It's the 2016 Creative Teaching Press Spring Give Away Linky Party!

Hello Blogging Friends!   

It's that time again...

Time for the AMAZING spring Creative Teaching Press product give away linky party!

I'm joining together with of a few of my blogging besties {who are also CTP fanatics like me!} to bring you some incredibly cute, trendy and functionally purposeful products!

  The second I laid my eyes on CTP's
"Painted Palette" collection...

I was IN LOVE!

{Insert SWOON here.} I mean... JUST LOOK AT THESE PRODUCTS!!! Y'all... It's confession time.  I think I own EVERY SINGLE "Painted Palette" product.  I puffy-heart-love them! Confession #2.... Sometimes when I go to put up a new bulletin board, it literally takes me five minutes to take these gorgeous products out of the plastic wrappers....Just because they are SO pretty, that in my heart, I just want to hoard them and somehow keep them forever and not use them up!  I know, right?! It's weird! Share them with the world, Holly. Share them with the World! LOL Confession #3... When you buy items from the "Painted Palette" collection yourself, you will need to buy 2 of everything.... at least!  This is because when your colleagues see the products in your room or in the hall, YOU will quickly become the "go to" place when THEY have to re-do bulletin boards or decorate!  #truestory  #nojoke #buymultiples #caniusesomeofthatborder Ok... So grab a tissue, wipe the drool off your lip... and take a peek at what YOU can enter to win! Yep!  That's right... All of the items above could be YOURS!  You simply must enter the Rafflecopter below! #easypeasy #CTProcks #iminlovewithpaintedpaletteandidontcarewhoknowsit a Rafflecopter giveaway Wanna' sneak peek at what new CTP products are coming soon??? Check these gems out....

I already have one set two sets on my wish list! LOL

Be sure to check back on May 4th to see who the BIG WINNER will be!

Until then.... Let's keep this "HOP" rolling....

Visit my amazing friend, Brenda, over at Primary Inspired to see what CTP prize bundle she's giving away!  

Oviparous Animal Research Reports

It's spring!  
{At least that's what they tell me!  Here in Indiana, we've still had snow covered lawns for the past several days! UGH!}

It's the time of year when many kinder-teachers begin their study of oviparous (egg-laying) animals.  I've had many teachers requesting more information about my TPT oviparous animal research project unit during the last week, so I thought that I would do a quick post about it!

Completing research reports on oviparous animals is one of my kiddos' favorite parts of our unit!

The BEST part...is that it is simple for you to prepare....
yet yields powerful results!
#teachsmart

Here's how it worked in my classroom last year...

After spending a week reading books and watching video clips about oviparous animals, we began our oviparous animal research projects.  Sound dull?  Well... it was NOT!  It truly was a blast!  

To introduce the project, I knew I needed a fun and engaging "hook," so I filled several dozen plastic (Easter-type) eggs with pictures of a wide variety of oviparous animals.   I took them outside during a short break and hid them around the playground.  I explained that we were going to start an awesome new research project, and that each child would be assigned a specific oviparous animal which to study.   In order to find out which animal they would be assigned, they had to go on an egg hunt....find an egg, open it...and see what type of animal was inside!  The animal inside their egg would be their assigned research animal.

Above are a few pics of from our "hunt!"

The kids had a blast and were SO excited to get started on their research!  

I knew I was "on to something" that other teachers might like to try with their classes, so at that moment I decided to make a TPT unit on this research project. {More info about that in a bit!}

Being straight up honest, it was quite a pain to look up pics for that many oviparous animals and copy and paste pics from the 'net.  The pics you see above are from my "original" attempt at the egg hunt. What I ended up creating resulted in being much better... and much more visually appealing! LOL

Next, when we went inside,  I recorded the animals that each kiddo found during the hunt and wrote them on research project send-home packets that I created.  

The cover page of the packet explains what the project is all about (to parents) and gives the directions for kiddos to complete some VERY simple research at home...which they will then return to school.  When the research is returned, we complete the research projects in class.  

Here are a few peeks at this project in action....

(Kindergartner working on project)

(Middle school student completing project)

Here are some of my kinders' finished projects...

Here are a few middle school student projects...

If you teach about oviparous animals in your class and want to know more about this project, you check it out by clicking on the image below! 

Grab this simple-to-prep, yet powerful resource and begin your research project tomorrow!