I always say that October is absolutely my favorite month of the year, but for some reason it seems to be the busiest as a teacher.  Maybe it’s the first round of report cards/development records, parent conferences, or a host of other things.  It’s likely the combination of it all, but I’m forcing myself to make time for things I enjoy – like blogging.

Since it’s a Monday, why not share some Monday Motivation?!

We’ve been marching through our tree unit in science for some time now.  We have wrapped up the structure and function of various tree parts and moved into tree products.  You can learn more about some of our other tree activities [here].

As we near the end of our tree unit, I thought it was important to talk about the impact that cutting trees down to make paper has on our world.  Even more, what impact does all the paper waste have?!

After using a couple of trade books to illustrate how paper was made centuries ago and how landfills have filled with paper products (amongst other recyclable trash), we dove into creating our own recycled paper.

This may seem like an impossible stretch for a Kindergarten classroom – but I promise the kids absolutely LOVE it, and it really helps them see how much effort it takes to recycle just a small amount of paper.  (We’ve been discussing using paper wisely so there is less waste, but we still have a huge tub of scrap paper.  I’m sure not a single Kindergarten teacher out there is surprised about that!) 

If you’d like to re-create this activity in your classroom you’ll need:  scrap paper (construction paper, cardstock, newspaper, magazines, etc), a blender, felt, sponges, 2 $1 frames from Michael’s, screen (can purchase at Home Depot or Lowes), tubs filled halfway with water (big enough to submerge the frames).

 I grouped my kiddos by their table groups to decide on a color for their recycled paper from the scrap paper we had available.  We had construction paper, cardstock, white printer paper, and some newspaper.  All 4 groups ended up mixing several colors to see what the outcome would be.

We needed all hands on deck to rip the paper into smaller pieces to make the blending process go a little more smoothly.  I don’t have an exact amount of paper vs. water ratio, but I’ll say air on the side of more paper – you can always add more water to the blender AND you squeeze the water out in a future step, so you really can’t use too much.

I operated the blenders while the kiddos helped “hold” the lids on.  Lets be honest, the lids weren’t going anywhere, but keeping them involved in the process was important!

After we had a nice looking “pulp,” we added a bit of glitter to the mixtures as well as some seeds.  The seeds add texture AND the kiddos were excited to know they could plant the recycled paper and grow plants from it.

  I poured a bit of the pulp onto each groups’ frame apparatus.  These are just two $1 frames from Michael’s (one that has screen attached and one without).  The screened frame acts as a sieve to allow water to drain out while the top frame acts as a mold for the paper’s shape.

After the pulp is poured, the kiddos used sponges to help flatten the pulp and push out extra water.

I helped them transfer the wet paper to a piece of felt (absorbs more of the water) by flipping it onto the felt.  It takes a good day or two to completely dry, unless you use a blow dryer or iron on low heat with a barrier between it and the paper.

The finished product looks a little something like this.  I know there are ways to make it thinner, flatter, etc. but for the purpose of our lesson this was just fine!  Sometimes keeping things simple (as hard as it may be) is really the best.

This makes a great addition to a unit about trees, recycling, or even for Earth Day!  Happy October y’all!

I was fortunate enough to be asked to teach at our early childhood summer camp.  The hours are great and it’s been a TON of fun (and heck, the pay doesn’t hurt either)!  When I got the e-mail asking, I jumped at the opportunity to meet some of the kiddos that I’ll have next year and get acclimated to my new school.

Today I thought I’d share some of the fun art activities that we’ve completed over the past 2 weeks.  Some activities tie to specific pieces of children’s literature, some tie directly to specific artists, while others are just plain FUN!   And yes, I know these were completed during a summer camp – but I’m a firm believer that teachers should build art into instruction (once a week during specials for most children is simply not enough to cultivate an appreciation and understanding for art).  These ideas could also be fun for your own children over summer break. 

First up was our introduction to pointillism and Georges Seurat.

