Ants in the Pants!

I don't know about you, but my kiddos get antsy through out the day! Sitting and listening and talking all day is tough work for a 4 year old. So I created a "Brain Break Box." When I notice the kiddos getting the wiggles, I pull out the box and away we go! I am ALWAYS amazed at how much more focused they are after a quick 5 minute movement activity. It's a great way to get gross motor in, crossing the mid-line and just some good ol' fashioned fun!

I used 2 cans, one marked "To Do" and one marked "Done." I put the activities on sticks and put all of the sticks in the "To Do" can. I also assembled the materials for all of the activities and keep those in the box as well. This makes it easy to grab and I'm not searching for items when the kiddos are already restless!

I searched on Pinterest for some ideas and added some of my own. Below is my list and pictures of my box.

Some activities are found here at my Pinterest board. 

1. The Big Push

2. Hand Pushes

3. Ball Walk

4. Sid the Sloth video is found here on my Pinterest Board.

5. Seasame Street Video is found here on  my Pinterest Board

6. 5, 4, 3, 2,1 -5 jumping jacks, 4 spins, 3 hops,2 skips and 1 walk around the room.

7. The Hokey Pokey

8. Find it fast-call out a number, shape, color

9. Simon Says

10. Dance with ribbons

11. Animal Movemets

12.Instruments with Music

13. Bean Bag Toss

14. Run in place for 10 seconds repeat. 

15. 5 jumping jacks-repeat 5X

I would love to hear your ideas for getting the wiggles out! Please share, so I can add to my box. 

It's Already October!

I can hardly believe that it is already October! I haven't been on this blog since school started up in August and I am sorry. The start of the year was CRAZY!! Four days into the new school year, I moved rooms all while teaching!! It was very stressful. Then I had to establish the routines all over again in the new space and now before I know it, its the 24th of October! I promise I will be better this year and back on track.

We started our Fall unit this past week. I love fall. It is my favorite season. 

The vocabulary focus for this unit is: red, green, yellow, orange, brown, rake, raking, leaf pile, trunk, branch, squirrel acorn, scarecrow, leaves and tree.

Last week we read "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves." The kids just love this book! They think it is hysterical that she swallows all of those things! As a follow up lesson we did a sequencing page. We colored the objects by listening for directions. Then we glued the pictures in order.

To get the free printables click here

We also took a nature hike around the school. We went looking for tree trunks, leaves, branches etc. The kiddos just love it! Everyone gets a clipboard and has to color in the picture as we find it. I wish I could remember where I got this from, but I don't sorry!

The following day we reviewed the nature items we collected and made sensory jars. Oh how fun that was!! The kiddos were very excited. This was a language lesson. The focus was "I will put a ___________ in the jar." Each kiddo had to say what they wanted to put in the jar. I found the sensory jar idea on Pinterest. Find it on my board here.

To fill the jars put the nature items in first. Then add 1/3 cup vegetable oil and fill the rest with water colored yellow! 

At the writing center the next day, we drew pictures of the jars. 

Happy fall!

Iciscles

It is winter here in lovely Michigan and it is COLD!! In my classroom we have been talking about winter items and we read The Mitten. One of my fellow teachers is also teaching winter and had this wonderful idea about teaching icicles. She allowed me to take pictures and post about here!

First, she had the kiddos cut large triangles from foil. Then she had the kiddos add glitter for the shine! I loved how the icicles turned out. She used the icicles to decorate her bulletin board. 

Making gingerbread houses

I know this post is a few weeks late, but I left for the holiday break and forgot to email myself the pictures! Well at least you will have it for next year. 

For the end of our gingerbread unit, we made gingerbread houses. I LOVE this activity! To make the house you will need:
* small milk carton for each kiddo
* graham crackers
* glue gun
* frosting
* candies
* knife for each kiddo

I assembled all of the houses before I started the lesson. I find this is easiest when working with little ones. To start wash out the milk carton and let it dry. Then I glue the top closed using the hot glue gun. I don't know about you, but I love using my hot glue gun! It can do so much!!

