Spider Week!

That's right! I was brave enough to have a theme on spiders this week :) and BOY have we talked about spiders! I even had my students bring in spiders from home, YUCK!

MATH:

I had the students graph if they liked spiders or not. I used the "thumbs up" as they do like spiders and the "thumbs down" for they do not like spiders. MOST of the class liked spiders!!

We talked about the different characteristics of a spider and then I had the students graph pictures of a "Spider" or "Not a Spider"

I printed out pictures of spiders and put numbers 1-10 on each spider and had the students put the numbers in order. We also talked about 1st and last.

  

Each student got their own spider web and five spiders (I bought a huge pack of spider rings at the dollar store) I held up a number and the students had to put that many spiders on their web.

LITERACY:

We read the poem "Little Miss Muffet" The first day I had the students practice pointing as we all read along. On the second day, the students acted it out.

We read the book The Very Busy Spider (I'm a BIG Eric Carle fan) the first day and on the second day, I made a pocket chart book. This allowed the students to not only see the words but to follow along with a pointer while we read.

One of our small group activities was a spider puzzle! I did this by first calling out a letter. Then they had to point to the letter, find the matching letter puzzle piece, and then place it on their puzzle. When the puzzle was finished, it was a picture of a spider!

SCIENCE:

After reading Little Miss Muffet, we all wanted to know what curds and whey were so we did a little experiment: Mix 1/4 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons of vinegar and see what happens! YUCK! Don't drink.

Ever wonder how a spider doesn't get stuck to it's web!? It's because they have oily feet. I had two sheets of contact paper. The Students first touched the contact paper showing them how they stick to it. Next, I had them dip their fingers in cooking oil and then touch the contact paper again. THEY DIDN'T STICK! My students LOVED doing this :)

After talking about the characteristic of a spiderweb, we decided to make our own :)

ART:

We made spiders out of toilet paper roles, their hands and googly eyes

First, I had the student paint the toilet roles with black paint. Then I traced their hands on black construction paper. Once the paint dried, I hot glued on their hands (I cut off the thumbs so there would be eight legs) and the googly eyes.

Then my assistant and I made a web out of string and placed the spiders in the web!

The students made their own webs. They used glue to draw their webs, then placed their paper into a box lid.  (This helped keep the mess to a minimum) Then they sprinkled different colored sand on their web and shook the paper around making sure the sand completely covered the glue.(You could also use glitter)

 EXTRAS:

For a small group activity, I had the students draw webs in sand (I put it in small lids so that the students wouldn't get sand EVERYWHERE)

I had the students work on a spider project at home. They could choose from a list of activities such as: Bring in a REAL spider, draw a spider, take a picture of a spider, print off a picture of a spider, use art materials to create a spider..etc. 

These are a few of what my students brought in :)

 We had a wonderful week learning about spiders! I hope you got some great ideas that you can also do in your class!

Apples GALORE!!

Red, green, yellow, round, bumpy and yummy are just a few words that my students used this week to describe an apple. I don't think I have ever eaten so many of them in one week! If you haven't guessed by now, our theme this week was Apples. Here are just a few of the fun things we did this week:

We made a KWL chart. We started on Monday and did the first two columns and finished the last column on Friday. The one thing that I would recommend when doing a KWL chart is to give them examples. If not, they will not understand what to do and you will have a massive headache within seconds. Model, Model...MODEL!

 I had the students brainstorm a list of foods that we can make from apples. Unfortunately, I do not have the picture of the finished product, but they did come up with some pretty interesting things, one being "applebananas". For the most part, they came up with some good ideas like: applejuice, apple jelly, candy apples, applecake, apple muffins, applebutter, applesauce and caramel apples.

 I made this apple game out of a file folder. I cut five strips and labeled each one with a number (1-5) You could also do this with higher numbers. I used these during small groups. I called out a number and had the students point to that number. Then they opened the flap and put that many number of apples inside (See picture below) Then have them close the flap and repeat. I lamenated a envelope on the back to keep the apples in.

  
Another small group activity I had them do, was apple stamping. I cut the apples in half (through the middle) making sure I made a star. Then the students took the apple, dipped it in paint, and VOILA. I used yellow, red and green paint only.

We made applesauce!! Here's how in the crock pot:
1 bag of apples

1/2 cup water

cinnamon

sugar

Peel apples and cut. Put cut apples in the crock pot and add water. Let it cook on high for 3-4 hours. Mash apples until liking, add cinnamon and sugar and you are ready to eat!

Working together to cut the apple :)

She loved our homemade Applesauce

I hope I gave you a couple of good ideas! :)

Cows, Pigs, and Sheep... OH MY!!

Today was a day FULL of adventure for my sweet four and five year olds. We took a trip to Cagle's Dairy Farm. My students have been talking all week about going to the farm and seeing the cows, pigs and sheep! I could hardly keep the little wiggle worms still this morning for morning large group because they were so excited! Field trips are so much fun but very exhausting at the same time. My mind was going a million miles a minute making sure all my students were safe and with their assigned parent. All in all, the students, parents and myself had a wonderful time :)

The students really enjoyed the hayride!

They were a bit nervous about feeding these goats.

We got to feel what a cow feels when they get milked... OUCH!

We got to picked out our very own pumpkins :)

My Sweet Class (minus one)

Jackets and Scarves, It's Finally FALL!

The weather is getting chilly outside. It's time to pull out those jackets and scarves. This can only mean one thing. It is FINALLY fall!! I love this season! Football games, hot chocolate, corn mazes, craft shows and pumpkin patches are just a few of the "fall like" things I enjoy during this time of year.

Since it's Fall, it was time to change the bulletin board in my classroom :) So I headed to my favorite craft store, Michaels to pick up everything and anything fall related. On top of my 50% discount, I got an extra 15% off for just being a teacher. Now that's what I call a good deal!

This was SUPER easy to make and everything I bought I will reuse next year. To make the letters, I used my cupcake cricut cartridge (I just liked that particular font). The pumpkins, scarecrow, leaves and sunflowers were purchased at Michaels. I got the sunflowers in an arrangement and just cut the flowers off. The pumpkin border, I bought from the SchoolBox. It is hard to tell in the picture, but the pile of leaves in the corner is actually 3D. To do this, I placed a plastic bag behind the leaves so that they would "pop" out. With a couple of tweaks here and there, VOILA you have an easy but cute Fall bulletin board :)

Our Five Senses

We've just wrapped up our two week theme on The Five Senses! These past two weeks have been filled with lots of learning and fun activities. Below are just a few of the activities we did.

Seeing - Provided binoculars, kaleidoscopes, magnifying glasses and colored lenses and had the students walk around the classroom looking through the different objects.

Hearing - We went on a listening walk around the school! Also, I made a CD with 100 different sounds. The students loved guessing what sound was being made.

 Touching - Mystery Bags are the BEST! Fill paper bags with different objects (ex. spaghetti, peeled grapes, cotton balls, rocks) Your students will DIE to touch what is inside of the bags!

Tasting - I had the students taste different foods (pretzel, pickle, lemon, semi-sweet chocolate) and graph their favorite one.

Smelling - Fill up film canisters with different smells (ex. lemon and vanilla abstract, cinnamon) and see if the students can guess the correct smells. Then add the canisters to the science center!

I had the students make their own Five Senses person. I labeled the top of the paper "______ Has Five Senses" Then I had the students put together their person. Eyes: Wiggly Eyes, Ears: Bells, Nose: Cotton Ball sprayed with perfume, Mouth: Licorice and Hands: Sandpaper.