My new design and ideas for Arizona bloggers!

 This is a long post but lots of pictures! :) Hang with me!

Did you notice my new look? Thank you to Erika and Misty at Honey Bunch Blog Designs for my new design. I just started blogging and wanted something unique to me and my classroom. I really love it!


On to Easter craft...
 I just wanted to share a little craft we did last week before sharing our desert unit.
Last Thursday, we read Last One in is a Rotten Egg and then made these cuties!

Two girls added the carrots to the bunny peekover. I love them! I will definitely add that next year! I don't remember where I got the good egg paper from. If it was from you, let me know so I can give credit!

On to desert habitat...

One of our science standards is local habitat and since I'm in Arizona, that mean the Sonoran Desert. I wanted to share what we do for this unit. If anyone teaches in Arizona and is interested, let me know. I'm planning on scanning everything to make an electronic file to share.
We have the students make their own lapbooks. It is not very fancy but the kids make everything and are really proud! I love it because instead of sending one foldable home at a time, the parents get to see how hard the students actually worked when everything is together in one easy book.  Here is one of my students' lap books.

The front cover is an Arizona packet....

Here are the pages in the Arizona packet...

Here are a few pics of the inside pages...

This picture shows right when you open the lap book after the Arizona packet. It has a personal narrative about our Desert Field Trip and a 100 Year Old Cactus flip book. ( Not sure why her mountains are blue. I had a sub that today so I suppose I shouldn't be picky!)

This picture shows the inside middle. It contains many foldables we made during the desert lessons. I have even more I didn't get to this year! Nocturnal and diurnal, Jackrabbit vs. Cottontail, Bats, Tortoise etc. For a few of these we wrote reports instead and that's why they weren't included this year.

A cute Tortoise that we make after our field trip to the desert is a great culmination to the unit. The pages ask students what a desert look likes, their favorite desert animal and plant and why they think the desert is an intersting place. We also had a visit from a real desert tortoise

This is a shot of the lap book unfolded. I wish I could have add more of the foldables I have but time didn't permit this year. You all must know how that goes!

Last I wanted to share the desert mural the students created outside the classroom. We made the saguaros after we learned about the plant adaptations and the rattlesnakes during our lesson on camouflage. Look at those awesome camouflage patterns!

Well, if you made it to the bottom... thank you! I hope you got some ideas!