Under the Sea

WOW, I am STILL trying to catch my breath after our last week!  We had so much fun talking about the amazing under the sea world.  Each day we went into great detail discussing a particular creature that lives in the water.  On Monday we started by talking about "fish",  just fish.  Pretty soon the movie "Finding Nemo" was brought up and we quickly talked about the clown fish.  One of our teachers has a large collection of sea shells and other sea objects.  She was happy to share with us and we loved it all, especially the shark teeth!

Our art project this week got out of hand - literally!  We started by painting our water.  Everyone had a choice to either use paint brushes or their hands.  Mrs. Christi's class opted for their hands, mine the brushes - oh well! 

 

 

Once the water was dried each child cut and added sea weed.  We also added some very cute hand print sea creatures.

 

 

But, we were STILL not done.  Next came my favorite part - a scuba diver!  And not just any scuba diver, a personalized diver.  That's right, we added our own picture and turned ourselves into underwater divers!



TOO CUTE!

 

This project took several days and was very time consuming. But I honestly think it was worth it, don't you????

 

We spent an entire day talking about jellyfish!  Did you know that a jellyfish does not have a brain?  It doesn't and it made us giggle!  Lucky for us, we have wonderful people who donate things to our school and someone has sent us a some leftover fabric.  We put it to good use this week by making a jellyfish.



I don't think anyone could be afraid of this jellyfish!

 

We also had two big bottles of jellyfish in our room this week.

 

I made them with plastic bottles.  You can get the instructions here .  My class really enjoyed them.  (Just a little word of advice, be sure to either glue the cap on or do what I did and use tape.)



 

One day was spent talking about our friend the octopus.  We counted his/her eight legs and read about their feeding habits.  We even made our very own octopus to take home.  It was made with an empty paper towel roll.  

 

CONFESSION TIME!!!  I made this octopus! 

I have never posted a picture of something I did. 

I always post pictures of the children's work,

but I forgot to take a picture of the octopus before sending them home. 

 

 

Now you know that you cannot spend a week talking about things that live in the sea without talking about sharks.  Okay here it is, the theme to JAWS!  Sorry, I just had to do that.  After much discussion about sharks we quickly came to the conclusion that . . . . WE LOVE SHARKS!  Here is the shark we made.

The children cut a small paper plate for his/her teeth.

 

Our Fabulous Fun Friday came too quickly and we headed to our kitchen for science fun and cooking!  We spent a great deal of time playing "Sink or Float?".  Everyone grabbed objects from our room to see if they would sink or float.  There was only one rule - NO BOOKS!  It was a lot of fun! 

 

Next, we had some fun with Skittles.  Everyone got a clear plastic cup and two different colored Skittles.  We patiently waited (and we did not have to wait long) and watched.

 

We quickly found out that if you DO NOT touch the cup, the colors will not mix!  OHHHHHH!  FUN!  Then, the coolest thing in the entire world happened . . . .

Can you see it??
The little "S" on the Skittles floated to the top!

COOL!

Of course no week would be complete without a little cooking fun.  This week we made "ocean cookies".  

 

If you are wondering what the red Skittle is doing in an ocean, you aren't alone.

We just wanted to eat a Skittle, so we called it a clam!

 

Now do you see why I am tired????  We had a great week and I am resting up to do it all over again on Monday.  I hope you stop back by to see what we are doing!

Springtime!

I love spring, it is such a happy time!  My class came back from our Spring Break with lots of energy and I returned refreshed and ready to go!  We started our unit on Spring this past week and here are a few of the highlights.

I have very few regrets when it comes to things I did with my son as a child (not that I did everything right, it is just a don't believe in regrets).  But, one of the things I would have done differently is hand print art.  I just don't have enough!  I think that is why this first activity is one of my favorites.  We put the children's hand prints in a circle.  The children ALWAYS decide on what color they want to use.  I feel this is part of what makes this art work so special, no matter what color they choose.  Next, we have the children cut out the leaves and the stem.  As the children are cutting, we talk about the different parts of the flower and the importance of each one..

 

I back the stems and leaves with brown construction paper to make them POP OUT.  This is a very special piece of artwork because it highlights our cutting skills and we will be saving it for our upcoming art show in a few weeks. 

