Well week 3 of the 26 Theme Day Countdown is officially in the books! It was a great week celebrating the letters N, O, P, and Q (in reverse order, of course). Read on to find out about all of the mischief and fun we were up to all week!
Q is for Quilt Day
Quilt Day was sew much fun (sorry...I couldn't resist!) This day lined up perfectly with our math unit on shapes. In our math game center, the kiddos got to design a quilt square with tangrams, doing their best to arrange the shapes so that there was no paper showing.
My favorite part of math that day, however, was the center where the kids got to draw and color their own square on our class "quilt". In order to fill their space, the kids drew glyphs according to the directions I gave. For instance, one of the directions was to draw a circle if you're a boy and draw a triangle if you're a girl. There were also directions indicating eye color, hair color, age, number of siblings, etc. In the end, each student had their own beautiful flower made out of shapes. But the best part is that each flower is different, just like all of the kids that made them, and if you read the glyphs carefully that make up the pictures, you could solve the "puzzle" of which flower belonged to which student. It's quite a masterpiece!
P is for Pirate Day!
Fun fact: I LOVE pirates. I know random facts about real pirates, their crews, and their flags. I spent a too-long period of time obsessed with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I used to have a pirate flag hanging above my bed, and I considered attending a college based partly on the fact that their mascot is a pirate. So, Pirate Day may have been a liiiitle bit selfishly planned for me, but the kids still loved it!
Daily 5 became a sensory station for Pirate Day! During Word Work, each kiddo got an individual bin of sand with buried doubloons inside. Each coin had a sight word listed on them. The kiddos had to dig through the sand, find the treasure, and write down the words they found.
Daily 5 became a sensory station for Pirate Day! During Word Work, each kiddo got an individual bin of sand with buried doubloons inside. Each coin had a sight word listed on them. The kiddos had to dig through the sand, find the treasure, and write down the words they found.
By complete but very convenient coincidence, our social studies lesson for the day lined up with the theme perfectly! In each social studies unit, there is at least one lesson worked in that has to do with map skills. This lesson was all about what map keys are and what they're used for.
After discussing the map and map key in our book, we used our new knowledge to make a map together on the white board. We filled it in and created a corresponding key. Then, the kiddos got to make their own treasure maps on their own "parchments" (paper bags). Take a look at some of their awesome treasure islands!
After discussing the map and map key in our book, we used our new knowledge to make a map together on the white board. We filled it in and created a corresponding key. Then, the kiddos got to make their own treasure maps on their own "parchments" (paper bags). Take a look at some of their awesome treasure islands!
For writing, we are continuing to talk about narratives. We have been learning specifically about setting and characters lately. So, we watched a story read aloud called How I Became A Pirate. It was a silly book illustrated by David Shannon, one of our favorite writers and illustrators (he wrote and illustrated the No David! books). We paused and talked throughout, to make a list of the characters in the story. We were able to identify who the important characters were and how we knew they were more important than the others. It was a great way to learn how we can make our own characters stand out in our own writing!
And in French, Madame went all-out pirate for us! She wore a pirate costume for class, complete with my pirate hat (did I mention I was wearing a pirate hat all day?) and her hook prosthetic! The kids were so excited and it was such a great surprise for them to walk into the room and instantly be hooked in (ha!) and engaged in what she was doing with them for the day! Thanks, Madame! You added the perfect cherry on top of our Pirate themed day, for sure!
O is for Ocean Day!
Ocean Day, while minimal, was very fun!
The kiddos got to play a new math game to test out their shape knowledge. We called it "Shark Attack!" The object of the game was to reach into the belly of a shark (a tissue box) and pull out a fish. On the back of each fish there was a shape. If you said the name of the shape correctly, you got to keep it; if you got the shape wrong, you fed it back to the shark. But look out! If you pulled out a shark picture...ATTACK!...you have to feed all of your cards back to the shark!
The kiddos got to play a new math game to test out their shape knowledge. We called it "Shark Attack!" The object of the game was to reach into the belly of a shark (a tissue box) and pull out a fish. On the back of each fish there was a shape. If you said the name of the shape correctly, you got to keep it; if you got the shape wrong, you fed it back to the shark. But look out! If you pulled out a shark picture...ATTACK!...you have to feed all of your cards back to the shark!
We also got to read an awesome book for read aloud throughout the day! About a week or 2 ago, Oliver brought in a book all about the ocean for me to read to the class. I told him that I didn't want to read it right away because there was a special day coming up that it would be perfect for. He kindly put it into his reading bin where it would sit until Ocean Day.
