This week we began researching dinosaurs, a very popular topic. Our first activity of the week was to draw what we thought a dinosaur might look like. Following this, we added many dinosaurs fiction and non-fiction books to our library. Using this new resource, we are focusing on a different dinosaur each day.
Today, we were talking about the Tyrannosaurus Rex. One of the first things we noticed was that it had extremely short arms. Since we know that the tyrannosaurus eats meat, we were trying to discover how it might have caught it’s dinner. As you can see from the pictures, we used a piece of crumpled paper to represent the “animal lunch” and sat on our knees with our itty-bitty hands in front of us. After a few failed attempts, we realized that the T-Rex could not have used its hands to place food in its mouth. Following much hilarity, we discovered the best way to eat like a T-Rex was to simply bend over and grab our food with our teeth.
Our castle mural was completed during the last few weeks prior to winter break. You can see that we’ve added wooden fairies, paintings of the royal families, boats, and trees. Along the sides you will also find dragons fully designed by the children. These are flying along the edges so that they may protect the castle.
As part of our fairy tale study, we began constructing a large mural that includes a castle. The main background was painted light blue by the students to represent the sky. Next, we used texture rubbing plates to create a large variety of bumpy blackish-brownish papers. After our discussion of symmetry and our block printing experience, I cut the texture papers into block shapes and the children designed our castle. Each child picked two each of two shapes and placed them symmetrically on the castle. They created towers, walls, overhangs, and turrets.
This activity was followed a day later with a discussion about how our project looked thus far. We looked at it critically and tried to decide if it was missing anything. It seems that it still needed windows, a gate or drawbridge, trees, towers, a moat, and lots of creatures. The children decided we had a long way to go before we could call this project “done”.
Our next step was completed by my Thursday afternoon crew. They each painted grey two paper towel tubes cut to resemble towers. The children used double-sided wall mounting strips to place them on the castle.
Finishing up our background, the students remembered that the castle needed a moat. It sort of looked like it was floating in the air without one. We used torn tissue paper and watered-down glue to add a layer of “water” to the bottom of our mural.
Our next endeavor will be to populate our castle. Who do you think belongs in our mural? What else are we missing?
While talking about castles last week, we learned a very exciting, new “math word”: symmetrical. We were planning our sand castles when we realized that most of us wanted both sides of the building to look the same. I pointed out that our bodies were also symmetrical. After practicing symmetry with blocks on the carpet, we got right to work on the important task of sand castle construction.
To create our structures, we used a variety of wooden blocks dipped in white paint. We made prints using the blocks working from the inside to the outer edges. Sometimes we had to “double-dip” the blocks to make sure that we picked up enough paint so that our prints would remain wet for a little while. After the students completed their designs, they chose colored sand to shake over them. The first few chose one color each while the last few preferred rainbow coloring and used a bit of all of the colors.
Last month Mrs. Hanczar, the music teacher, taught the children a song and dance about Thorn Rosa. This version of Sleeping Beauty has been a topic for play since. The class was already enamored with fairies and royalty, so this new tale spun them off into happily-ever-after. Taking their lead, I’ve been collecting traditional and re-written fairy tales for us to read and compare. We began our study by listing all of the people, places, things we could think of that can be found in fairy tales.
Fairy Tales
Setting
Characters
Props
Where We Find Them
Castles
Witch
Wands
In Books
Land
Knight
Crowns
In Stories
Sky
Queen
Umbrellas
In Plays
Woods
Princess
In Movies
In Magical Lands
Prince
Rain
Fairy
A retelling mat for "The Princess and the Pea"
Our first in-depth study was of “The Princess and the Pea“. Numerous readings showed us that sometimes stories can be told in different ways. For instance, in some versions there were 20 mattresses stacked on the Princess’ bed and in others there were 100. Our retelling included only 6 since that was the space limit for our paper creations.
The bed frames were crafted out of sticks we collected on the playground. As a class, the children decided how we could create a frame. Each child then took those ideas and adapted them to fit their designs. Although I, of course, imagined that the beds would look like a traditional side view of a bed, they had other plans. Many of the designs feature a large rectangle surrounding the paper. Think of this as a view from the top of the bed. Others boast complicated designs with ladders and stairs that I can only assume are inspired by bunk beds or the need to climb up all of those mattresses.
During our discussion of characters, the class decided that there should be four actors in our story: The Queen, The King, The Prince, and The Princess. We drew these with permanent marker on watercolor paper and then painted in the color details. We taped a piece of embroidery floss on the back of each and then taped it to the back of the picture so we wouldn’t lose our puppets.
