Five for Friday June 10

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey! My blog background disappeared- poof! And so did my Pin button.  My sweet daughter Ellie saved the day and fixed it back up for me. Thank you, Ellie. I need to take her shopping...

       

We had so much fun with ducks this week!  We've been working with birds a lot and LOVING it.  I do love my birds, and now the kids do, too.  Isn't that sweet how you can pass on an excitement or love of something to children?  I hope some of them keep that love forever.

This duck activity is simple and really shows the kids why ducks stay dry in the water.  

I traced the ducks on brown grocery bags  and the kids cut them out.  I also traced some feet that they attached with a brad so the feet can go around.   Once they cut the duck out, they dabbed some vegetable oil on the duck.  Then, each child got to spray their duck and see the water bead up on the duck, and not soak in.

Our lesson explained that ducks and waterbirds have a special oil gland by their tail.  When they "preen" (or clean themselves), they spread this oil over their outer feathers.  This oil helps to  waterproof those feathers.

Underneath those waterproof feathers are soft, down feathers that keep the duck warm.  I explained that the waterproof feathers are like a raincoat, and the down feathers are like our warm, dry clothes underneath the raincoat that stay dry and keep us warm because the raincoat keeps us dry.

This lesson is just one of MANY of our bird lessons in the new Birds and Bird Nests Packet that Dr. Jean and I made.  It's 60 pages of Birds and Birds Nests.  The are so many great hands-on, STREAM ideas, my Bird Nest Prezi, writing prompts to go along with books, 10 QR Codes for a center or Read the Room Activity, fingerplays, pictures for a bird journal,  and Dr. Jean's song download, "Birdies." That song is one of the kids' FAVORITES.  They think it's hysterical!  



If you would like a copy of this Duck Activity, just click HERE.  I included a simple duck pattern if you'd like to use it- or feel FREE to make your own!  I added a yellow craft feather to each duck, just for fun.

         

We read some great duck books to go along with this activity!  I LOVE Just Ducks by Nicola Davies.  Her books are so much fun because they are excellent non-fiction books with a story  that the children love to listen to.  We read the story the first time through, and then go back for the facts she scatters all throughout the book.  

Here are some sample pages:

Perfect for this activity!

Always great for the "uck" word family and rhyming


     

 We did some writing after we learned lots about birds and nests from our Prezi...

 made our nest packets

 and bird feeders, and read and listened to lots of bird stories.

If the story has a QR Code, I added that to the prompt so the children can have the story to listen to when they go home.  The prompts are simple and quick enough to be independent, but to really let the children be creative and answer questions.  Here are some samples of writing prompts we did about birds, that are also in the packet.

 

 

 

 

Have you watched the DC Eagle Cam in your classroom?  My class LOVED watching the eagles and their babies! I had it on during free choice time. It's quiet and so peaceful. OK- I say that... and then a duck ended up in the nest- which made us all stop and watch!  I saw a kitten was in one nest- but we didn't see it (thank goodness...).  So, it is LIVE and it is NATURE.  But the thrill of watching the eagles is just amazing.  Some of the kids are just mesmerized! 

 There are lots of online live camera feeds that are fun to watch.  Africam is another one we love.  Sometimes you can see some really neat animals at the waterhole- some days it's pretty quiet. 

Writing this time of year is very creative for me...because I feel like the kids are excited for some different ways to write.  When you think about it, it's the first time in their LIVES they can really get down on paper what they want to say.  That's huge!

Sticker writing is always fun.  We read lots of animal books to get some ideas about illustrations and facts.  Then,  everyone got a paper with two stickers on it.  Nobody knew which ones they'd get. I put them face down on the table, and they turned the paper over and had to draw a detailed background and write something about their animals.  They loved it. Nobody even complained! Maybe because as I was handing them out, some of the kids started with, "You get what you get, and you're thankful for it!"   I love that little saying.  I love it so much better than "You don't throw a fit."  It makes it so much more positive.

The gorilla was looking for a friend.  The fox was looking for a friend, too.

I live in the jungle.  I know, I know.  I am big and strong, but I am nice.  

These are my sweet girls.  I took the fairy wings outside to play- well, just because I can... and they had a ball!  Oh I love these sweet fairies!

This saying made me think about not worrying about falling, but instead trying to fly.  Apparently, I  must like that reminder, because this is my phone case!  

I'm just sharing this video because I thought it was sweet of Nicole and Keith. (I say that like they're my friends...) I know it's not a Christian song, but the chorus makes me think of God telling me that He won't let me fall. He won't ever make me cry.  And when everything seems to go wrong, He will fight for me.  <3  Another great reminder. 

Thank you for stopping by. Have a wonderful weekend!

Five for Friday September 27!

I think this school week was accidentally eight days long instead of five.  Anybody else?  I had lots of meetings and Open House/ Curriculum Night, but still, I am pretty sure a few extra days snuck in there. I am also pretty sure I never once said that about any week in the summer... ;)

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! Thank you for hosting! :)

Here are my favorite five for the week.