I'm so glad he let us keep it here until this day! We read so much about coral reefs. We learned what a reef is, what they're made of, and why they are such an important ecosystem. We also learned about a certain star fish that eats coral reefs at an alarming rate, which is destroying the reefs more and more each year...and this process is only exacerbated by pollution. So, people, clean up your trash! **The More You Know** ;)
Mrs. Palmer also deserves a huge shout out! She had the kids do a beautiful art project with pastels and paint. The kids got to draw and color an ocean scene with pastel chalks. Then, when their work was completed they painted over it with black paint. The chalk resisted the paint, and you were left with a beautiful pop of colorful fish and shells and sea weed against a dark background. They look absolutely amazing! So, thank you for getting in on all the fun with us, Mrs. Palmer!!!
I'm so glad he let us keep it here until this day! We read so much about coral reefs. We learned what a reef is, what they're made of, and why they are such an important ecosystem. We also learned about a certain star fish that eats coral reefs at an alarming rate, which is destroying the reefs more and more each year...and this process is only exacerbated by pollution. So, people, clean up your trash! **The More You Know** ;)
Mrs. Palmer also deserves a huge shout out! She had the kids do a beautiful art project with pastels and paint. The kids got to draw and color an ocean scene with pastel chalks. Then, when their work was completed they painted over it with black paint. The chalk resisted the paint, and you were left with a beautiful pop of colorful fish and shells and sea weed against a dark background. They look absolutely amazing! So, thank you for getting in on all the fun with us, Mrs. Palmer!!!
N is for Noodle Day!
This is in my top 3 theme days so far! It made for an interesting academic format for the day. We dove right into the morning with a deep clean of hands and tables, and from there began mixing the ingredients for our dough. Each kiddo got to put an ingredient into the bowl, help mix, and kneed the dough.
After that, the dough had to rest for about 30 minutes. That gave us plenty of time for our morning meeting and another thorough washing of our hands and work surfaces. I then poured some flour onto the table and rolling pins, and after a few inquiries as to why I did this, we discussed why this is an important step. Then, the kiddos each got to spend some time helping me roll out the dough as thin as we could. They got in a serious workout, let me tell you! Check out those muscles!
Then, the kiddos each got their own slice of dough. Mr. Ploof and I then went around and gave each piece an extra little time with the rolling pin to make sure that our pasta wouldn't end up too think. After that was done, the kids got to use some plastic knives to cut the dough into pieces. Some kids went for your standard strips of spaghetti, some channeled our math lessons and cut their dough into shapes, and others went for a more abstract and random route. Either way, it all looked delicious!
Then, we put it all onto baking pans to dry out for the next 4ish hours!
The rest of the day was filled with a typical round of Daily 5. We're still working on reading and discussing poetry in partnerships. And my phonics groups all seem to be just about ready to move onto new concepts! We also reviewed our chapter on shapes and object classification in math. We still had our 2 usual specials, and had time to discuss our new graphic organizer for our new Narrative writing pieces!
After all that hard work, it was definitely time to take a snack break! We headed to the kitchen where Mr. Ploof boiled up our pasta and I read some Magic Tree House while we waited. The kiddos got a choice of eating their pasta with sauce, butter, or nothing on it. And once we were all served--Mr. Ploof and I included, of course--we said a prayer and chowed down!
The kids know I have a policy about class-made snacks: you have to try at least one bite before you decide that you don't like it and/or choose not to eat it. And I have to say, each student stepped up to the plate (or bowl in this case *wink*) fairly willingly on this one. And it was for a good reason! As it turns out, among our 3 pickiest eaters, one of them tried one bite and hated it, one ended up going so far as to try 2 bites, and the other ate their entire bowl. Not too shabby at all! And to top that impressiveness off, a 4th, secretly very picky eater, loved them so much that her mom emailed me the following day saying that this was the first time she had eaten pasta in 3 years and they would like the recipe. Is that not the coolest?! Just look at these satisfied, sauce-covered faces!
After all that hard work, it was definitely time to take a snack break! We headed to the kitchen where Mr. Ploof boiled up our pasta and I read some Magic Tree House while we waited. The kiddos got a choice of eating their pasta with sauce, butter, or nothing on it. And once we were all served--Mr. Ploof and I included, of course--we said a prayer and chowed down!
The kids know I have a policy about class-made snacks: you have to try at least one bite before you decide that you don't like it and/or choose not to eat it. And I have to say, each student stepped up to the plate (or bowl in this case *wink*) fairly willingly on this one. And it was for a good reason! As it turns out, among our 3 pickiest eaters, one of them tried one bite and hated it, one ended up going so far as to try 2 bites, and the other ate their entire bowl. Not too shabby at all! And to top that impressiveness off, a 4th, secretly very picky eater, loved them so much that her mom emailed me the following day saying that this was the first time she had eaten pasta in 3 years and they would like the recipe. Is that not the coolest?! Just look at these satisfied, sauce-covered faces!
We didn't have a theme day on Friday, due to Kindergarten Screenings for incoming families. But, it was a great 4 days of themes and we have another great week of themes coming around the bend. Stay on the lookout for our next round of letters...J, K, L, and M!