Countdown to the end of the year

We are using the alphabet to countdown to the end of the year. Yesterday was A for Animal Day. Each of my students brought in a stuffed animal for the day. We read with our animals, measured our animals during math as a measurement review and wrote about our animals. The writing turned out awesome. I had the kids write a description of their animal. My mini lesson revolved around using size, color, texture, and similes to help make their descriptions more interesting. When we were done, we put all of  our critters in the middle of our circle and I read each of the kiddos descriptions. Using the clues, the class had to locate each animal. When we were all done students took a digital picture of their animal which we then printed off and put on our hall bulletin board along with our writing for others to try and guess. The kids had a blast, the writing was awesome, and we embedded a tad of technology usage as well.  Check out my classroom blog post for examples.