Ladybugs, Butterflies, and the Rainforest

I took a much needed day off today, so I decided to catch up on my blogging :)  Things were a little chaotic with my school's quality review, and the little kiddies are getting summer fever!  There's definitely a lot more chatting and less patience in the room.
We let our ladybugs go in the yard and the students were happy to let them go into their natural habitat.  It helped that the day before we  watched a film about elephants being released into the wild....good connection!  Tomorrow we will release our butterflies and then there will be no more little critters to study in our room.  I always correlate letting the butterflies go with the end of the year :)
In science and social studies we have completed a mini-unit on the rainforest.  Here are some pics of what my kids have been working on in the afternoons.  They had so much fun creating the different layers and all of the creatures.  Everything was made by the  kids!  (note the crown on the queen ant's head...I love it!)

Wonder Wall

My little kiddies have been working on their Teacher's College research unit of study.  As a class, we are studying and researching plants.  I let the kids choose which topic they would like to independently research (as long as we have enough books for their topic) and I figured by letting them pick, that's a form of differentiating, right?
The students love their topics and are learning lots of new information, but tons of questions have come up too.  I decided to start having them write down some of their questions and post them on our "Wonder Wall".  This way I'm not bombarded with questions all day long, and they still have a chance to ask those important questions :)  I have an area for personal questions (those having to do with people) and scientific questions.  The kids love it!