Under the Sea

Our "Under the Sea" week turned out to more fun than even I expected!  Usually by the time we get this deep into the school year, the students tend to get bored more easily.  NOT WITH THIS UNIT!  WOW, we had so much fun! 

This is my classroom!

I don't even remember where I got this large poster.

Someone threw it away and I retrieved it from the trash!

One of the most fun things we did this week was walk down our  hallways.  REALLY?!?!?!  Yes, we had so much fun swimming like a fish, crawling sideways like a crab and even floating like a jellyfish down the hall.  A real plus here is that fish are very quiet, so it was a wonderful way to keep us quiet as walked.  Okay, now let me show you some of the fun (and messy) things we did this week.

For the past couple of years, we have made a giant ocean scene.  It takes a couple of days but it is really fun.  First we have to paint the water.  Now that just didn't seem fun enough for us, SO we decided to do it the Mrs. Karen way!  First we squeezed on paint different colors of paint (green, blue, turquoise, and white).  Next, we used different types of rollers, brushes and scrappers to spread around the paint.

 

While that was drying (and it did take a full 24 hours to dry), we made different sea creatures out of our hand prints and cut out seaweed.  

Everyone was so very proud of their work!

One of our favorite books this week was Please Don't Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward.

 

This quickly became a class favorite and I was asked to read it everyday!  After reading it, there was no way my students were going to let me get through the week with a shark art project.  I think I nailed it!

 

Of course, there were those who wanted to make a hammerhead shark!



 

Here is a close-up of his/her mouth.  The children painted the inside of a small paper plate.  Then they cut (I drew the lines) little triangles all the way around the plate.  When you fold it in half it makes a perfect mouth!



 

I saw this amazing file folder game on PINTEREST but unfortunately the link did not work.

I loved the idea and I wanted everyone in my class to be able to do it.  Guess what?  We did!  Here is our Counting Octopus.

The octopus is a girl.  See her hair bow!

 



A close-up of our legs.

I will admit this activity is not for everyone.  There was a lot of circle punching involved in this, but I think it was worth it.  The children loved counting the circles and gluing them onto the legs.

Friday was our "Q" day.  We tried (really, we did) to be quiet, but as you can imagine it was more fun to be quick!  We also started working on our big Friendship Quilt.  This year we used real material.  Everyone picked out their favorite color construction paper and glued on different shaped pieces of material.

This is where I get to say "OPPS!"  I forgot to take pictures of the finished pieces, but I will and I will post them in a day or two.  We will join all the pieces together to form our giant "Friendship Quilt" and it will be on display for our end-of-the-year Art Show, which will be this Thursday.

 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with us.  I hope you come back and visit with us soon.

Q is for Quilt

The letter "Q" is always a difficult letter for me to teach.  Let's be honest, there aren't a lot of fun "Q" words.  I know, I know, "queen", "quick", "quack", but come on . . . how many times can you you be "quick" while you are "quacking"?  This year besides the girls being "quacking queens" and the boys being "quick quarterbacks" we made a "quilt!  Everyone made their own "square" and we joined them together!  This turned out to be a keeper!  I am sure it will be a hit at our art show!  "Quick" and Fun, you have to love it!

"Q" and Farm Week

Oh what fun we had this week! I must admit that I worried about letting my class down after our wonderful "P" week, but I think they were surprised. This week was all about the letter "Q" and the "Farm". See my newest picture for "Q". It is my favorite "Q"uarterback, Auburn University's Neil Caudle! THANKS NEIL! We were pretty busy all week but we managed to squeeze in a wonderful "Dr. Seuss Day" on Wednesday. Our week started off by heading to the kitchen. One of our former teachers had left all kind of junk items behind when she parted and I inherited them. LUCKY ME hahahah, or so I thought until I realized some of her junk was pretty neat. One thing she left was a package of little capsules from the Dollar Store. There were like 18 in a package. You put them in water and when the capsule melts you are left with a surprise. Inside our capsules were farm animals (okay, we knew this because the package told us)! The look on the children's faces were priceless! They were so excited! Everyone was screaming and giggling. GREAT little science activity at no cost.

We also spent the day Monday making a wonderful little duck, no photo :( because we all couldn't wait to get them home :) We also spent the entire "quacking"! Yes, I said QUACKING, a lot of noise but OH SO MUCH FUN and a great way to learn the "Q" sound.


Our Tuesday was spent working on a lovely little cow (yes, we MOOed while we worked). Tuesday was also a fun day because we got out of scissors and did some "Super Fun Scissor Work" (again, yes, that is what we actually call it). Everyone cut their own spots for our cows. Some cut just a few, while other just kept on cutting. (please note the "hairbow" that my sweet little "A" just had to make for her cow - VERY creative!) Either way, they were MOOOOOvarleous!

Wednesday of course was good 'ole Dr. Seuss Day! See post below for all our fun.
Thursday was a fun pig day. We had the best time talking about the different sizes of the circles we used for our pigs. And yes, just in case you were wondering, we DID oink all day!

A special thank you to my co-worker/Emily's Mom, Amanda for taking a picture of Emily's pig. Everyone was so excited to show their pigs to their families that I didn't get a picture before we left.

Friday is one of my favorite days. We head to the kitchen to whip up a fun and not always nutritional snack. This week was definitely fun! WE ATE A PIG! I know the pigs should have been round, but WOW this was a really big cookie, so we cut in half. This is my favorite cookieI never tell them where to put items, I only tell them what the items are. For instance, on this project I said, "here are the pig's eyes". Gotta love 'em!

We also made the cutest little sheep on Friday. I really love this one -
"R" said, "it's a Mommy sheep, she has on lipstick"!

A quick note - this week a couple of our art projects got out the door before I actually had time to photograph them. I was rather sad when I realized it but then I thought, this is what happens when our day is too fun and our time is too short!

The letter "Q"

I always have had a problem when it came to fun and interesting things to do with the letter "Q" . I think I finally came up with a couple of really good ideas. See what you think.

First idea; I gave each child a piece of construction paper and they decorated it anyway they wanted. Then we joined it all together to make a giant quilt.

The next day we decided to see how hard it was to write with a "quill". WOW, we had a great time. Some thought it was easy, some hard. But, everyone really enjoyed it.

Here is the final results: