Five for Friday October 21

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey!

       

Here is one of my fall bulletin boards.  I always love the advice different things have to give!



I had the best day ever last week when I got to FaceTime with Emily Kate  Moon in my classroom, and she read her book, Joone.  Oh, I mean- it was all for the kids.  I think I may have said, "I'm friends with Emily Kate Moon, but I've never met her yet either!" too many times, because when I said it, one of my boys said, "Yeah, you told us that."   OK....  Anyway-  Here is my post all about our wonderful day!

AND if you'd like to make fabulous Dr. Chin turtle hats of your own,  click HERE for the pattern.  My wonderful art teacher made these with the kids and gave me his pattern to share.  He printed the hats on green paper, let the kids cut and decorate them, then stapled them into a hat.  They were perfect.

Here are two great directed drawing videos for drawing a turtle.  The kids LOVE these!

Don't forget to end your special Joone Day with ice cream sandwiches, because...  why not?!  

We had our October Random Act of Kindness Day on our calendar last week!

 I wrote about how I love to work kindness into our Calendar Time HERE.  It was a RAK for our playground aides. I love our playground aides, and so do the children.  They're great.  The children took them each an amaryllis bulb.  I LOVE growing these.  They grow SO fast and are absolutely gorgeous.  It's a perfect science activity for the classroom, too, because the children can measure almost daily and see growth!  The kids were so excited to give.  That was the best part.

Dr. Jean and I finished our Brain Cookies packet.  We put together over 90 favorite brain breaks for any time of the day.  We thought the name "Brain Cookies" would be fun because they are little treats to help get through the day- (and these are even healthy!)  We use these all the time in my class.

My kids love it because I store the cookies in cookie containers, and the leader gets to choose one that we do!

You can keep them on a ring or even in a cookie jar!  Just have fun!  That's what it's all about.

One of my favorite ways to get my kids writing is sticker writing.  I guess it's just different enough and fun enough to be a perfect combination.  We use Lucy Calkins for writing- which is fine- but gets to be a little too much too fast for my kids.  There are just too many parts for little five year old brains to remember to put together sometimes.  I find I don't really get much "writing" because they just plain need to learn HOW to write letters, and use those sounds to make words and get down what they want to say.  So some days we just need to back it up a little.  

I buy stickers at the Dollar Store, and cut each page in half.  Each student gets a half page of stickers and an 8 1/2X14  (Legal size) paper.  For some reason, this bigger paper is just exciting!

The children can put their stickers anywhere they want, and then draw more details for the stickers the background.  Then, they can labels and add speech bubbles if they want.  

I use this as an activity to teach early sentence writing.  I have each child write, "I  see  a  ..."  and they can finish it with whatever they see in their picture.  This is a great way to practice writing sight words.  You can use lots of different sentences with this writing:  I can see a...;  I like my...;  Can you see the?...;  Look at the...  My____ can _____....  anything you want!


 We work on neat printing, spaces, stretching out words and hearing sounds, and adding a period at the end of the sentence.  I was so proud of them- and I actually felt better about their writing after this.  Phew!  Some of those "books" for writer's workshop had me nervous...  Now I see hope.

I wrote a post about Sticker Writing that I did later in the year.  They love sticker writing anytime!

Finally- just to make you all feel better about yourselves... in case you had a long week.
I watched this Cooking Panda video to make sugar cookie ice cream cups.  SOOOO easy. Basically... Butter the backside of a cupcake sheet really well.  Cut sugar cookie dough.  Put on top of well-buttered circles. Bake. Slide off.  Enjoy.  

So here are mine. We had sugar cookie crumbs to put on our ice cream.  At least we had ice cream.  

Have a wonderful weekend!

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!