After that step is finished, you move on the messy step! Break the graham crackers in half, glue one cracker onto each side of the milk carton. This will take 2 crackers per milk carton.

Next, break the graham crackers in quarters (you will end up with rectangles). Glue the rectangles on the top of the milk carton to create the roof.  I like a small overhang on my roof. Line up one side with the edge of the milk carton, the other side will overhang a bit and that is OK. 

The last step is to break smaller pieces to fit on the ends. There will be some overhang and that is OK. After the glue dries, I crumble the corners down. It won't be perfect, but it will get covered with frosting and candies so no worries!!

Now, on to the fun part! Decorate the house with frosting and yummy candies!! 

To send the houses home, I hot glued the houses to the plate and wrapped in a plastic bag. I attached a note that the houses were not edible! 

The Gingerbread Man

Run, Run as fast as you can! You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!

This is another of my favorite stories. My daughters and I still pretend to be the gingerbread man whenever we run (They are 5 and 3 so this is still fun. I might cry the day this stops being fun). I usually teach this story after Thanksgiving and before the Christmas unit. It is a good unit for between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I feel every child should know this story!

The vocabulary focus for this unit was verbs, verbs, verbs. I did have some nouns, but I really focused on the action words from the story. Here is my list:
old woman, old man, boy, gingerbread man, farmers, bear, wolf, fox, gingerbread house, cookie cutters, eat, bake, decorate, run, stir, roll, rest, and shout.

Here is the link to the vocab I used. It is on Google Drive. It does not have the characters, sorry.

Cookie cutter, bake, decorate and rest turned out to be the most difficult for my kiddos.

To kick of the unit, I hid the characters in pockets. Each kiddo pulled out a character and named it. Then we talked about (well tried to talk about) what story it could be. The gingerbread man kind of gave it away! Then we read the story and I set out the characters as they appeared in the story. I read the story twice this day. To make my puppets, I simply scanned the pages from the book. I really wanted the characters to look the same. I did use an old man and old woman from previous made set because there weren't any good pics in the book of the old man and old woman.

The next day the kiddos acted out the story! What fun! Everyone got a turn to be the gingerbread man and the fox. Now, in the version I read, the gingerbread man does not cross a river. 

The kiddos and I made gingerbread playdough. This is your basic playdough recipe with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves added for scent and coloring. I'm sorry, I didn't measure just had fun shaking the ingredients in the bowl! The kiddos love to shake :) **Note you will  not need any food coloring for this recipe. 

The basic playdough recipe is 

1 cup flour                                        1 cup water
2 tsp. cream of tartar                         2 Tbsp. cooking oil
1/2 cup salt                                      food coloring
In heavy saucepan, mix dry ingredients.  Add water, oil and food coloring.  Cook 3 min. or until mixture pulls away from side of pan.  Knead slightly in hands when cool.  Put in a ziplock bag.

My favorite part of this lesson is of course making gingerbread man cookies!! This lesson I really focused on the verbs. Stir, roll, cut, bake, run away, decorate. In the morning we made the cookies. Then those naughty cookies ran away!! In each location the cookies left us a clue as to where to run next.
We used a bag recipe. Betty Crocker makes a good bag mix.
**Note: if you plan on rolling out the cookies to make gingerbread men, chill the dough for at least 20 minutes. It will roll so much nicer. Trust me. I always forget.

Here is an example of one of my clues:

Run, run as fast as you can you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man! I ran to the teacher you see on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (this was their speech teacher.)

I had about 5 clues. We finally found the naughty cookies in the audiology room in the sound booth. I forgot to take pictures sorry!!

The next day we acted out the story again. Each kiddo pretending to be a different character. Then for the big grand finale, we went into another class and acted the story out for them! What fun. Again, I forgot to take pictures. Sorry, I was to busy being the narrator.

