Travel

March Week 2

This week we're studying vehicles! At the same time, we've been exploring long vowels.

One major change I've made this year is making activities more hands-on, self-differentiated, and flexible.  With our long vowel work, the higher level kids are getting some good practice with the concept, while the lower level kids can focus on the art and following directions.

Here's what we did this week:

Foil Boats

This is one of my favorite projects each year. Kids are given sheets of foil and work in groups of 3 to construct a boat. I don't give any instruction beyond that. They have to problem solve on their own!

It takes about 10 minutes, but once every group is finished, we gather at the circle with a bucket of water, our boats, and a jar full of marbles.

Each child comes to the board to write an estimate of the number of marbles their boat will hold before it sinks. Then we test these estimates out- we add/count marbles until they sink!

Sometimes the number is 0- it sinks right away, but this makes for great discussion as to why the boat sank and how it could be improved. I've never had a child get upset about his/her boat sinking right off. It's a learning experience!

One of the great things about this project is that kids are motivated to continue it at home. The following day the kids will tell me about the foil boats they made with their parents, brothers/sisters, or friends, and what they could hold without sinking.

Oh, the Places You'll Go

Hot Air Balloon is a new vocabulary word for most of my students. Before this project, we read Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. We made a list of all the places we could travel, and children painted their balloons with watercolor. Once dry, they wrote a sentence about where their balloon could take them.

The template comes from a Yahoo Image Search.

Sheep in a Jeep

Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw is one of our favorite stories, and this extension comes from Life in First Grade. 

I wrote the words to the story on a large sheet of construction paper ahead of time, and together, we read it through a few times. I allowed each child to come up and highlight a double E word. We counted and read all those rhyming EE words (sheep, jeep, beep, steep, etc.).

Finally, the kids put together their sheep craft, and copied at least 5 EE words onto them.

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

This craft idea is from Growing in PreK. Mo Willems is another of our favorite authors, especially as my kids are becoming readers. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus is becoming a classic in my room.

All I provided for this project was the speech bubble, eye, collar, and the blue pigeon outline.  The kids had to draw their own beak and fill in the blank. We made a long list of possible vehicles and they got to work.

Name Rockets

So, this is what the project is meant to look like, and this comes from Mrs. Karen's Preschool Ideas.

Ours turned out a little differently! All I gave the kids were small squares, metallic paper, white pencils, and black paper. The only requirement was to use 1 square for each letter of their names. They could use the metallic for stars, but didn't have to.

Here is one of the more creative rocketships:

Long E Eagles

Okay, this one has nothing to do with vehicles, but flying is a way of transportation for birds!

We practiced writing some long E words on whiteboards, and then made a list of words together on the SMART board.

This project took quite a while, but they had fun making these their own. We didn't use any templates for this one either. Each child had a sheet of blue construction paper, 2 sheets of brown, a small white square and a small yellow square.

They traced their hands and feet for the wings and body, and then drew and cut their own legs, head, and beak. Finally, they used a sharpie to write the words (they could pick at least 5).

This child made the beak 3-d!

 

Book List

Here are some other favorite travel books:

The Tortoise and the Hare by Jerry Pinkney

This is the Way We Go to School by Edith Baer

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper

On the Go by Ann Morris

Maps!

March Week 1

To coincide with the Iditarod start, we are learning about maps and ways we can travel. 

We started by talking about what maps are. Nobody knew! So we read Me on the Map and a REALLY cute book called My Map Book.

Map of My Heart

In My Map Book, there is a "Map of My Heart." We made a list of things we loved, and got to work making our own heart maps. We used sharpies for drawing and writing, and then painted with watercolor pans.

In the above map, the student likes fishing, boats, bikes, school, juice, and his family! So much practice sounding out words, spelling sight words, using spaces, and seeing an authentic reason for writing!

This student put a ton of detail into her work!

Here are the finished products!

Pirate Treasure Maps

 

We couldn't talk about maps without talking about pirates. This really got the boys interested. We looked at a few examples from How I Became a Pirate and My Map Book, and then worked with partners to make our own treasure maps. They had to label at least 5 items on their map.

This one has an island, some boats, 2 suns (!), and an X marks the treasure spot.

This one has a shark and a dragon!

Going on a Bear Hunt Story Map

Finally, we read Going on a Bear Hunt and made a map to sequence the story. I was afraid this would be too many directions and materials for them to manage, but I was happily wrong! They worked in partners for this one too, and now have the labeling thing down pat!

The idea for this one came from Buggy and Buddy.

I used the Nature Papers from Lakeshore Learning for a lot of this, but you could definitely use construction paper too. The snow was made from cotton balls, and we used colored pencil for the mud and labels.

