Weather & Suffixes

by Hollie Griffith

on April 13, 2014

Happy Sunday!!! I can’t seem to make time for blogging during the week! I think I need to start making Wednesday my day of blogging… otherwise it just doesn’t seem to get done. By Friday I am exhausted!!

Anyway… Last week my classroom was all about weather, suffixes, informative writing, and fractions. Here are a few snapshots that I managed to take during the week.

Of course… we read a TON of weather related books! We learned about clouds, the water cycle, storms, and so much more!

We had a lot of fun making these cute cloud flip books.

My students worked in groups to complete some weather research. Each group was given a specific storm and they used books from the library and our i pads to find all of the information they could. They answered specific questions on their weather research paper and they also found some information on their own. After completing their research, they made a model of the storm to share with the class.

This week we also worked on suffixes… so we created this suffix anchor chart. We created the prefix chart the week before spring break!

My students worked with partners to match the correct rain drops (base words) to the correct clouds (suffix). They had a lot of fun with this activity!!! Last year I had my students complete the activity independently and it took FOREVER! Working with partners was the way to go!!! They recorded all of their answers on their recording sheets. You can find this activity HERE.

And… I got this great rainbow idea from Amy Lemons. I think she did it with prefixes, but I thought it would also go perfectly with suffixes. My students selected a suffix and then wrote sentences on each of the rainbow strips. You can find this activity HERE.

And… I still LOVE my interactive word work!! This week my students have really enjoyed completing some of these interactive sheets. You can find them HERE… Or you can get the bundle HERE!

Since we were all about weather, we incorporated the weather theme into our guided reading groups. In this picture one of my students is working on identifying the main idea of various subheadings in our scholastic news. In the other picture one of my guided reading groups is learning about clouds, identifying vocabulary, creating subheadings for the various paragraphs, and focusing on informational standards. If you are looking for some spring themed close reads, you can find them HERE.

In this picture one of my guided reading groups is working together to match the genre to the correct story/definition. It was a great review!! This activity is now with my spring literacy stations. If you are interested you can find all of my spring stations HERE.

Oh… and if you would like any of the previous weather activities you can find them all HERE!

And.. I almost forgot, I’m also working hard to get my plant unit up! It will hopefully be done by the weekend!! Any suggestions on what you would like to have included? If so.. this is the time!!