Caps for Sale - perfect for whole class retelling

          One of the first books that I read to my class each year is Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina. I love the book because every time I read it, I think of my Mom reading the book to me and then my reading the book to my own kids.  It's also a great book to introduce retelling. After I explain what a peddler is and read the book one time,  I pick a volunteer (from my pick me cup) to act out the part of the peddler.  The rest of the class plays the part of the monkeys.  I reread the story (giving directions as necessary to the peddler...ie. "reach your hand up and feel for the caps...now what would your expression be?).  The "monkeys" love their fist shaking, stomping and "tsz, tsz, tsz" role.  The kids ask to do the retelling over and over.  I usually do it one more time and then suggest they can do it themselves during free play (and they do!)  

"But the monkeys only stamped both their feet back at him and said, "Tsz, tsz, tsz."

          Caps for Sale is also great for introducing sequencing. After we act out the story, I ask about what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story.  I then have the children choose one "scene" from the book that they want to draw.  They then dictate a sentence about their picture that includes what part of the book they illustrated. For example, "At the beginning, the peddler called out 'Caps for Sale. Fifty cents a cap!'" Later, they each come up and share their illustrations (in order).

          Barbara at Grade ONEderful is hosting a "drama queen" linky party. I like introducing retelling and acting out a story with Caps for Sale because it is such a simple story.  We can easily retell it without any props and everyone gets to participate.    Check out other clever acting ideas at Barbara's site.

Collaborative Classroom Projects

Amanda, from Teaching Maddeness is having another linky party.  This month she's looking for classroom projects ideas.  I decided to write about some of the collaborative projects we do in my classroom. My favorite collaborative projects are probably all of the class books we do but I am going to blog about that later...maybe a linky party if I can figure out how to do that :)

The projects I am writing about are ones where everyone contributes... but not just by making a distinct part of the whole.  In other words, these projects are not like my quilt where everyone made a piece that I then put together to make a whole.  Instead, these projects resulted in one shared product that couldn't easily be divided after it was completed.  Perhaps because these projects result in something that can't be sent home, they really do feel like they belong to the class.  Here are a few of the things I have done recently:

Collaborative Mosaic

This mosaic was made by gluing plastic caps to a circle of foam board.  This project was set out during free play for several days during our Art Unit.  I simply cut out a large circle from a piece of old foam board.  I used colored electric tape to cover the edge (because my cutting wasn't perfect).  I then put out tacky glue in shallow pans and a large pile of plastic caps.  I asked each child to stop by at some point and glue on at least 8-10 caps.  They were to try and make sure the caps were touching. If the children were interested they could glue on more caps.  I, together with a few interested children, went back later and filled in holes with small glue stick and glitter glue lids.

Rolled Paper Collaborative Collage

I described how we made this collage with rolls of painted paper here.  It is actually incredibly beautiful and, if I can figure out how to frame it, I want to put it in my house. 

Cardboard Box Castle

During our Fairy Tale Unit, I made a really cool castle with 8 large boxes and Mr. McGroovy's special rivets.  

The children worked together to paint and decorate the castle.

We also worked together to decorate this dragon by attaching pieces of tissue paper with watered down yellow paint.

Retelling Props

During the Fairy Tale unit we created lots of materials that we used for retelling.

Our Story Path for Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

We decorated 3 pieces of cardboard for retelling the 3 Little Pigs with painted bricks (using a sponge to paint the bricks),  glued on sticks and glued on rafia (for the house made out of hay).

Bulletin Boards

Many of our bulletin boards have collaborative aspects.

The kids sponge painted the water.

The class worked together to paint the rainbow.

The kids illustrated the elements of art - color, shape and pattern, by putting little pieces of tissue paper, fun foam and scrap book paper onto large pieces of contact paper.

The kids used Dot Markers to paint this background.

Just for Fun Group Painting

On several occasions I set out long sheets of bulletin board paper with markers and crayons (inside) or paint (when we attached the paper to a fence outside) for the kids to work with during free play if they were interested.

My one problem with these collaborative projects is, "What should I do with the finished projects?" I can recycle the casual group paintings or bulletin backgrounds but I hate to get rid of the more "finished" artwork such as  the mosaic or collage.  I asked parents if anyone wanted the castle and one parent said they had room for it and took it apart. I think that next year, I might send the collaborative types of pieces home with children the way I do with class books (if we have enough for everyone to get something). Any other ideas?

Fairy Tales - Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

Once again inspired by Fairy Dust Teaching we made a story map of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.  I took a large sheet of bulletin board paper and drew a path down the middle.  At one end of the path I wrote "Once upon a time" and at the other end I wrote "The End".  We then retold the story together and I added basic drawings along the sides of the path (such as 3 bears and then a little further down a girl and then 3 bowls, etc).    

The class then got to work adding color and details. We then took turns walking down the path and retelling the story.

 

I put this out on several days and in addition to using the path for retelling, each day more details were added by my eager artists.

Fairy Tales- The 3 Billy Goats Gruff

After reading several versions of The 3 Billy Goats Gruff, the kids acted out the story using simple masks I made with poster board.  I also overheard them "trip trapping" over the bridge that is part of our outside play structure.

Fairy Tales - The 3 Little Pigs

The first story we read during our Fairy Tale Unit was The 3 Little Pigs. The kids helped me decorate simple cardboard cutouts that they used over and over to retell the story.

We used Fairy Dust Teaching's guided drawing to make pigs (so much fun!)