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!





Let's Eat an Insect!

WHAT!?!?!?  I bet that title got your attention didn't it???  Well, I'll get to the yummy insect in just a minute, but in the meantime look what else we did . . . .

Since we spent Monday talking about St. Patrick's Day, we only had four fun days of insects.  That was okay because we packed a lot into those four days!  We have a REALLY big day coming up in May.  It is our annual Art Show and each month I try and save a very special piece of artwork to display.  For the month of March, we made our "name bug".

SORRY, I have no ideas why this picture is sideways.

 

I know it may be hard for some of you to believe but, yes my students actually wrote their own names!  If you closely you will see that my sweet Sara has a little trouble with her "S" so I make little "dots" for her to follow.  Her S's have some a long way since September and I am sure in another month or so she will no longer need the dots!

 

We spent Wednesday talking about butterflies.  We fluttered and flew all over the place.  By the way, being a butterfly is a wonderful way to walk down the hallway.  After all, butterflies don't make any sounds!  We topped off our day by making some beautiful "squishy" butterflies.

 

The secret to these little beauties is a lot of paint!  The children glob large spoonful's of paint onto one half of the butterfly.  Next, we fold him and squish!  I love to see the children's faces when paint starts oozing out.  We open them up to see a lovely butterfly.  After they dry, we add his/her body and antennas.  The children draw on their own faces and our fluttery friends are ready to go!

All week long we talk about the anatomy of an insect (you know, 3 body parts, 2 eyes, 6 legs, 2 antennas) and on Thursday, we made our very on insects.

 Everyone got to paint their egg cartons any color they wanted.  The children added their own legs and antennas and of course we added some left over sticker eyes.  The each child decorated their insect with different shapes. 

 

Ahhh . . . finally it was our "Fabulous Fun Friday"!  This would be our last day before Spring Break so I wanted it to be very special.  I said "special" right?  Not messy??  Well, guess what?  We got both!  We spent Friday talking about bees!  It was so fun.  Everyone got to "buzz" around the room and up and down the halls.  (Not as quiet as butterflies, but fun no less!)  We even made our very own bees to take home!  First we taped off some yellow construction paper for our stripes.

 

 

Here comes the fun part!  Next, we painted.

 

We stripped off the tape to reveal some very special bumble bees! 

Don't you just love the wax paper wings?

 

Friday means fun in the kitchen so we buzzed and flew down the hall for some science and cooking fun.  Since I had been teasing everyone about "eating an insect", I knew I better start with that!  Here they are . . . .

 

 

That's right, they are made with bananas, pretzels and chocolate chips.  If you closely, you will hopefully notice that they are anatomically correct.  Each insect has 3 body parts, 6 legs and 2 antennas.  Oh, a few actually have "stingers" :)  They were very yummy!

Hang on, I'm not finished . . . . next we talked about our wonderful friends, the bumble bees and how they help our gardens.  We used Cheetos to serve as our pollen.

 

Then we wiped our hands and pretended to be bumble bees spreading the pollen.

 

 



Of course after all of this we were thirsty.  Finally, we drank our lemonade like butterflies!

 

Butterfly's tongues are like straws,  We cut our straws in half and pretended to be butterflies drinking nectar from a flower.

WOW, what a busy week!  I think I NEED a vacation to recharge my batteries. 

Thanks for visiting with us.  I hope you check on us again!

Out of This World Fun

WOW!  I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again!), I love this unit!  Each and every day I am blown away by what my class can do!  At the beginning of our unit on the Solar System, I assign each child a planet name.  As we go through our week, I call them by their planet name and tell them something special about themselves.  By the end of the week the children not only can tell me about THEIR planet, but also about all the others.  WOW!  Make it fun and they WILL learn!

We started our unit on the solar system by talking about the center of our universe, the sun.  One of our favorite activities is "squishy" painting.  First, I cut circles out of poster board (you can use cereal boxes too).  Each child squirts on the different paints.  We used red, orange, yellow, gold and bronze.  Next comes the fun part . . . we cover the paint filled circle with clear plastic wrap (WARNING:  If you use CHEAP plastic wrap you will want to use two pieces, trust me!) and then we SQUISH!  The results are beautiful.  I have a large piece of black construction paper with a blob of glue waiting and I carefully place the very wet "sun" onto it.  This is where I end up getting messy but the children are still clean.  The children add the sun rays and the results are truly amazing!

 

We had to have a snack that was "out of this world" so we headed to the kitchen to whip up some fun solar system cookies. 

It was easy, but fun!  We mixed up some yellow icing and added it to a small cookie to make our sun.  Then we added our nine planets (YES, I said nine!  We decided not to leave the dwarf planet, Pluto out of the fun!).  Yummy and fun!

I really love this next art project!  I call it our name rockets.  Each child picks out colorful squares and writes one letter of their name in each square.  This is a wonderful activity to practice our writing and math skills.  I love the end result, especially the "fire" and little stars!

During our Winter Week, I took some pictures of the students to make our special snow people.  I just had two copies printed off so we could all become astronauts!

 

Sorry, for the big ugly square, but I have to protect the identity of my sweet students.  The moon was made with sand paper rubbings.  I love that my sweet little "S" had to make her flag correctly!

Since our letter this week was "J" we decided that we needed to fly to Jupiter!  And fly we did.  We spent all day Wednesday talking about our largest planet and making a rocket ship out of different shapes to take us there.

I especially love this Jupiter. 

Can you see the big red spot?

 

My surprise for the week came in the form of sweet "S" yelling from across the room.  I hurdled two children and chair to see that she had written her name with the magnetic letters!

 



Her planet name of course!

 

No fun Solar System Week would be complete without moon rocks.  On Thursday we turned "regular, old earth rocks" in fabulous moon rocks.

 

All you need are some good sized rocks, gray paint and scrap pieces of black tissue paper.  Instant moon rocks!  Be prepared, these take several days to dry.

 

Ahhhhhh . . . Friday is always the most fun day of our week and I did not want to disappoint anyone.  We started by mixing flour and white paint. 

You can see everyone got to measure and mix up their own!

 

Next, we added just a squirt of black paint and kept mixing!

 

Besides having flour everywhere, it wasn't too messy.  But then . . . . . 

 

we dumped our mixture onto a large circle cut from cereal boxes and moved it all around.  SUPER messy but SUPER fun!  While the children were washing their hands (PLEASE be careful of your sink if and when you do this.  This can clog up a sink.), I glued their moon down to a piece of black construction paper.  Then the children added stars made from silver and gold glitter paint.

 

Here is a closer view of our moon.

 

 

I was so amazed with my class this week and wanted to end with something really special.  The first thing we did was head to kitchen to make some "moon sand".  My recipe is very simple, sand and cornstarch.  I know some of you may want to know the exact ratio but sorry, I just dump it in.  The children didn't care, it was fun.

A little note about the sand.  When I bought the sand, it was wet.  No problem I thought, it will dry.  But, here in Alabama we have had multiple days below the freezing mark.  So if you buy wet sand PLEASE don't leave it in your car for several days . . . it will freeze!  Oh well, good thing we have microwaves!!!

 

Hang on, I'm not done.  We talked all week about gravity and to help the children understand it a little better, we ate a little treat just like the astronauts do . . .

applesauce from a bag with a straw!

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!

 

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you check on us again because next week we will be talking about DINOSAURS!!!!!