 

Here in Alabama, like in most of the country, we always have a lot of rain during the spring.  This past week was very rainy so we spent an entire day discussing RAIN.  Our art project for the day was really fun, we made it rain!  We started by mixing blue paint, a little glue and water in a large container.  Then we used some really fun droppers to put small and large drops of "rain" onto our papers. 

 

 

 

"This is fun Mrs. Karen, but when are we going to make it rain?", "T" said.  So he lifted up his paper and . . . . .

"It's raining Mrs. Karen, it is raining!"

SUCCESS!

 

After they dried, they still looked great!

 

 



I love Pinterest, and I'm sure if you "follow me" you know I am almost obsessed (hahaha).  I saw this the other day and knew my class would love it!  Of course, we changed things a little and made it our own.  We started by painting a large paper plate yellow.

 I love when little "S" said to me, "I know that we are doing more than this!".  I just giggled and assured her that we were.  Next we painted a stem and leaf. 

 

We all have our "special" ways to paint!

 

If you look closely, you may be able to see that I outline the leaf and stem with hot glue.

 

I'm not sure if this was really an important step, but the children seemed to like it.

 

We had to wait a whole day to let it dry. 

 

Next, comes the wow!  We cut slits all around our paper plates and added real sunflower seeds to the middles.  Everyone picked their favorite colors to finish off our masterpieces.

 

 

I love these so much!  Everyone could not wait to take them home!  We were so proud!

 

Our "Fabulous Fun Friday" had to extra special this week.  We had survived a fire drill on Wednesday and our water was cut off for a couple of hours on Thursday, all because of construction in a nearby building.  As always, my class was amazing so I wanted to do something special.  Our letter of the week was "K" so I brought in my keyboard and opened up my large jar of keys! 

 





 

Everyone loved counting the keys and making key rubbings.  We even tried to put them in order from smallest to the largest.  Of course all this was done while someone was playing "songs" on the keyboard. 

 

Our art project was very simple, but is started our conversation about "wind" and it was a great way for us to review our shapes.

 

 

Our discussion about "wind" was very lively and fun.  I brought a box fan from my house and we took turns seeing what items would "blow in the wind".

 

 

The shredded paper was the most fun (of course) but it was also the messiest! :) 

Everyone knows that on "Fabulous Fun Fridays" we HAVE to cook, and cook we did!  We made our very own "cookie flowers"!  Each child cot a cup of cookie dough and colored it their favorite color food coloring.  Next, we squished it out onto some aluminum foil so that they would look like a flower and added chocolate chips for the centers.  (NOTE:  Mrs. Christi and I wrote each child's name on their aluminum foil with a sharpie so everyone could eat their own cookies.)  Into the oven they went and YUM  . . . .

 

okay, maybe not "yum" but if you look closely, maybe you see a flower????  It didn't really matter because everyone loved eating their very own flower cookies.

It was a long and exhausting week but I can't wait to do it again!  I hope you will visit us again soon.  Our next unit will be all about birds!





Just a Bunch of Tubes

Last week, during our Dr. Seuss week, I had this "great idea" to do something with empty paper towel and toilet tissue rolls.  You know those lovely tubes that "you just can't throw away".  I have everyone collecting these for me so I have quite a large supply.  Alas, my "great idea" just never came to be.  There were so many other things that I wanted to do that week so I crammed all the empty cardboard tubes into my closet for another day.  Well, this past week I was in the mood for something different.  Right after lunch on Wednesday I pulled out my stash and dumped it on our tables.  I had already punched holes into each end of all the tubes (I know, but it was a great way for me use up some nervous energy) and added some chenille sticks (better know to us old folks as "pipe cleaners") and stepped back.  OH MY GOODNESS, we had fun!!!

Can you see the look on the little boy's face in the stripped shirt?
He just realized how to connect the tubes so they would not fall apart!

 

Of course for the first few minutes I heard, "what do we do?" and "I can't!" but soon those negative comments turned into "LOOK Mrs. Karen!".  I knew they were having fun!  I loved watching my sweet "S" when she realized how to bend the pipe cleaners so that the tubes would stay together.  That was all it took!  Soon everyone was busy building their very own sculptures.  By the way, I knew this was really fun when I announced that it was time to get ready for our playground time and no one wanted to go!  I hope you try this and if you do, please let me know how it goes.