Learning Properties and Making Books!

States of Matter. . . done.  The kiddos are doing well categorizing things into solids, liquids, or gases.

Properties of Matter. . . huh?

That was the type of reaction I got yesterday when I first mentioned properties of matter.  Their eyes sort of glazed over.  I started a Properties chart and broke it down into categories (color, shape, size, texture, weight).  Once I did this everything seemed much more manageable to them.  They came up with all of the ideas for the chart and I recorded them.

After we finished the chart, they each got to record some of our ideas in their very own Properties of Matter books!  The books are a simple little foldable that I learned to make in a professional development session (don't ask me which one because I have no idea!)  I folded all of the books and the kids filled them in.

If you are interested in making some books for your class all you need is paper and a stapler.  You will need three sheets of paper for each book (unless you want a smaller book).  Start by placing one sheet on top of another.  Line up the sides, but slide the paper up so there is about an inch and a half showing at the bottom.  Next place the third sheet on top and leave about an inch and a half of the middle paper showing.

Then, it is time to fold!  Take the top part of the three pages, and fold them over towards the bottom. By folding just one time you should be able to get about an inch and a half space for each row.

Crease the fold and add a couple of staples at the top edge.  You made a book!  These books can be used for anything.  Seriously, the possibilities are endless, but here are a few to get your mind going:
1.  retelling a story
2.  recording characters, setting, beginning, middle, end
3.  recording items of different shapes
4.  recording items that are certain colors

Just have the kids write the name of a category on each row and then they lift the flap to record their answers.  This is an example of our Properties of Matter book.  You could also "fancy it up" by adding pictures on the little tabs to go with each category.

Today we played "I Spy" using words from our property books.  They loved this!  I think we will continue to play whenever we have a little free time (like that ever happens!).

Matter and More!

TGIF!  As much as I love my kiddos, they wear me out!  I always seem to be tired by the end of the week, and today is no different.  Don't worry, I can stay awake long enough to fill you in on some of our activities.

As I mentioned in my last post, we are studying matter this week.  Yesterday the kids made matter books.  They had to cut the pages out and put them in order, then they had to glue the pictures to the correct page (solid, liquid, gas), finally they drew an item on each page.  They all did very well with this activity, but as an extra assessment we did this page today.

plane, juice, steam

a dog, milk, the teapot that has steam coming out

ball, puddle, air

I have gotten in the habit of having kids label their pictures.  They are still working on their fine motor skills and it is sometimes difficult to decipher their pictures.

There was a slight confusion on one paper, due to the word gasoline.  She thought that gas that you put in your car was a gas, which happens to be a very common mistake in kindergarten.  I felt bad telling her it was wrong because she spent so much time on her picture.

She was able to think of a new item for gas though, so she still got all of her answers right :)

If you are interested in using this assessment in your classroom, hop on over here to get the cute free version I made for you!

Okay, that is all I have for you today in regards to matter.  Now we are on to the "and More!" portion of the post ;)

The weather in San Francisco is great, especially when you hear about the rest of the country freezing!  However, this wonderful weather means that some of my students have never seen snow before, which is a sad thought.  Since we can't make real snowmen, we made some during art today instead.

First, I read Snowmen at Night--a cute book if you haven't read it before.

Then, the kids painted snowmen using Q-tips and corks to make dots of white paint.  After the white paint dried, they added other colors with a paintbrush.   I found this idea on Pinterest.  I can't give credit to one individual though because I saw several different pins using the same technique.

Please excuse the shadow of my arm, but I really wanted to use this picture because I have never seen a snowman with a cane.

Our little snowmen will be hung up on Monday to decorate the front hallway!  I figured it was time to take down the Christmas trees that are currently residing on that bulletin board.

Happy Friday everyone!  Now I am off to relax.  Planning can wait until tomorrow!

Back to work!

Sorry for disappearing on you!  I have a good excuse though, school was closed (and I was on vacation---a much needed vacation!)  The vacation is over (well, technically it has been over for a week now) and it is back to business--doing laundry, running errands, cleaning the apartment, and plenty of other mindless chores.  Getting back to work, however, has not been mindless.  I have to keep those kiddos busy or they will drive me crazy!

On top of the usual reading, writing, and arithmetic, we have been learning about matter.  Since I do not have science textbooks or kits in my classroom, I tend to pull resources from anywhere I can, which is exactly what I did for this week's lesson!

First off, I wrote these little poems for each of the states of matter.  I cannot take credit for them, I found them on a handout in my science files.

One student originally wrote "beer", but I thought that might not be the best thing to display in the classroom.  I asked her if she could think of a kid-friendly liquid.

We read them together and did a different activity with each.  For solids, I gave each child a magazine and they cut out all the solids they could find.  Since you can find a plethora of solids in any magazine, this activity did not take too long.  I glued their pictures onto the class poster.  Another option would be to have them each create their own solids poster.

