bags and centers before I head back for our second summer school session. The kiddos who were in the math group this session will be with me in July and I will get to teach all about ants again! You can get my unit in my TPT store by clicking on the picture below.