IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for MARCH!

It's about time, teachers. . . for March winds to blow in some springtime sun and weather.  Where I live, in central IL, it's beautiful, sunny, and unseasonably warm. And the wind is blowing gusts in excess of 30 mph!  

Since March is blowing in, it's time to start some March poetry; my passion.  One of my favorite 1st grade poetry activities is. . .

Use the following poem for handwriting practice. As you write each line of the poem on the board for your students to copy, you have the perfect opportunity to conduct myriad mini-lessons.  Think out loud with your students as you capitalize the proper nouns, insert punctuation, read the punctuation, notice rhyming words, apply suffixes, highlight high frequency words, . . . The possibilities are almost endless, the review priceless, and the ability to succeed guaranteed.  (The latter being 1 of the chief reasons I prize handwriting practice so much.)

March 

March is blowing, 

Huffity puff.

March is showing 

Liony stuff.

March is crying, 

"I really am,

Trying to be 

An April lamb."

              by Carol Quinn

Reward their hard work by having them create lions and lambs from paper plates. My craftivities for this are pretty simple, straightforward, and time friendly (since we all have to feel the urgency in educating our students).  

Each student will need 2 plain white paper plates, crayons, 5 or 6 cotton balls, crayons, glue, and construction paper scraps.

The lion is easiest.  Using their crayons, the students draw a lion's face on the flat, center section of the plate.  Then color the mane on the bumpy part, interspersing shades of brown and yellow.

The lamb takes a bit more time. We created everything on the lamb using scraps of construction paper, except the mouth.  You could simplify this by using crayons or markers to make the eyes and nose, as well.  But, I think it's well worth the time to make the eyelids with curly eyelashes.  Glue cotton balls on the forehead, or, if you have a plethora of cotton balls, they could be glued all around the bumpy part of the plate. 

You can see that we staple the ears on. After many years of trying to glue them, let me tell you, it just doesn't work.  So break out the stapler and move on.

Use the products to create 2 displays:  

• Make a bulletin board graph using these crafts.  Have your students place their lion or lamb in the appropriate cell of the graph according to their prediction of March's entry. [BTW, a really quick and easy way to make lines on the bulletin board is to use yarn.]  

• Attach the other paper plate craft to the poem.  Display these examples of their handwriting.

Now, March winds, do your work; blow winter away and usher in spring.

You may like these March resources: