Earth Day - EVERYDAY

Here's a cute little project that my class did for Earth Day.  Like every other class we learned about how to take care of the earth, recycling, etc.  Then we made these hand-print Earths, and wrote what we could do to take care of the earth.  I had the kids paint the "land" on the edges BEFORE I painted their hands - this way the paint brush doesn't get all icky! The poem/song that goes with it goes to the tune: This old Man.  If you need about a the pattern you can pick it up for FREE here.

Websites

So... my New Year's resolution was to do a better job at keeping up with my blog with what I thought my be a manageable goal of at LEAST once a month. Seeing that it is March, and I am finally making an entry, I need to try harder!

Anyways, I just wanted to share some FREE (to public schools) websites that I have come across.

ABC mouse is geared for kindergarten and under students (meaning I am going to have the kids use this in the BEGINNING of the year next year), but teachers can create a classroom account, set students at various levels, and the site will even e-mail parents progress reports!  I have had several parents rave about the site and my kids seem to really like it.

Adventure to Fitness is also FREE to teachers (make sure you register with your school email and address). On this site, you have access to several half hour long "fitness adventures".  Kids follow Mr. Mark hopping, running in place, stretching, climbing as they go on a dinosaur/snow/castle adventure.  There are lots of fun facts thrown in during the adventure and my kids LOVE it!  It is perfect for those inside recess days when they need to get up and move around!

Turtle Diary is not completely free, but has a LOT of free content on it.  It is geared for Prek-2nd grade, and has reading (English), math, science, and fun games on it.  There are also worksheets and activities that can be printed out.

AbcYa! has educational games for K-5th Grade.  Several of the games have sound.  LOTS of great learning opportunities to use on on individual computers or even on your Interactive White Board.  I use the interactive 100 grid on my board all the time!

Starfall.com has a TON of beginning reading/phonics skills for kids.  There is also a Math component/section that I didn't even realize existed until one of the kids showed me the other day!  TONS of stuff to do in your classroom as a center, group activity, etc!

Here's what you probably are used to seeing on Starfall Classic

Here's some of what is available on more.starfall.com  Some of more.starfall is free, but they also charge for full access... 

Well, that's all for now!  I am going to try soooo much harder to post at least once a month!

Alphabet Jump around

So... I realized it has been a LOT longer than I would like between posts.  Summer has been flying by between summer school (yes, I teach that too!) trying to relax/escpae the heat (last week we had 3 days with a temp of 105!) and clean my house and catch up on everything I didn't have time to do during the school year.  But... being a teacher never stops.  Here is what my dining room table looked like last night:

The box in the far corner is stuff I need to bring to school that I had been working on, and I painted some alphabet letters onto those "non-slip kitchen liners" which are available at the dollar store.  What I am going to do with them?  Plenty!  I was inspired by Melissa's McMurry's "jump around" which is a similar concept but with numbers.
You just lay the letters all over the floor, and kids (1 at a time) can jump to each letter as they:
-Spell their first/last name
-find what letter a word starts/ends with
-spell sight words
-alphabet order
-spell word families
-etc, etc etc!
I plan on introducing it as a large group activity, and then having the kids use it during centers.

Keep cool!  I hope to post more soon!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's day to all you mom's out there!  You are all truly amazing balancing everything it is you have to do!  I hope that today you were able to get a little R&R!

Here's what we made this year for mothers day...  I used scrapbook paper and I think they turned out really cute!  One kid even told me that it looked like his mom's real purse!

Inside they had to write about their mom.  The answers were priceless!  My mom is ___ years old ranged from 7 to 80! One kid wrote how is mom cooks good hot pockets!

I got the paper for FREE on TPT... all I did was add happy mother's day at the bottom!

Not sure about you, but our end of the year is crazy!  Hope to post more soon!

Hawaii!

Unfortunately, I did not win a trip to Hawaii, nor am I going there for spring break :(  However, we had a "multicultural" night at our school, where each grade level had to learn about a different culture, so kindergarten learned about the wonderful paradise called Hawaii!  I was really surprised at the complete lack of materials that are available to help one teach kindergarteners about Hawaii, so I had to make up most of it as I went, with LOTS of changes, additions, and improvements for next year!  Once I get it all together I plan to post it on TPT so if someone else finds themselves in a bind like I did, there will be at least 1 resource available! Anyways, here are a few of the things we did....