We looked at some art books from the library that featured work from Georges Seurat then watched a quick video clip about him.  Let me introduce you to Art with Mati and Dada!  These videos are short, about 7 minutes, and make learning about artists accessible to even the youngest kiddos!

After learning about pointillism, it was time for the kiddos to try their hands at this style of art!  We used q-tips and tempura paint to create our own masterpieces.  I think they came out absolutely adorable.  This one just stole my heart!

Next on our plans for exploring art was to create bowls using paper maché mix.  I wanted to try something a little more exciting for the kiddos than paper, so we used yarn!

I found a gluten-free paper maché mix at Michael’s (this was important as I did have a couple kiddos with gluten allergies).  I wrapped plastic wrap around plastic bowls from Dollar Tree and taped it down to make it easier to get the yarn bowls off later.  The kiddos spent time dipping yarn of their choice into the paper maché mixture and wrapping it around the bottom and sides of bowls.  I recommend using yarn that is 100% cotton because it absorbs the paper maché mixture better than synthetic yarns.  It took about 2 days to completely dry, but they turned out so awesome!

With all of our focus on art, the kiddos were hungry to learn about a new artist.  They were also just plain hungry!  We needed edible art!

Jackson Pollock is known for his drip style of painting.  I thought it would be fun to have the kiddos try their hand at drip painting using icing and popcorn!  To make the icing, use powdered sugar and add water until you get a smooth consistency (a little more on the liquid side makes the drip painting easier).  We used 4 cups of powdered sugar and probably 1/2 cup of water and that was more than enough for 20 kiddos!

Of course there is another fantastic Art with Mati and Dada video for Jackson Pollock.

An unexpected work of art appeared as we worked on drip painting our popcorn.  I had previously laid butcher paper on the table to aid in clean-up, and as the kiddos moved between the icing cups and popcorn the butcher paper was dripped on.  It ended up looking pretty cool, and the kiddos were so excited when they realized what had happened!

Continuing with our food-art theme from the previous day, we learned about Wayne Thiebaud.

Wayne Thiebaud is an artist most commonly known for paintings of common objects, including food!  We looked through an art book to see some examples of Wayne’s work.  Then, we got our hands dirty with puffy paint!

To make puffy paint, mix equal parts white glue and shaving cream.  I let the kiddos add drops of food coloring to create whatever color they’d like.  This was a nice departure from your typical “painting” by adding in some texture and a 3-D aspect.  FYI these took a couple of days to completely dry.

Moving on with texture, we discussed how some art may be smooth, bumpy, rough, etc.

The kiddos created art on sandpaper using crayons.  When they were done, we used an iron to transfer the picture to a piece of a paper.  I think the kids were pretty amazed with the picture transferring, and only the crayon on the raised surfaces of the sandpaper transfers so it makes almost a pointillism style copy.

To wrap up our fun 2 weeks of art, the kids made picture frames out of popsicle sticks.  I know, not the most creative thing in the world – but it was something new for them and you can’t go wrong with a classic!

To make these, use 8 popsicle sticks and white glue.  I had a variety of decorations for the kids to add – stickers, beads, pom poms, markers, etc.

Before I printed the pictures I added each kid’s name and Fun Camp 2015.  Who knew that you could still have pictures printed at Walgreens??  I haven’t printed pictures in years!

These are a super cute gift for the kiddos to take home to their parents.

I hope these ideas will helpful for you during the school year, or even over the summer with your own kiddos!

It’s been an interesting ride, for sure!

Why not celebrate the last day with a 5 for Friday linky party?!  Today I’m linking up with [DoodleBugs] to share five random things from the past week.

 We’ve been having a blast popping the balloons to reveal a surprise for each day.  Today is bubble day – shhhh, don’t tell!

You can read more about this end of year countdown [here].

We wrapped up our unit on Eric Carle this week.

After reading A House for Hermit Crab, we had to make our own hermit crabs!

This craft is super simple and requires NO printing!

