March Challenge Activity 1 - Lucky 4

Lucky 4 Freebie

This is going to be my first activity for my Challenge folders.  
Now I know that money is not part of first grade Common Core....however I notice that my students do not know how to identify money at all.  Every time there is a bake sale the kids are asking me for help.  So I decided we are going to work on identifying and counting basic coins.  I want my first graders to be prepared for second grade.   So this is something we are going to work on.  I had seen something similar to this on Pinterest but I wanted all my activities to be March oriented.  So I changed it up a bit.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My class made several projects for St. Patrick's day.  The leprechauns I am sure you have seen many times before.  I have been doing this project for years.  In fact I may have taken this idea from my daughters first grade teacher.

This year I added the wanted poster.   I had found it at Erica Boher's First Grade Blog.

The "Lucky Me"  project I saw on Pinterest.  This was a very cute project to do with the kids.  I did this project with the children during Religion.  We created a list of things we were grateful for.  My little ones put a lot of thought and effort into their shamrocks.  

We read this cute book by Don Freeman:

and made this beautiful rainbow art project.

The rainbow was so simple to make.  A paper plate cut in half.  We painted both sides.  Then we used glue sticks to glue the cray paper streamers to both sides of the plate.  

The last project we made was for the elderly in our parish.  We made them St. Patrick's Day cards.  I saw something similar to this on Pinterest.  

Favorite St. Patrick Day Books

  Here are my favorite books for St. Patrick's Day!

1.

Leprechauns Never Lie 

By Lorna Balian

This is such a cute tale about a lazy little girl who lives with her granny.  The leprechaun tricks the little girl into doing her jobs.  It is a great discussion book at the end of the story because the little girl does not get the pot of gold.  However it encourages the little ones to think, how is her life better????

2.

Clever Tom and the Leprechaun

By:  Linda Shute

This is a cute story about not giving up and being prepared.  My little ones always enjoy this story.

3.

Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato

By: Tomie dePaola

This story is adorable.  The whole town, including Jamie's wife thinks Jamie is not very bright for taking that potato seed from the leprechaun.  Again in this story, through discussion and thinking, how did Jamie end up on top of the situation.  How is Jamie's life better at the end of the story because of the leprechaun?

4.

The Story of Saint Patrick's Day

By: Patricia A. Pingry

A nice story about St. Patrick, the man, and a basic, simple view of his life.  It also includes what we do today to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  BEWARE!!!! I covered up the last page of the book where it said LEPRECHAUNS are not real or else I would have some real issues on my hands.

Here is what I made for my little ones for St. Patrick's Day.   

A rainbow treat with some gold as well.  

PS   I need ten friends to help me sign up for the early entry into Pinterest new program.  It looks like a new dashboard and new settings.  If you are interest in the new program please sign up using this link:

http://www.pinerly.com/i/zmRQS

Leprechaun Poem

 sorry I forgot to put this on the pdf:  graphics from KPM Doodles

Here is a poem that I received from my daughter's kindergarten teacher years ago.  I love it and my little ones always enjoy reading it.  I like to review the reading words: the, are, down, on, by, see, look, out.

I have my little ones play detective and circle the "star reading words" with a green highlighter.  We use an orange highlighter to find the punctuation in the poem.

read more about the poetry basket here

Here is your copy for your poetry basket.

And, here is a black and white student copy for the poetry notebook.   I do not have graphics on it because I love to see the leprechauns that my little ones make.

St. Patrick Ideas

This is a collection of St. Patrick ideas from the Blogging World that I love.  I definitely want to remember these for next year so I can incorporate them into my classroom.  :)

The Inspired Apple

I did try this idea at home and the pudding mix turned out a bit brownish looking.  I am going to try to add cool whip with the pudding mix the next time I make it at home.  I want it to look more greenish.  

Oopsey Daisy

Generally I just put gold coins or rollos in my rainbow pot, but this is very cute.  

eighteen25

Now these cupcakes are very cute.....I really like how they are made in rainbow colored layers.  

ficklepickle

Sue :)