To reinforce our map and geography skills, we talked about what actually an island is, and how Hawaii is so very far away from all the other states and countries.  It is literally in the middle of the ocean!  We used water paints to paint a map of Hawaii focusing on carefully painting the land green, and the ocean that surrounds the 8 main islands blue.  One of my kids very seriously asked me how they go to the bathroom in Hawaii... umm... in bathrooms like everyone else?  Unfortunately that wasn't the answer she was looking for!  She wanted to know how they got toilets to Hawaii since it is an island!  The things kids worry about! 

  

Next we made a TLC style Hawaiian flag, since the 8 stripes represent the eight main islands.  I thought the corner of the flag would be tricky, but they turned out pretty good!

 

Hawaii has some pretty unique features, so we talked about some of the food they grow there.  We were surprised to find out what a pineapple plant looks like (and that each pineapple plant only produces 1 pineapple!) and compared a real pineapple to the coconut that we cracked open earlier this year.

 Of course we all got to taste a piece (or 2 or 3) and either you liked it or you didn't!  There weren't any in-betweens with this one!

Then we made a pineapple craft out of pine-cones.  Trying to find the right type of pine-cones this type of year was a challenge!  Luckily, I had a resourceful parent who picked some up in the park by here work!  Note to self: collect pine-cones in the FALL next year!

I also tried making a pineapple out of a very small lunch bag.  However, during my experimentation, I got covered in paint, so I could only imagine what my class would look like, so I stuck with the pine-cone!  If you are more adventurous than myself, or don't have a wonderful parent to provide you with pine-cones, you can try this one and let me know how it goes!

The kids were instantly intrigued when they found out that Hawaii had VOLCANOES!  In college I double majored in Early Childhood and Geography and Environmental planning.  Why?  Well, I wasn't sure if I wanted to teach or be a meteorologist (two complete opposites!) In the process, I fell in love with plate tectonics and geomorphology (the study of how the earth was formed), which includes volcanoes. So, needless to say, I am a History/Discovery/Science Channel geek on the side, and NEVER did I dream that I would be explaining the various types of volcanoes, lava, etc to kindergarteners!  I LOVED it!   To reinforce that Hawaiian volcanoes are not the "blow the top off - Mt. St. Helen's" type, but rather ooze lava, we made the project below.  I added red paint to glue, and told the kids they were SUPPOSED to make puddles with it around the top of the volcano. Then they had to hold and turn and slide their paper to get the "lava" to ooze down the sides.  Of course we did the baking soda and vinegar experiment too!

 Can you tell which that I took the picture before the glue dried?

This led us to learn about the state bird, the Nene, or Hawaiian goose, which lives on the slopes (not the interior like the kids thought) of the volcanoes.  This was just a simple follow the directions coloring project, reinforcing that we can't always color everything in our favorite, rainbow colors.

Hawaii is the home to unique marine life as well.  So we made close to life size sea turtles!  As a class we took turns tracing the turtles on large paper, projecting the image from our Promethean board.  Then each table had to work together to paint them.  I had planned to paint them, go to lunch/recess and cut them out, but they took a full day to dry!  So we had wet turtles basking around the room, drying off under the fluorescent lights!

Of course, no study of Hawaii would be complete without lei's and grass skirts!  I ordered some flowers from oriental trading company, (yes, they have holes in the middle), cut some colorful straws into fourths, and gave the kids a large plastic needle with yarn.  They had to string a  pattern - flower, straw, flower, straw, etc.  They looked great when we finished!

 

We also made grass skirts out of green (Eco-friendly too!) garbage bags! I found them on Amazon and since they were about the same price as regular garbage bags I figured whatever I didn't use, I could use at home!  The kids had to lay them on the floor, and cut strips up starting from the bottom.

Then they had to slide their scissors in the bottom of each strip, to cut it apart.  Some kids choose to cut the bottom of each strip off.  Either way, they achieved the same result.

They put them on like a regular skirt, and the bag's drawstring handles served to tie them around their waist - a 1 size fits all solution!  The kids were so excited the even took scraps to tie around their wrist and ankles so they could look like real hula dancers!

Now the only thing left to do was practice the hula!  (it was harder than you might think to find appropriate hula video clips on YouTube where everyone isn't scantily dressed!)  Here we are practicing.  Almost everyone (including the boys!) joined in!  I love kindergarten!

We finished it off by watching Lilo and Stitch and the kids kept pointing out the things we learned about when they saw them in the movie!  What fun!