The kiddos traced their hands on red construction paper (this is the hermit crabs’ head/body).

Then we glued a small paper plate on (this is the hermit crabs’ shell).

We used a black crayon to add eyes, antennae, and a swirl on the shell.

Then the kiddos got to go to town with the watercolors to add details!

BTW say a little prayer that our butterflies come out of their cocoons today!!!  We reviewed butterfly life cycles with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, then got a chance to watch our own caterpillars grow – but these little ones need to hurry up so my kiddos can see them before summer break!

If you’re like me, you’ve had to pull every behavior management trick that you have out of your magic hat lately and then some.  This week I tried a new behavior management strategy that is more specifically geared for when giving directions for a craftivity or other gluing activity.  I saw the idea floating around Pinterest and figured, why not give it a try?

I’m sharing the results and idea with you today by linking up for the You Oughta Know Blog Hop!

The idea for this particular behavior management strategy is pretty simple.  I started by grabbing 2 bottles of Scentos glue from Amazon (you could use glitter glue or a colored glue instead – anything really that would motivate your kiddos).

I explained to my kiddos that we had some awesome, amazing, fantastic (insert many, many adjectives) new glue, and that they could earn the chance to use it by showing good listening behavior.  We went back to beginning-of-the-year-style and acted out good listening and poor listening behavior.  My students always LOVE acting out the incorrect way of doing something.

We even passed the glue bottles around to let every students smell them – just to build that anticipation and desire to use them!

When I am explaining directions for a craftivity or other activity involving glue, I keep an eye out for a couple students who are showing exceptional listening behavior.  When I’m doing explaining, those lucky kiddos are handed the scented glue and off to work we go! 

I’ve noticed a big improvement in behavior when I’m giving directions.  The biggest improvement has been not having to hear ,”What do I do?,” right after I finish explaining and modeling!

It’s a simple idea and it’s fairly inexpensive, you may even have some scented, glitter, or colored glue already that you could use.  Hopefully this will be an idea you can use.  If you try it out, let me know how it goes!

So I did a little bit of Kindergarten math this morning and found that there are only 40 39 (we can go ahead and scratch today off) school days left until summer break!  I’m so looking forward to some sun and relaxation.  Until then, however, it’s time to make the most of the little bit of time that I have left with the kiddos!

For Monday Motivation this week I wanted to share an Earth Day inspired craft that is perfect for reusing mismatched paper, old magazines, newspapers, etc.

It just so happened that last week our theme was the ocean.  Needless to say, we read “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister.  If you don’t own a copy of this book, there is an awesome version from the Screen Actor’s Guild [here].  But I highly recommend keeping a hard copy on hand because of the shiny scales – the kiddos go crazy!

Long story short, we did some text-related activities with the story during our literacy block.  Then, we circled back to it during Science to talk about Earth Day!  We talked about what could happen to our oceans if we don’t take care of them.  We also talked about reusing items to make new items (IE: magazine strips into art :)!!)

This Earth Day activity is super simple and great for illustrating how we can re-purpose items to reuse them.  You will need:

• Animal of your choice printed on card stock (a fish is great if tying into “The Rainbow Fish”)
• Magazines cut into strips (be sure to get ride of any pages that may not be appropriate for school)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Glitter

To top off our art we had to add a single glittery scale!  This brought it all back to the read aloud from earlier, and you can’t go wrong with glitter!

Happy Monday, y’all!

I feel like that word alone can spark fear and raise blood pressure – or am I the only one?  I’m currently recovering from my second visit to the dentist in the last 5 days.  I’ll go ahead and say LESSON LEARNED and move on from the subject…

For today’s Monday Motivation post I want to share an easy and effective activity the kiddos recently completed to help learn the parts of a fish.

This kids had so much fun with activity and got so into that there may have actually been a few moments of silence!  Now you know it’s engaging when they get so focused they forget to partake in the usual chattering!

Interested in making these with your kiddos?  Check out my visual instructions below and keep reading to grab the FREEBIE!

