Monsters

We talked a lot about monsters this last few weeks and how they were make believe.  We played monster games and used monsters in our language.  The monster pictures and stories were all cute and not scary looking.

 We sang this song about monsters.  We had to add s to the end of the word monster when there was more than one.  We also had to change he to they so it would sound right.

 We read a cute book about a monster named Rosie who had great manners (but not for a monster!)  At the end of the story, Rosie saved the day by using her manners instead of yelling and grumping so her parents realized that it is good to be nice after all.

 This was a cute book on Deanna Jump's blog.  I think I remember that it was a free download.  It tells how to treat a new friend at school...even if he looks a little different.

This is a song we sang about a friend.  It goes to Bingo.

There is a friend that we all know

and Frank is his name-o!

Then we sang the letters.  With each repetition, I covered the letters with a sticky note.  The kids got really good at clapping the pattern.



This was a lot of fun to created a Frankie.  The kids are getting really good at reading glyphs.

More Pumpkin Activities.

Mrs. Voss's class created a pumpkin out of the kids individual pumpkins.  It made a wonderful, unique pumpkin patch!  The small pumpkins have the sequence of how a pumpkin grows from seed to plant.

We listed all the words we could think of that described how a pumpkin looked or felt.

 We compared pumpkins to what we knew about apples.

We reread the poem about the Five Little Pumpkins.  They remembered the words!  Then the kids created a gate with 5 little pumpkins on it.  I gave them squares and they had to count out five and round the corners to make a circle.  They created the faces and glued it all together.  We also had a copy of the poem so they could retell the story when they got home.

 We read this adorable book about a pumpkin that was different and some of the other pumpkins didn't like him.  It taught a great lesson about how to be friends with everyone.

 We made our own square pumpkins by water painting on a square.  They loved it but WHAT A MESS!

These are the ingredients for our pumpkin soup.  It cooked in the crock pot all day and smelled really good.  Most of the kids liked it and everyone tried at least one "no thank-you bite."

These are the brace maps we created taking a pumpkin from whole and labeling the pieces.



Math Daily Five

It all started as a picture we saw on Pinterest that showed some tubs and they were labeled BUILD.  We decided we wanted to do Daily Five math.  However there is not a book to follow like the Daily Five language arts.  We discovered that a first grade teacher uses math tubs and two of our own K teachers were exploring math tubs sooooo.....this is what we came up with!

 This is how I store my games that I provide for the math stations time.  Build is repeated a second time with different games but I thought it might be confusing to put it up again.

 This is what I tell the children we are doing.  I am building them into mathematicians.

This the how we know which station we are going to.  It changes every day and after 10 days I change all the stations and we start over with new partners.

B is for books about math.  There are lots of books in each box to choose from.  This one does not take long and I am thinking of adding computer games to it to make it more fun.

U is for using manipulatives for problem solving.

 This is a measurement activity.  We measure with nonstandard units not with rulers.  They recorded their answers.

This is a game.  They roll a die and add that many pigs to a house made of straw.  The person who fills their board first is the winner.

 I is for independent work.  The kids use play doh to make the correct number of balls for each number. 

This is one where they color, cut and glue the cars in the correct order from one to ten.

L is for using numbers.  They were trying to find the correct letters to match the number words.

This one had a few different games to choose from.  They could find the missing number or put the numbers in order.

 D is for doing math.  We played a dice race where the kids rolled a die and wrote that number on the recording sheet.  The first number to the top was the winner.

This in one where they had to color and cut the shapes and put them together to make a train.
We had a lot of fun with these and the kids enjoy them without realizing they are learning math.

Mrs. Voss' class made Lego cars for our transportation unit.  They rolled them on the tile floor, the carpet, the sidewalk and the grass to see which surface was the easiest to roll on. 

 This looks like a letter P picnic in the beach buddy room.

The Voss Beach Buddies put their labeled apples in the shape of an apple in the hall.  They are so smart!!

Monsters and pumpkins

 We read a poem called Shape Monster, Shape Monster.  I put shapes on each table and the children used their imagination to build a monster. 

We read the pop up book about Five Little Pumpkins several times until the children knew the words.  We then acted out the story until every child got a turn.

Friday taste test!

 Simone brought apple cake.

 Courtney and her dad brought apple breakfast salad with lots of fruit.  They even brought a copy of the recipe.

We loved both of these and thank you to the parents who sent something.

We made pizza for snack with bagels, spagetti sauce and cheese.  I forgot to take pictures.  Then we ended the day with birthday treats from Rylynn's aunt!

Where does the time go??

We have been talking about apples this week and the seasons of the apple tree.  We had the kids color and cut these apples out and glue them in order from smallest to largest.  Sometimes we had to say littlest because they didn't know the term smallest.  It is funny what we take for granted that our kids know!

 We created a poem with construction paper art.  This idea comes from an apple unit by Deanna Jump.  Love, love her cute ideas.  My kids should write her a thank-you note!!

 We used our skills of labeling to name the parts of the apple.  Aren't they cute?

Well, most of the kids in my class like red apples best.  Isn't that the color we all usually buy?  We are such creatures of habit. 

We read Pete's A Pizza and then we created a pizza of our own.  We counted and labeled the number of items on our pizza.  We read that the author used to play "Pizza" with his daughter.

These are the literacy tubs we get to use this week!