For the liquids poster, I gave each child a notecard.  They wrote their name, and then drew and labeled something that is a liquid.  I taped the notecards around the poster.

Since gases are often invisible, I decided to do something that didn't require the kids to draw/find a picture.  We came up with a list of gases together and I recorded them and attached it to our poster.

Now the posters are displayed in the classroom so they can be used for reference as we continue our study of matter.

To increase the understanding of the fact that matter takes up space, we did a little experiment.  Once again, this is something I found in my old files.  However, this time I found out who to give credit to: Thanks Sue Boulais from MATTER REALLY MATTERS!

The directions suggest having the students work in groups, but since I only have 10 kids in my class we did it together.  I put water in a cup and drew a line to show where the water was.  Next, I had students take turns dropping different classroom items in the cup.  They observed the water rising above the line each time something was added.  Unfortunately, the items were small, so not much water was displaced.

In an effort to try and displace more water, we put several objects in at once.  (This was actually a suggestion from one of my kiddos!)  You can see that it worked!

As we added each item we discussed how the water rises because the objects take up space, hence, they are matter.  They also identified which kind of matter (solid, liquid, gas) and what material the objects were made of (plastic, wood, etc.)

The final step was to shine light into the cup to see if it is matter.  The kiddos predicted that light is matter.  I used my phone flashlight and they were able to see that their predictions were incorrect. Shining light on water doesn't make it do anything.  That is okay, everyone makes mistakes sometimes right!?

Now that we have learned the three states of matter, it is time to practice them a little more.  We will continue our adventures with matter this week, so stay tuned (and stay warm!).

Holiday Writing!

Today was all about writing (with a little reading and math thrown in of course)!  My students are becoming great writers!  They work extra hard when they are making something for someone else, like their parents, or SANTA!!!  We made something for all of those special people today!

First off, I had the kids make holiday cards for their parents.  I know when it comes to drawing, kindergartners often have a hard time making things look right.  In hopes of building their confidence, I drew some different holiday themed pictures on the board (ex: snowman, Christmas tree, Santa, reindeer, stockings, candy canes, etc.).  I think this really helped make their pictures better, because they had an example to copy from.  Take a look at some of these beauties!

  

They wrote nice messages inside as well.  I thought this one was particularly amusing.

"Dear Mom and Dad, I hope the Christmas tree doesn't fall down again.  I wish you a Merry Christmas."

Kids are so funny.  Her letter to Santa was entertaining.

"Dear Santa, I have been naughty a little bit, but I do not want to be on the naughty list."  She goes on to ask for various items, including a camping chair and a curling iron!  She is five!!

All of the other kids said they had been good this year, even though several of them are much naughtier than this little girl!!  At least she is honest!  I encouraged them to make a pattern around the outside of their paper to make it look extra festive for Santa.

Gifts for the parents are complete and the letters have been sent to Santa!  One more day to go!  Hopefully the Holiday Program and Secret Santa exchange go smoothly tomorrow!

Here come the Holidays!

Sorry that I have not written in a while.  I took a bit of a break over Thanksgiving to relax with my hubby and get some Christmas shopping done.  Now it is back to business for a week!

My school is only in session for the first week of December, so we have to go full swing into the holidays.  Only a week to make presents for parents and write letters to Santa!  I have my kiddos make gifts for their parents each year.  This year the kids were turned into snowmen!  I ordered these snowmen from Oriental Trading and had the kids put them together.

I snapped a photo of each of them to add as the face.  They made the cutest little snowmen :)

Teacher tip:  If you decide to get these snowmen or a magnet craft from Oriental Trading, you may want to glue the magnets to the back.  They come with adhesive already on them, but mine never seem to stick for long.  I had gingerbread men last year and I had to glue the magnets on as well.  I used Tacky Glue.

My boss also picked up some wooden ornaments from the store for them to paint.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of those.  Let's just say we are still working on our fine motor skills, so some of them turned out a little on the messy side.  I helped the kids wrap both items up and put a gift tag on them.  Tomorrow we are also going to make holiday cards to go with the gifts.

We did some reindeer writing this week as well.  After reading a holiday book involving reindeer, I gave the kids pieces to cut out to make a reindeer head.

After they glued them together, they opened up their little book and wrote all about reindeer.  They know quite a bit, so they were able to fill up the whole page!

That is it for tonight!  Come back tomorrow for Christmas cards and letters to Santa!!

A Thanksgiving Feast with a Dash of Christmas

Normally my days seem to fly by, but this week has been moving at a snails pace.  It could be that it gets dark at 5:00 now, which makes me think it is time for bed when the evening has just begun.  Or it could be that it is getting closer to the holidays and the kids are getting antsy (which means loud, extra silly, and forgetful), which means they drive me a little bit crazy some days, making the day last an eternity!  I am guessing it is a combination of the two!  No worries, next week is a 3 day week!