Click the picture below to grab your free copy of this activity.

I included types labels as well as blank labels (pictured) where students must write the words themselves (also great if you need these in Spanish because kiddos can create their own!).

I hope that your kiddos will love this activity as much as mine did!

Anyway, I’m not here today to talk about flowers.  But I am here to join some of my blogging buddies to share some great lesson ideas, apps, and other classroom must-haves!

This time of year it’s amazing to look back at where kiddos began and where they are now, and I’ve particularly been reflecting on writing lately.  I feel like I’ve been pretty darn successful this year on gradually releasing my kinder friends so that they can be awesome little writers – so I wanted to share a lesson idea that fits perfectly with Spring!

A couple of weeks back we did a unit on Weather.  When you’re doing a unit on weather, you have to talk about clouds, right?!  So I started thinking about how to help my little friends become more descriptive when writing about clouds (let’s be honest there was a lot of “Clouds are white.  Clouds are fluffy,” which is great but I wanted to push them a bit further).  I was inspired by Mrs. Schmelzer’s [blog post] from a while back.

Then I had a light bulb moment!  I remembered 2 awesome books that talk about the shapes that clouds can appear to take.  If you’ve never read “It Looked Like Spilt Milk” by Charles Shaw or “Little Cloud” by Eric Carle with your kiddos, please jump on it!

                         

I just think that they’re both such great options for discussing clouds that we read both!  After reading these stories we came up with a new list of describing words for clouds (much more expansive now).

Then came the fun part (and my secret way of motivating my little writers, shhhh!).  Each kiddo designed their own clouds using cotton balls and glue.

The picture below literally says 1,000 words.  During a time of the year when we are talking so much about friendship and being caring, it just warms my heart to see two boys (both whom I know were in need of a good friend) holding hands walking down the hallway yesterday.  Seeing this two kiddos come out of their shells and become friends is one of the sweetest and most endearing things that I’ve seen since I began teaching.

Happy Valentine’s to you and yours! 

 

This week we had our district-wide STEAM challenge.  This was my first experience with STEAM, and I have some mixed feelings about it.  I LOVE the idea and the type of thinking/reasoning it can help students develop, but there are definitely some modifications I would like to make before we try it again.  Our district had us build background for one day on towers (not long enough in my opinion) and then complete the challenge the next day.  I think the kiddos would be more successful if the challenge tied into the current curriculum or we had longer to build background.  But, as I said it was a fun experience and the kids loved it!

The kiddos had some time to practice building towers out of blocks.  We watched the Cat in the Hat “Termite Towers” to help come to the conclusion that our towers needed a bigger base and some kind of tape/glue/etc. to help them not fall over.

We made these super simple plate turkeys on Monday during our “Rockstar Behavior” party.  The kiddos with great behavior of the last 6-weeks were invited to the party.  I love these because the only thing you need are paper plates, water color paints (or crayons/markers), googly eyes, and orange construction paper.  So simple and the kids loved it!

 



Well,  I finished what this fun little anchor goes with, and I’m going to share it by linking of with Tara from [4th Grade Frolics] for a Monday Made It post!

First gather all of your supplies.  You’ll need yarn (I chose navy and white), ribbon (I chose red), glue sticks and a hot glue gun, a foam circle, scissors, and rope.  I had already made the anchor before starting the wreath – but that was just a wooden cutout, red acrylic paint, and a white paint pen.  I got all of the supplies from Michael’s.

Finally, it was time to add the rope!  

Voila!  I plan to hang it on the wall right outside my classroom.

Since it’s Monday Made It, I wanted to share my latest TPT creation as well!!  I know that I shared it on Friday, but I am just so excited about it!

Over 135 pages of sight word practice with activities like read it, trace it, rainbow write it, use it build it;  fluency passages; sight word graphing; and flash cards!  I can’t wait to use it during reading centers this year.  You can grab a copy of my Mega Sight Word Practice Pack [HERE].