Retelling stories helps us understand more about how stories are crafted. As we remember the tale and share it with others, we explore setting, characters, plot, and voice. The more we know about how stories are constructed, the easier it is to make up and write our own. This activity also helps us with comprehension as we grow older and read stories independently. We become used to the conventions of a story and can identify when we’ve misread a word that sets the tale in a spin. Retelling also gives us confidence as owners of knowledge. Each child is assured that they are the experts with this tale and can share it with others.
Mystery Project this week turned out to be an illustration for one of the poems we’ve been learning for Halloween. This particular type of activity happens many times a year. Although it might look like an art project, I don’t really consider it one. The purpose of these projects usually revolve around math concepts and visual-spatial skills. Our five pumpkins sitting on a gate introduced the words horizontal and vertical. We also practiced cutting circles from squares by cutting the corners off and then removing any “pointy parts”. To make the gate posts and rails, we folded rectangles in half and cut along the folds. This required the children to use both small motor skills and coordination to match up the opposing ends and create an even fold.
As you can see from this project, many little learning goals are accomplished in the activities we do each day. If ever you are wondering what your child might have learned from a project, ask his or her teacher. It can be surprising how much thought, planning, and skill go into what appears to be a simple task. Even after years of teaching young children, I am still amazed at the workings of the young human brain.
For anyone who is interested, here is the ubiquitous pumpkin poem:
Five Little Pumpkins
Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one says, “Oh my, it’s getting late!”
The second one says, “There are witches in the air!”
The third one says, “But we don’t care!”
The fourth one says, “Let’s run and run and run!”
The fifth one says, “I’m ready for some fun!”
So, Ooooooo went the wind
And out went the light
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.
We’ve been spending a lot of time learning about spiders the past few weeks. We learned that not all spiders make webs. We found out that spiders have two body parts, a head and an abdomen, and that they always have eight legs. We’ve classified some of the creepy crawlies we’ve found outside based on these rules and were surprised to find that some creatures we thought were spiders, really weren’t at all.
Creating a spider to demonstrate our new knowledge of arachnid anatomy was an obvious next step. Each child decided how many legs to include and how to represent the main body parts. With this in mind, the children were very focused on creating eight legs and distributing them evenly. The glitter, however, was Mrs. Forst’s idea and obviously has no place in true spider body structure. But who can pass up a chance to use sparkly glitter?
Today we learned a new poem (or song, if you feel like singing it). In the spirit of our fabulous spider’s web, we practiced our elephant sounds and recited the poem below:
One Elephant
One elephant went out to play upon a spider’s web one day.
He had such enormous fun,
He called another elephant to come.
Two elephants went out to play upon a spider’s web one day.
They had such enormous fun,
They called another elephant to come.
Three elephants went out to play upon a spider’s web one day.
They had such enormous fun,
They called another elephant to come.
Four elephants went out to play upon a spider’s web one day.
They had such enormous fun,
They called another elephant to come.
Five elephants went out to play upon a spider’s web one day.
But sad to say, the web gave way,
And that was the end to a perfect day!
Check back later this week to see some pictures of us acting this one out!
Our current math unit introduces and reinforces the concept of pattern creation and continuation. Luckily, Halloween provides us many opportunities to practice and play with these ideas. We were inspired while reading Six Creepy Sheep, by Judith Ross Enderle and Stephanie Gordon Tessler, and created some creepy decorations of our own. In the picture on the left, one of the students is preparing wooden beads in an orange paint bath. We also mixed up some lovely green, goblin beads. When they dried, we drew faces on them to give them a bit of character. Next, we strung them in an ABAB pattern on some skinny, wooden skewers. To keep the beads from falling off, the students used Model Magic to fashion a pumpkin and a round cap for each end of the stick. (Note: If either end pops off, simply add a bit of white glue, stick it back together, and let it sit over night to dry.) Finally, each child sorted through a large pile of wooden letter beads and found the blocks needed to make their own names. These were strung on ribbon and laced through the pumpkins so that the project could be hung from a door handle.
Much earlier in the week, the children became very excited over some cobwebs we found outside. We decided that, for the upcoming holiday, a web would make a lovely addition inside our room, as well. I prepared the weaving area by making a large X with an additional center line out of yarn on our play awning. The children we then each given a turn with the roll of yarn and off they went! I’m actually quite impressed with how it turned out. They each took their time planning where they wished to place their string. The result is nicely spread out and surprisingly “webby”. On Friday, we made spiders out of pipe cleaners to adorn our creation. I’m interested in seeing if the spiders will become a popular plaything next week.
Bookmaking is very popular this year. The children are excited about writing and illustrating their own stories using many different forms of blank books. Some of our books are simply stapled pieces of paper with a colorful cover. Others are “hotdog booklets”. Mrs. Cooper showed them how to fold multiple sheets in half together and then tear little, tiny spaces on the fold. Each ripped section is folded in the opposite direction so that the pages are then held together by the folds. Here are some simple pictures showing how Mrs. Cooper’s books are made:
