Thanks to my Blogging Buddies for these Great Ideas ...

     Last week was finally our first week of school. It was great!! I was thinking about posting some of the cool things we did and realized that almost all of the things I wanted to share came from ideas I found on other teachers' wonderful blogs.  So this post is really a thank you note to those teachers for being so generous and sharing their amazing ideas. Here goes...

     On Talk Like a Pirate Day, we had a wonderful Pirate Letter Hunt that  Sandi from Rubberboots and Elf Shoes created.  The kids had a so much fun running around, helping each other, and marking off the letters they found.  As one student said, "It's like every letter is a treasure!" Now that's music to a teacher's ears.:)

     I used Sandi's answer sheet and gave each child a clip board and a pencil  The Kindergarten class taped Amanda's free Shiver Me Letters around the playground. It was simple, fun and as Sandi pointed out, "the kids didn't even know they were learning."

Marking off letters (and talking about the alphabet!)

There was lots of movement...

and collaboration!

thought

Sandi was also the inspiration for my Chicka Chicka Boom Sensory Box.  I am committed to creating lots of different Sensory Boxes this year and I'm off to a great start.

The box included colored rice and pasta letters. plastic and wooden magnetic letters,  pompoms, dollar store coconuts and  a palm tree water bottle, rakes and brightly colored detergent caps for scooping and collecting.

The kids LOVED it!

        We also created a beautiful puzzle that was inspired by Tammy at Forever in First.  I thought her idea of a puzzle was a great way to begin talking about how our class was special because we are all part of the class. I began by going online and finding a universal puzzle piece on the Community Puzzle website.

I enlarged the piece and then made copies on card stock.  I had to make some modifications so that the edges of the puzzle would be straight.  I saw Tammy's idea before I went to bed and was able to get all the pieces copied and cut out before school the next morning.  

some of my traced pieces

Tammy had each child draw a picture on his or her puzzle piece.  I was worried that the pieces would be too small for a full portrait by my little ones so after numbering the back, I drew a chin on each piece.

The kids then did a wonderful job of making the piece their own.  I LOVE the portraits and how we all fit together!

I drew a pencil line an inch from the right side and the top of a piece of poster board so that I could call each child up to add his or her piece to the puzzle.  I think it would have worked well but I ended up putting the puzzle together myself because we ran out of time.  I also ended up tracing around each piece with a colored marker (which added a little color to the edge of each piece) so it was clear it was a puzzle (I was afraid we might fit together a little too well and the puzzle effect would be lost:)

       In addition to Sandi and Tammy's ideas we also played with magic play dough.  I'm not sure where I first saw this idea but I've done it every year on the first day of school.

The homemade play dough is turning orange! (perhaps helped by the squirt of food coloring put into a finger-poke hole in each ball of play dough:) We all put our magic play dough together to make our first batch of play dough for the classroom.

So far the magic play dough has always changed color and has always correctly predicted an exciting and fun year.  I'm sure this year will be no different thanks, in part, to all my blogging buddies.  Thanks for sharing all your wonderful ideas!

Our Farm Unit in Pictures

Last week we completed a School Wide Farm Unit. We had a lot of fun (although it did feel very rushed...there are just way too many things that I want to do!)  I haven't had time to blog regularly but I figured that I could at least post some pictures of the wonderful things we did.

Our Farm Sensory Bin.  I replaced our sand with green rice (I used vinegar and green food coloring to color the rice) and beans and lots of farm toys. I liked this better than other sensory bins I've done in plastic bins because it was so much bigger.  The kids loved it!

Old McDonald's Bulletin Board.  The kids really enjoyed making the animals for this bulletin board. The animals are similar to ones I did with TLC patterns.  I didn't follow anyones pattern but instead just cut lots of rectangles with the paper cutter. The kids then cut corners to make circles or ovals and used little dots of glue to put the pieces together.  The pattern for the pig is here.

Farm Market Baskets.  I found the idea for these cute baskets of vegetables and fruits on Kim's Blog Kinders by Kim.

 

I think I may have made them more complicated that they needed to be but the kids really did enjoy making them.  I started by drawing the templates for a potato, corn, strawberry, carrot and peas.  I then put the following text on the appropriate vegetable:

My carrot is a _______ that I can eat. (root)

My peas are ______ that I can eat. (seeds)

My strawberry is a _________ that I can eat. (flower)

 (I researched this, and indeed, the strawberry is part of the flower)

My potato is a _______ that I can eat. (root)

My corn is a _______ that I can eat. (seed)

I photocopied the vegetables onto 11x14 pieces of paper.  I then glued 3 sides to a piece of colored paper.  (I originally cut out the vegetable and then realized I didn't need to and I just quickly glued the fruit onto the colored paper).  The kids filled in what part of the vegetable we eat and sponge painted any 3 of the vegetables. If they chose the corn, they painted bubble wrap and then carefully turned ti over and pushed it onto the corn to print the corn kernals. 

After they dried, the kids cut out the vegetable or fruit and then stuffed it with fiber fill.  I stapled the top (with little green leaves).  The kids then wrote their name on this poem:

_____________

How does your garden grow?

With ________, _________ and 

__________ all in a row.

I originally planned to have them write the names of the vegetables but decided they would have trouble fitting the words on the lines.  Instead, they glued the proper word on the lines. Although these took quite a bit of prep work, I would probably do them again because they involved a lot of cutting, writing and following directions practice and the kids really enjoyed the painting, stuffing and the final product.

Planting a Pattern.  My class LOVES anything involving patterns.  Unfortunately, the patterns they have been creating recently have become so complicated, I was worried they were forgetting the important repetition feature of patterns.  I solved this when we did these bean patterns by having them roll a pattern first and then show me how they could do the pattern with beans.  They were very good at it. I found these adorable Planting Patterns at Froggy Friends Fun.

The Life Cycle of a Chicken.  The kids made these adorable models of the life cycle of a chicken in Science.

Acting Out Mrs. Wishy Washy. We had lots of fun acting out the story of Mrs. Wishy Washy.

Making Butter. We made delicious butter.  I put heavy cream and a little salt in 4 glass jars.  We then turned on the music and started to dance.  When I turned off the music we froze and then passed the jar to our neighbor so he or she could take a turn shaking.  It was lots of fun!  The music we danced to was
Jazz for Kids: Sing Clap Wiggle & Shake. What a perfect cd for a farm unit.  It included Ella Fitzgerald singing Old McDonald and Louis Jordan singing Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens.  It is impossible not to dance to this music.

Farm Garden.  The kids grew grass in science and then used it for play with little animals.  They really enjoy this too.

Vegetables Growing Underground.  I LOVE melted crayons.  These vegetable were "painted" in science with melted crayons  (pieces of butcher paper were dipped in crayons that were melted on a piece of foil on a hot tray).

Our Big Red Barn. Of course the kids favorite part of our farm unit was probably the big cardboard barn we made.  You can read more about it here.