In preparation for Thanksgiving, we have been studying all about the Pilgrims and Indians.  Last week I read about the chores that pilgrim children had.

The Pilgrim children definitely had more chores than the kiddos nowadays!  Read for yourself!

My students basically have to clean their rooms and make their beds.  No fetching water, milking goats, cooking meals, harvesting grain, etc.

To educate ourselves about the Indians, we did a little reading from the Social Studies books about different Indian tribes.  We also watched the slideshow of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians on the Scholastic website.  To review what we learned, the kids did some writing in their Thanksgiving Books.

"The Mayflower is the ship can hold 102 Pilgrims."

"The Pilgrims sailed to America on the Mayflower."

"The Native Americans hunted animals."

We aren't quite finished with our books yet.  I will show you the rest of the pages next week!  If you want the template for the book click here.  

The art teacher was absent this week, so I had to come up with something to do with the kiddos. Martha Stewart inspired me to make corn husk dolls, but it is near impossible to find corn husks in San Francisco, so I had to come up with something else.  Since we learned about Indians making canoes, or mishoons, out of trees, I thought it would be fun to make our own canoes for art.  Don't worry, we didn't cut down any trees.   These were paper canoes, with little Indians to row them.  Lacing the canoe helped work on their fine motor skills.  We listened to Spirit flute music while doing art which they thought was funny.  If you happen to have corn husks, maybe you can put these directions to use and make some dolls with your kids.

We also made these items during art this week!

I know it is still November, but we are only in school one week in December and I wanted to have the kids make some decorations for the school.  If we wait until December, nobody is going to see them!  For the trees, I gave the kids a tree template to cut out and then gave them odds and ends for decorations.  They loved the shiny stuff!  After they finished decorating their trees they wrote about them.  

"My tree is shiny.  My tree has a lot of ornaments.  My tree is beautiful.  My tree is green."

Their writing is really coming along.  We worked on syllables this week, so it was easier for them to sound out the longer words.  I was so proud of their writing!  It made my day, until I saw this. . .

  which was the cherry on top!  They can be a handful sometimes, but then they surprise you!

Tom Turkeys and the Mayflower

Merry Christmas!

Oh wait, I guess I am a little early :)  I was able to take a little break this past week to go and visit family in Miami.  While there, we took full advantage of the family time and put up a massive Christmas tree.  In case you were wondering, it took the entire day, but it was well worth it because it is gorgeous!

Ok, back to reality.  It is still November.  It is time to study Thanksgiving and turkeys, not Christmas.

While I was away, my boss was nice enough to teach my class.  She made some cute crafts with them to help decorate the school.  Take a look!

Indian corn made with a paper corn cutout and tissue paper

Colorful paper plate turkeys in the school's front window

I got this idea from Pinterest.  

Head on over to Happy Home Fairy for the full details on how to make it.

Origami turkey--the kids actually did this with the art teacher, so I have no idea how to make them.  Sorry!

Every November I give my kids a Tom Turkey project for homework.  They have a week to work on it and then they bring it back to school to share with the class.  I send home a turkey outline and the letter below.

I hung all of the turkeys on the bulletin board.  Can you guess what their disguises are?

It isn't all just fun and turkeys in November though.  We also study the first Thanksgiving, and learn about the Pilgrims and Indians.

We have been learning a lot about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower this week.  After reading about the Mayflower, we discussed the things we might need if we went on such a journey.  I gave each of the kiddos a suitcase, and told them to "pack it" with the items they would bring on the Mayflower.  They cut out the white paper and glued it inside the suitcase.    

They had to draw the items they would pack and then list them or write sentences to tell what they brought.

This is what she wrote: water, apple, carrot, skirt, pants, shirt, bottoms, a stuffed animal, my horsey blanket smells so good

 She didn't write the word, but she told me that the purple, red, and pink items towards the left are underwear.  She said she needed to make sure she always had a clean pair.  Smart thinking!  None of the other kids "packed" any underwear at all!

water and carrot and pumpkins and a hat and pants and shirt

 She worked so hard sounding out the words!  I didn't have the heart to tell her that pumpkins are going to make her suitcase too heavy.

I was very proud of them.  Not a single one of them suggested bringing an iPad, video game, or phone on the Mayflower.  They only "packed" necessities: food, water, clothes, etc.  

You may think all kids catch on quick and realize that electronics weren't around back then, but I have had kids in the past try to pack tvs in their suitcases for the Mayflower!  I didn't tell them they wouldn't get any channels out at sea!

If you want the suitcase printable for this activity you can head over to my TpT store.  There are also other fun writing activities included in the packet.

Scholastic is another great resource for Thanksgiving.  They have videos and slideshows about the Mayflower, Pilgrims, and Wampanoag Indians, that you can show your kiddos.  This is an awesome resource if you have a Smartboard or projector in your classroom!