1. Roll and Read

I found a great new game  that  was shared on If You Give a Teacher a Blog.  She found this great freebie from Primary Essentials.  My wonderful mother comes in at center time, as  you may know, and she played this game with my groups to work on letter recognition and sounds, and even sight words with my top groups.  A child rolls a die, and if he/she can name the letter (or letter and sound, or give a word that starts with the letter...) of the number rolled, he/she keeps the letter.  If not, it stays on the number for more practice.

 

I thought this would be another good game for math number sense and addition/subtraction! What a great, versatile game! 

 2.  AFRICAM!

I love using the Africam in my classroom on the smart board. It is a site with live safari cameras 24/7. You can chose one camera, or watch them all. There is a BREAKING area (that red highlighted part) that tells you on the homepage if there are any live animals out and about. There are also taped videos of animals visiting the water holes in case you aren't seeing anything live.

We saw so many animals today! Must be it wasn't only my class who was active! :)  I felt better knowing that Africa was equally as active.  I love to leave this up for snack time and free choice. I put it on full-screen with the volume on, and hear the beautiful, calming  nature sounds.  Ahhh. (That wasn't saracstic- the Africam sounds ARE calming- the room- not so much! ;)

Kids Biology is a great site if you want to study the animals more. 

This is a really useful site with the focus on nonfiction in the CCSS. It is easy to use and fun for the kids.

These are some beautiful books about an African water holes that you could use to go along with this site.

This Kindle/Nook book is great for young children:

Baby giraffe comes across many of his Serengeti friends on the way to the local watering hole. As he travels he picks up friends along the way until he finally reaches his destination. This unique colorful picture book would be a great addition to any young child's book/ebook collection. This book is recommended for babies through children three years of age.

This next book is a beautiful counting book ( as well as science book and geography book) with illustrations that are so much fun to study:

This last book is fabulous, too.

My class loved the illustrations. Although the writing is beautiful and full of wonderful language, it was a little wordy for my class (maybe it was just my particular group! ;)  but easy to adapt and a perfect introduction to Africam.
Here is a review:
PreSchool-Grade 3-Richly colored pastel drawings and precise, surprising word choices make this story a natural for sharing with a group. A young vervet monkey, carefully supervised by his mother, waits impatiently for a safe time to drink at a busy water hole as the day passes and other animals of the African savanna come to quench their thirst. The delightful language adds enjoyment: "The silence pokes Monkey's ear"; "Sun lands on the horizon and tucks away its lower half." The beat of the text is palpable, moving from fast to slow and back, sometimes rhyming, sometimes joltingly not. However, as in Lynne Cherry's The Great Kapok Tree (Harcourt, 1990), the plot is secondary to an appreciation of the environment. The realistic illustrations are often from a monkey's-eye view, showing the belly of a running zebra and the gaping mouth of a crocodile. This is a must for studies of African animals or the savanna biome, and a gem for writing teachers.
Ellen Heath, Orchard School, Ridgewood, NJ

3. Kindergarten Vocabulary

I have folders for every color and letter- old fashioned, paper  folders full of ideas! What I love about them is that they are full of beautiful pictures to show the children and full of opportunities to expand vocabulary!  It seems like for our color weeks, we learned a lot about different flowers and birds.  The pictures are great for conversations starters and real world connections, too.  Any time you have a few minutes, just hold up a picture and see how many hands go up with a story to tell.  Here is a kid-version of vocabulary from the week during free choice time:

Boy 1: "I don't even know what 'frustrated' means.

Boy 2: "Well, what it means is, the more you nag, the more we say 'no.'  

Do you think he has heard that a time or two?!

4.  iPad iDea

Probably most of you do this, but it has worked well for me, so I thought I would pass it on in case you haven't tried it.  We have five iPads in the classroom.  Since some games require students to sign in and continue where they left off, I have certain iPads assigned to certain students, one from each group as we switch. I take a picture of the students who will always use a certain iPad and use that for the screen saver.  Ta da! They always know which one to use.

5.  Making Paula Deen Proud

We made butter in class yesterday (one of my all time favorite days of the year for some reason!), and I blogged about it here. I love it because the kids are so enthusiastic and amazed.  When I poured the butter out of the baby food jar, one little boy said, "That looks just like Red Lobster butter!" It absolutely did look just like that scoop they put on a baked potato.  Yum. 

 I made a book to read with the class that you can get if you click on this picture below:

I also made a book for my children to make and take home.  You can get that one if you click on this next picture.  It has two versions of the student books.  The first one is the one I used with my class. The students glue the correct pictures on the page. (I put the pictures that I used at the end of the document, so you can print out as many as you need.)  The second book has the picture on the page, but leaves lines for the student to write the "how to" part to go with each picture. This would be better for older children.

Oh, Paula, you are right... butter is delicious.  

Have a wonderful weekend!  :)