The Gingerbread Boy, Part 2

February Week 4

We started out this week reading The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray.

This is a very cute story about a class baking a gingerbread man, who runs away from the classroom. He gets lost while the children are at recess, and visits several staff members and various rooms before returning to his classroom.

We also read Catch that Cookie by Hallie Durand, which has a very similar story line and is equally entertaining. 

The Lost Gingerbread Man

After reading to my kids, I showed them a gingerbread man cookie I had baked the night before. I told them we would decorate it and share it after lunch.

But when we returned from lunch, the cookie was missing and we found this note!

LOST! Posters

Like the children in the story, we promptly created signs to inform the rest of the school that our gingerbread man was missing!

They read, "Lost! If you find him, bring him to Kindergarten."

On Tuesday, this message was on our whiteboard. We took a long walk around the school to look for him, and ask a few staff members if they had seen him.

First Bite Graph

We created a graph to decide where we would like to bite the gingerbread cookie first!

Their reasoning was hilarious- "We have to bite his leg so he can't run away anymore!" and "We have to bite his head off so he can't see where he's going!"

Wednesday they had a writing prompt: "I think the Gingerbread Man is...". We reread the original Gingerbread Man story, and for the first time, I had the kids run the puppet show on their own. The narrator did an awesome job!

The Cookie Hunt

Thursday we had a new message awaiting us in our classroom after lunch:

The kids knew right away to check the library! He wasn't there, but left us another note.

This was an easy one too- the office. No gingerbread man, but we did find the Principal and another teacher, who were so intrigued they decided to follow us around for the rest of the search! Here's the note that was in the office-

To the lunchroom/gym- where the middle school kids were having P.E. Most of us stood aside while I sent one student to grab the clue- to avoid injury caused by stray basketballs. :)

This one was tough! Some children suggested we go back to the kitchen, and others suggested the post office! I let them brainstorm until someone finally figured out that it must be the staff room.

They were SO excited about this, and we literally could not keep them from running noisily down the hall back to our classroom! After a quick search, they found our Gingerbread Man, and a plate of his friends, along with a final note.

We began playtime, and one by one, I had the kids come over and decorate their cookie.

When centers were done, we skipped our computer lab time for the day and instead enjoyed our cookies and a quick movie. We reviewed our "First Bite" graph to determine what part we should bite first

I'd never seen some of the kids so excited! One of the parents told me later that her son had been talking about the Gingerbread Man all week, and she's sure it will be something he'll remember for the rest of his life. Hearing that made my day and made all the extra work so worth it!

The Gingerbread Boy, Part 1

February Week 3

We continued our Paul Galdone author study this week, and read his version of The Gingerbread Boy.

We also read The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth.

The characters differ a little, but both these versions are good.

Next we read one of my favorites, Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.

In this version, instead of the Gingerbread Baby being eaten at the end, he is made a Gingerbread House to live in.

If I Were a Gingerbread Boy/Girl

The kids wrote about what kind of gingerbread boy or girl they would be.

The templates for these are available for free on TpT.

Story Retelling

We made simple popsicle stick puppets together (templates here), and I created a stage from a box.

This is honestly my first true attempt at doing puppetry and plays with children. I am taking Sally Haughey's dramatic arts class through her website, Fairy Dust Teaching, and I highly recommend it! This is the 4th online course I've taken with her. Truly valuable stuff.

For a couple days I told the whole story with puppets (and without the book) by myself. The next few days, I had kids volunteer to be characters, and I narrated. On Friday, I heard the kids retelling the entire story in the reading center during playtime. This is the first time I've ever seen them be able to do this! Love it!

 

Gingerbread Man Addition

To integrate some math, we did some Gingerbread Man button addition. For some reason they all wanted to make angry cookies!

 

 Gingerbread Houses

We spent about 40 minutes creating some incredible Gingerbread House drawings. My kids are getting so awesome at visual discrimination and following directions, while still managing to be creative.

We gathered on the carpet for this project with pencils, paper, and clipboards. I opened The Gingerbread Baby to the last page with the gingerbread house.

I modeled drawing each shape and line step-by-step. They showed me a thumbs up when they were ready to move on.

When we finished sketching, we each grabbed a sharpie and traced our pencil lines.

After tracing, children filled in their drawing with watercolor. 

I worked alongside the kids for the painting portion. I found that this works better in some situations- the kids that want more guidance can check on me, while those who don't need guidance can just get to work. Another benefit- I don't have to rush. I'm modeling taking my time with my work.

Learning How to Draw from an Author/Illustrator

Thursday we watched Jan Brett's video, "How to Draw a Gingerbread Boy," and later they wrote about their freshly laminated gingerbread house paintings.