We're Off To See The Wizard

We were so busy testing this whole week, so I added in some major fun for the kiddos to keep the week from dragging on.  I love, love, love Mrs. Abby and her Wizard of Oz Unit is a sure win!  If you do not have this unit I highly recommend it.  I used it last year and this year and it is always a big hit.  I have added a few supplementary activities to it, but all in all it is awesome!

I make a sweet set up outside my door on Friday after school, so when my kiddos come in the room they are already surprised and wondering.  As they come in to unpack I have a “melted witch” in the middle of our meeting area.  I also the song somewhere over the rainbow.  By this point my kids are in a tizzy and the questions begin. 

 Here is the witch melted on our floor and the kids going nuts!  Abby always has a fun way of setting her units up.  We used an inferring chart and paper to try to decide what our theme this week was going to be. 

 Since the book is so long we watched some clips of the movie to help us with our writing prompt for the day.  We watched about 20 minutes of the movie each day until Friday when we finished it, but it worked out well with the set up of daily lessons.  We wrote to a cute prompt, "If I had a pair of ruby slippers I would wish to....." .  There is also a boy friendly version with sneakers.  They got to decorate their slippers or sneakers and share their wish.  I also downloaded a bunch of Oz songs for us to listen to throughout the week.  My kids loved listening to the music while they wrote.  

This unit is great because each day has a theme within a theme.  The first day was an introduction, but you could have a tornado day, emerald city day, rainbow day, and a wrap up celebration.  Below are some pictures and examples of activities we did for each day. 

Here are a few pictures from our rainbow day.

We read a book about rainbows and how they are formed.  After we had some background knowledge we decided to do a fun science experiment to see if we could make our own rainbow by mixing colors.   The kids thought it was magic!

I created this next activity to use as a supplement.  My kids are always needing extra practice with number order so I made “Roll-A- Rainbow”.  You can download a free copy here. 

The students roll  two dice to form a two digit number.  They write the numbers in the rainbow and them put them in order from least to greatest in the clouds.  My kids loved this activity.

Free Copy Here

Rainbow day is always a lot of fun.  The kids did a rainbow graphing activity with Skittles and even got to enjoy a cool treat...Rainbow Sherbet!

 We even had a wear all green day for the emerald cute celebration. We really tied character education into this day.  Abby had a great writing activity where they had to choose a friend they would take on their journey to the emerald city.  The kids had to come up with a list of qualities they would want in a good friend. 

The template for the emerald city is in Mrs. Abby’s unit but the sentence punctuation part isn’t.  We has a wonderful student teacher Miss Ashley that did this cute activity.  She went above and beyond to make this unit fit for us.  I have a copy of this that I can post up this week.  I didn’t scan it in PDF. Sorry guys!

On the last day we wrapped up the unit with a wonderful treat made by my homeroom mom Mrs. Wigger.  She is pretty much amazing!  If I had a wish each year as a teacher I would wish for the parent volunteers I had this year.  They are all so great.  The kids loved the rainbow layer cake and I definitely could not have pulled this off. 

 Sorry this post is so long, but it was a packed week.  I will have a post on Tuesday this week with my smart little cookies testing activities and freebie!  I hope you guys have a smooth Monday!  I will be doing Deanna Jump’s Dino Unit.  I have been making my dino egg all day…..ughh! But I am so excited. :)