Kindergarten Round Up

We recently had Kindergarten Roundup which was a huge success!  It is so fun to see those little preschoolers so eager to be a "big" Kindergartener!

We went with the typical Western Theme to "roundup" those little kiddos.

Check out this adorable campfire my teacher friend made last year!  

This is where we had snack!  We sat around the campfire and enjoyed our cowboy and cowgirl trail mix and learned all about Kindergarten.  

Then we read a story about Kindergarten!

The upcoming kinders colored and cut out their own little cowboy or cowgirl hat to wear right when they came!  Look how cute!

Then we had fun coloring our own cowboy and cowgirl boots!  We also made fun horses to take home to our moms and dads!

I won't get to enjoy these upcoming kinders because I am moving to 4th grade!  But what a bunch!  

To download this unit, click on the picture below!

Ocean Life

The kiddos had a lot of fun exploring the creatures of the deep.   Not only did we learn about the animals who live in the sea, we also learned about the sea habitat.

We watched a couple youtube videos that showed some sea turtles hatching and making their way back to the ocean.  The kids absolutely loved this! Living in the Midwest...this is something most of them will never see.

Check out what we did!

We learned about Ocean Habitats and read an Ocean Book!

We created jellyfish and sea turtles and turtle eggs that hatched!

To download this unit, click on the picture below!

Rainforest Fun

Teaching the Rainforest is one of my all time favorite units!  I love the rainforest and all its exotic features!

Here are some of the super fun things we did to learn about the rainforest!

We read and made our own rainforest booklet.  Then we learned about the layers of the rainforest by cutting and pasting labels!

We created this adorable red-eyed tree frog!

We made rainsticks out of beans and toilet paper tubes.  Then we learned how to make rain sounds using our sticks.  We closed our eyes and imagined we were in the rainforest.

I love this video.  There is  no narrating, but there are rainforest sounds with some great pictures of animals found in the rainforest.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojTS22t9bbY

 We made monkeys with our names on them for our hallway display!

We also made rainforest dioramas.  For most of my kiddos, this was the first time they had ever heard of a diorama and had the chance to make one, so they were pretty excited.  

We recapped what we learned by making this adorable monkey!

To download this activities and more, click on the picture below! 

  

   

100th Day of School

Hip Hip Hooray

It's the 100th Day! 

Here are some of the activities we did for the 100th Day of School.  

Thanks to the Oriental Trading Company, we did this fun sticker activity.

 

 And did you notice our 100th Day Gumball machines?

We made 100 Day necklaces using 100 beads and a pendant colored and cut out by each student using their creativity skills.

We also put together a 100 Day snack mix where each of the kiddos dumped in 100 of something!  It was yummy and took us all day to eat!

To download these activities and more, click on the picture below!

Penguin Unit

We are lovin' penguins this week!

We read our Parker the Penguin Booklet!

 

Check out this super cute penguin handprint craft!

And what about this fun addition and subtraction penguin center?  Use the goldfish crackers to help the kiddos solve addition and subtraction problems.   Then they record their answers on the answer sheet.

  
To download these activities and more, click on the picture below!

Snowmen Unit

Our Snowmen Unit this week turned out super cute!

We read the book, All You Need For A Snowman, by Alice Schertle, and followed up with some activities.  

We made snowman story maps!  

 

We made several different snowmen to hang around our room and in the halls.  See below!

 We read quite a bit about snowmen in our booklet!

To download this activities and more, click on the picture below!

  

Martin Luther King Jr. Unit

It is my opinion that celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. is a must during the month of January.

I found this unit a little difficult to create because I wanted to focus on the positives rather than the struggles.  Yet, the struggles have to be taught as well.  I think I found a nice balance.

We read several books about MLK Jr. and discussed what we learned.  
Here is a craft we did.  The kids did great! 

We also made our miniature Martins!

We then talked about how we can follow in Martin Luther King Jr.'s footsteps.

 To download these activities and more, click on the picture below.