Adam and Trisha Teach

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs  was one of my favorite childhood books, and I've always wanted to use it with a weather unit. As our weather unit was approaching, it was time for a change! On the Sunday before starting our weather unit, Adam helped me to make some huge clouds to hang in my classroom. It took some time, but it was definitely worth it! The kids were so intrigued as they walked in on Monday! We started the week learning all about different types of clouds. We read lots of nonfiction text and worked through some nonfiction text features. Then, we did our phonics lesson with shaving cream to represent clouds. It always amazes me how such a simple change in a lesson gets the kids so engaged and involved! As the day went on, we dug a lot deeper into our nonfiction text and did some cloud writing. Later, we did an experiment showing part of the water cycle. At the end of the day, I read the beginning of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs . After reading the pag

We are always trying to find ways to incorporate games into our lessons.  Whether it's board games, card games, team games, or whatever, play is an important part of our classrooms on a daily basis!  This year, we decided to take it up a notch and incorporate BIG games into our classrooms!  We found some giant versions of some of our favorite games and even had a friend of ours make a special one for us!  We brainstormed ways to create fun, engaging lessons using these games, and then we brought the fun to life!  Here are just a few of our favorite BIG games to play in our classrooms! 1. PLINKO Our good friend, Kyle, brought Plinko to life for us! In Trisha's 2nd grade classroom, the kids loved playing Plinko with different money values.  Drop some Plinko chips and add up the money totals!  Who can figure the values the fastest?  Talk about a fun, competitive way to learn money!  In Adam's classroom, the kiddos used Plinko as a way to amp up a phonics lesson.  Who

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