The characters in the version I read wear clothes and don't look anything like the real animals. So one day we sorted bears, wolves, foxes and cookies. I set out the character puppets and had  stack of pictures. Each kiddo took turns drawing a card and telling me what it was.
T: What is it?
S: It is a bear.

The language focus here was It.

Here is the link to the pictures I used. Let me know if there are any issues accessing the link. It is on Google Drive.

For our last big lesson we read "Gingerbread Baby" and focused on the house. All of my students wanted to call it a gingerbread man house! We really focused on just the gingerbread house. So of course we made gingerbread houses! In the next post, I will outline how we made these super easy, non-edible houses. I also remembered to take a ton of pictures!

Little Red Hen

I see I have fallen behind once again. Grrrr....one day I will get organized, I promise. Maybe next semester when I have a student teacher...

So this past week we focused on the Little Red Hen. I love this story,  mostly because I get to bake bread at the end of the unit :)

The main focus of this unit was the retelling of the story. I wanted the kiddos to learn the language in the story, "who will help?" "Not I!"

To kick off the unit, I put the pictures from the story in my large pockets (it so much more exciting to hide stuff in pockets than to just hand it to the kiddos! I can't tell you how much I use those simple pockets!!) Each kiddo pulled out a picture from the story and we brainstormed what it could be from. My story had a hen, a cat, a dog and a goose. We called it a duck though. Each of these picture had magnets attached to the back. I put the pictures on the side of my desk for the kiddos to retell the story. The kiddos had fun retelling the story to each other. I LOVED hearing the words from the story!

I found my printables from sparkelbox, the link can be found here.



Kizclub.com has some great pictures, the link can be found here. The pictures can be printed in either black or white. 

After reading through the story a few times, I had the kiddos act it out. Each kiddo was given a mask to pretend to be a character from the story. I was the storyteller and the kiddos just needed to say the famous lines! They had such fun. The mask were printed from sparklebox at the above link.  I also gave each kiddo a mask to make and take home with the hopes of each kiddo acting out the story at home!

Then everyone made a red hen puppet, as you can see, not all the hens were red!

Of course, last but not least was baking bread! This is my favorite day. I love bread, mmmm...with lots of butter! I have a no yeast, no knead recipe that works pretty well with the kiddos. We did knead the dough a bit, just because the little red hen did! The link to the recipe can be found here. I will say, we added 1 tsp. of salt to the recipe and it made a big difference. It needs to bake for 40 mins so plan accordingly.

Mmmmm...everyone ate it too!! Love the smell of bread baking. 

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!

I know this post is a bit late, but we finished up last week. I had a great time teaching this unit to the kiddos. The main focus of this unit was the life cycle of the pumpkin. I taught this last year (I have the same group again), so this year I wanted to extend it to include new vocabulary.

Vocabulary Focus
seed, sprout, plant, vine, pumpkin flower, green pumpkin, orange pumpkin, pumpkin patch, jack-o-lantern, and pumpkin pie.
I also focused on the idea of each item "growing" or "changing" into the next stage of the cycle.

For this unit each day we made a stage of the pumpkin life cycle.

Day One
I hung "dirt" on the board. This was brown paper :) I read aloud a pumpkin story. There are so many good ones out there. I picked "It's Pumpkin Time" by Zoe Hall to read to my kiddos. After reading the story, I introduced the vocabulary words/cards and the kiddos put the cards in the correct order. We talked about what comes first. The seed! So of course we made seeds!!

I cut ovals from the largest creative memory oval cutter using the blue blade. This gave me the biggest oval possible. I cut 2 per student. Then I used the hole punch and punched holes around the pair. Last, tying a brown string on the first hole so the kiddos could practice their lacing skills. After the kiddos laced, they crumbled 2 pieces of scrap paper to stuff the seeds. The last thing to do is to plant the seeds of course!! Each kiddo came up and "planted" their seed in the dirt.

