Learning about our cultures and our classmates!

Every year my school celebrates International Day.  This is a time for the students to talk to their families and learn more about where they come from.  It is also a time when we all get to learn a little bit more about each other.  For homework this week, my students had to complete the following writing assignment.

This was a week long assignment, so they had time to do some research if needed.  Everyone got a chance to share their writing today.  We also found the different states and countries their families are from on a globe.  Their parents obviously helped them spell some words, but the majority of the kiddos were still able to read their papers independently.  Take a look at some of these treasures:

Luckily the kiddos didn't ask what moonshine is :)

I love the way this kiddo added humor-- "My Dad's family is from Wales-the country, not the animal."

 I am amazed by how many kids are bilingual!  What is even more mind boggling, is that it is often something they keep secret, or don't want to share.  I guess they don't want to be seen as different.  I try to encourage them by letting them know they are smarter than me, because I only speak English.

I really enjoyed learning about their diverse backgrounds, and they seemed to enjoy it as well.  The kids listened intently to their friends and couldn't wait to see where the countries were on the globe.  I really got a kick out of this one:

"There is a special vino from Nimis, but I don't drink it."

She even brought a wine book to share pictures!  At first she asked if she could tell the class about making wine, which I was a little skeptical of.  Then she began showing pictures of landscapes and told about a few of the churches and holidays--whew, thank goodness!  I can just imagine explaining why the K/1 kiddos learned how to make wine at school!

Another part of International Day is a family lunch.  Each student brings in a dish that is popular where they are from. With a variety of dishes, students always get to try new foods.  In some of my previous schools, this would not have gone very well.   I have to give my current kiddos some credit though, everyone tried something, and I didn't even have to do any convincing.  

My class was in charge of desserts, which meant that I had to taste a lot of sweet stuff today.  I was afraid I would hurt someone's feelings if I didn't try each and every one!  The desserts were the hit of the day.  I guess kids don't find cookies and cakes as scary as unknown meat and vegetable dishes.  

If you are looking for a way to celebrate the various backgrounds of your students, International Day is a great place to start!  You could use it as an end of unit celebration as well.  It is a wonderful way to get parents involved too!

Playing with Insects and Spiders

Don't worry, we weren't actually playing with live bugs!  We studied insects and spiders last week and I decided to get hands on with a little Play-doh!  To help the kids see and remember the parts of these critters, we created them ourselves.

First, I taught them the basic parts of an insect. . .

• 3 body parts (head, thorax, abdomen)
• 2 antennae
• 6 legs
• 2 eyes

Then they each got their own jar of Play-doh and some pipe cleaners to practice with.  

The second day we tried the process again with spiders.  These were the basic parts I told them to include. . .

• 2 body parts (cephalothorax--or head, abdomen)
• 8 legs
• 2 fangs/teeth
• 8 eyes (not all spiders have 8 eyes, but that is a common amount)

They loved this activity!

In order to see if they remembered the differences between the two, they got to create one more Play-doh creature, either a spider or an insect.  Afterwards, the kiddos sorted their creations on a t-chart.

Sorry for the shadow!  Have to take pictures quick or the kids get antsy.

We checked each one together to make sure they had the required parts.  They had a little trouble with the insects because they all wanted to create butterflies.  Their butterflies were missing legs, antennae, and or body parts.  I guess they got excited about making the wings and forgot about everything else.  I guess I know what their favorite insect is!

We also made a Venn diagram this week to show our knowledge.  My little smarties did great!

  

Now they are excited when they find insects or spiders outside.  They come running over to announce their find and then proceed to stare at it and describe it to one another.  It always makes me smile :)

Moms! Moms! Moms!

We all love our moms and my students are no different!  In honor of Mother's Day, they created books for their moms last week.  We worked on them all week.  It was a great way to get them excited about writing! Although, I have to say I am pretty blessed in that regard.  My students have been coming to school with glitter covered journals for months now, with no mention of it from me.  I don't know what gave them the idea.  It is like they suddenly realized they could sound out words and write down what they were thinking, and they wanted to do it all the time.  My little writers!

The Mother's Day books were a hit with the moms.  This wasn't a surprise to me since I found them adorable myself and they aren't even my children.  The things kids come up with are hilarious.  They have no filter and are just beginning to grasp the concepts of time, so I think you will find some of these excerpts amusing as well :)

Her mom is nowhere near 72 years old!  

Sounds like someone doesn't like to do chores.

"My mom does not like loud noises."  I like the way she drew the noise in this picture.

"My mom does not like when my brother punches me."

"My mom likes to eat vegetables with pepper and oil."  She did a great job sounding out vegetables if you think about how it sounds.

I love that she included speech bubbles of her complaining and her mom telling her to stop whining.

I had one mom tell me that she doesn't like to watch baseball, it is just that baseball or cartoons are always on at their house.  I bet I can guess who picks the channels.

"My mom likes to wear red shoes and a blue shirt and skirt."  I love the way she decided to trace the color words with crayon.

They drew a portrait of their mom and used it as the cover for their book.

The books turned out beautifully, but I can't take all the credit for the idea.  I got the "All About Mom" template from Miss Nelson.  I cannot recall where I got the other book pages.  If you made them let me know and I will gladly give you credit!  Sorry!  They are great!

Happy (belated) Mother's Day to all the moms out there!!

Awesome Animal Projects!

If you have been following my blog, you know that we have been studying animals for the past several weeks.  Those of you who have not been following along, I don't know where you've been, but I'm glad you came around ;)  As a culminating activity for our animal study, I assigned an Animal Research Project.  I tried this last year with my K/1 kids and they loved it, so I thought I would bring it back.  The parents seem to enjoy it as well.

I send home this information sheet on Monday and the project is due on Friday.  They have no other homework for the week, so they really get to spend some time on their project.

Each kiddo picks an animal that they want to learn more about.  They research it and decide how they want to present their information (poster, display board, diorama, etc.)  They had to answer the 5 questions above.  If you can't read them , here they are. . .

1.  What is your animal's habitat?
2.  What does your animal eat?
3.  What kind of animal is it (mammal, fish, bird, reptile, amphibian)?
4.  What kind of covering does your animal have (feathers, fur, scales, skin, hair, shell)?
5.  How does your animal move (walk, crawl, hop, slither, fly)?

The only requirements were that they had to answer these questions, and their project had to include writing and pictures.

They did an awesome job!  Here are a few examples:

She made lion ears to wear during her presentation.

No, I do not have a kindergartener with wonderful handwriting such as this.  He told his mom what to write.

She created a swordfish game.  She let students select a number, and then she asked the question that correlated with the number.  The students tried to answer the questions and she told them if they were wrong or right and then explained the answers.

On Friday, each kiddo got to present their project to the class.  I was proud of how well they read the information!  Such cuties!

To celebrate and extend our study of animals, we took a field trip to the San Francisco Zoo.  It was a beautiful day and we saw lots of animals.  We even got to see a baby gorilla!  We spotted this guy while we were there too!  Absolutely beautiful!

Oceans of Fun!

Sorry for my absence!  I don't have a good excuse for you.  Better late than never though!  I know you have been dying to see what else we're working on :)  We have been having oceans of fun!

The last biome that we learned about this year was the ocean.  I happened to have a plethora of ocean books, so I didn't check anything out from the library this time.  The kiddos really enjoyed reading about ocean animals in their free time.  I love to see them excited about books!!

I found some ocean themed centers for them to enjoy.  They practiced putting ocean animals in ABC order in the pocket chart center.  Thanks to Live Laugh I Love Kindergarten for this freebie!

This little animal sort came from Amy Lowes.  The kiddos flew through this one.

I drew, colored, and laminated a few little fish.  The kids used them to show greater than or less than.  I find that if you teach them to think of the symbols as little fish or alligator mouths it helps them remember which way they go.  Fishies always each the bigger number because they're hungry!

They listened to Clark the Shark at the listening center this week.

They practiced building words using the letters in "ocean animals."  I found this freebie from Brittani Black.  I added the letters at the top and bottom so the kiddos could cut them out and actually build the words.  This helped to differentiate the activity for those who needed the manipulatives.

I have no idea where this paper came from.  It was in my trusty files.  We brainstormed "sh" words and then they tried sounding them out independently.  They did a wonderful job!

We used this sorting activity to distinguish words that begin with "sh" from those that end with "sh."   This freebie is from Megan Mitchell.

I found this cute shark book and had the kiddos highlight the word wall words.  They tried reading it on their own, and then we read it as a class.  The last page asks what they found the most interesting.  The most popular answer referenced the fact that there are almost 400 kinds of sharks.

"I am surprised that sharks eat squid."

 It also came with a nice true or false follow-up paper.  I read the statements and they marked their answers.

 My favorite ocean activity this week was at the writing center.  My students LOVE stickers!  I had a variety of ocean animals stickers that I thought they would enjoy, so I put them in a basket and they created sticker stories.  They could choose if they wanted to write a fiction or nonfiction piece to go with their sticker picture.  They turned out really cute.  Some of them got a little sticker happy and went overboard, but at least they knew to call it a school of fish!

"The school of fish was going to be eaten by a shark but pufferfish used his spikes to prick the shark."

"Seahorses lay their eggs in the father's belly.  Fish sometimes go to sea anenomes to protect theirselves from them selves."

I am not sure why the fish are protecting themselves from themselves, but she gets the general idea :)  

To wrap up our study of animals I assigned an Animal Research Project.  Come back soon to check out their projects!