I wonder what will happen next?
Well......
My fantastic aide, cut leaves with the smallest oval cutter out of green paper. Again, 2 per seed. She made the sprouts and the vine. The kiddos came in the next day and found that their seeds had grown into small plants!! The kiddos were very excited. I was excited because the word "vine" was being used spontaneously by most of the kiddos! Yay!!!

That afternoon, we reviewed the sequence of the pumpkin life cycle again. So we have made the seeds and the sprouts. What is next? Pumpkin flowers! I must admit I struggled with this one. How to make the flower and have it look realish. I finally found a start pattern in a scholastic pattern book. I printed this on cardstock and cut it out (well my fantastic aide did that part). After much discussion of the sprout growing into a flower, the kiddos glued yellow tissue paper on the stars. The kiddos crumbled the paper and glued that on. I wanted it to have a "puffy" look to it. Personally, I think the flowers look great!
I don't feel I can post the pattern I used because it came from a book, however, I did find one online that looks similar. Find the link here to my pinterest page.

So now we have the seed, the vine and the flower. Hmmmm....I wonder what the flowers will change into tomorrow? The kiddos had much debate about this.

Fast forward to tomorrow.
Reviewing the vocab again and practicing the sequencing. We discussed the parts of the cycle we have already made. What is next? The small green pumpkin! Yup, you guessed it, we made small green pumpkins. I had out big paper plates and small paper plates. Which plates would make good small green pumpkins? The big ones or the small ones (and yes some said we should use the big plates. Still working on the concept!) So after each kiddo finally made the correct choice of the small plate, we painted the plates green. I focused on the language target "painting with a paintbrush." This concept is tough for my kiddos. So we practice it often.

This is also a great opportunity to discuss how to make the color green. I did not do that today, but it could easily be added in.

After the pumpkins have dried and the kiddos left for the day, I  hung the green pumpkins right over the flowers. I did this to show the kiddos that the flower turned into the green pumpkin.

Oh boy were they excited in the morning!! Lots of "Sloan, Sloan, look! Green Pumpkins!" I love that spontaneous language. It warms my  heart.

So the last step to this wonderful pumpkin patch is to make the orange pumpkin. We reviewed the sequence of the pumpkin life cycle again and talked about what was last. I also set out the small and big paper plates again to see if they could get it today. Most of the did, yay!

I added pumpkin spice to the paint. Of course, each kiddo wanted to smell the spice. 'What will you smell with?' I asked. "I will smell with my nose." Then it was on to the painting. I used brown construction paper for the stem. Again, I focused on "painting with a paintbrush." Practice makes perfect, right?

Then again, I hung the orange pumpkins right over the green pumpkins. We finished this lesson on the Friday before Halloween. So of course on Monday we went to the "pumpkin patch." I had set out 2 real pumpkins, a big one and a small one. We talked about which pumpkin would make the best jack-o-lantern and why. We of course picked the big one!

First we looked at the pumpkin and talked about what we saw with our eyes. Then we felt it and discussed it some more. I made a pumpkin chart with all of the adjectives.

Next, I carved the top off and we talked about the inside of the pumpkin. What do we see, feel, smell, etc. Great adjectives come from this lesson! I also talked about the flesh and that we can eat it. The kiddos were good and grossed out. I think our jack-o-lantern looked pretty good :)

** Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the finished product!

To finish up the pumpkin unit, we made mini pumpkin pies. The kiddos were struggling with this vocabulary word. I am happy to say after this great lesson, they have it now!! These pumpkin pies were super easy to make and only needed to bake for about 12 minutes. Perfect for school! I found the recipe on pinterest. Here is the link to my page. I don't like pumpkin pie, but I liked these :)

Well that sums up my pumpkin unit! It was fun and I think the kiddos learned some new concepts this time around. What do you do for pumpkins?