Ocean and Pirate unit part 4 (and the treasure hunt!)

 SO! We'd been learning about the ocean and pirates for 2 weeks. In case you didn't see some of the last few posts (which you might want to check out, the treasure hunt thing will make more sense) here's a quick summary of what we've been up to as far as pirates go. We've been reading pirate books, singing pirate songs and playing pirate games. Amidst all this the class has been finding pieces of a treasure map around the classroom, the hallway and the playground. The first find was a note from Blackbeard the pirate, claiming that he had hidden his treasure somewhere in the school. Occasionally the kids would find a clue or a piece of his clothing around the building as well. (I had planted all of the above in the different spots around the school :) Finally, the kids found the last piece. Here's how it went this year (then I'll explain how I did it last year-it was a little different but both ideas worked GREAT!). They found the last piece of the treasure map and a note along with it.

The green bin is inside our shelf with our calendar supplies. The kids were totally excited that blackbeard had somehow snuck the hidden supplies into our calendar bin when we hadn't left the room the whole day! Inside the bin we found red bandanas for each student (I bought a couple of yards of cheap red fabric and cut it into 23 triangles for their bandanas. WAY cheaper) and a clip on gold earring. Once we had put everyone's earrings and bandanas on we started to follow the treasure map. Last year's variation: Instead of following a map last year, we had clues the pirate had left. We went on a search around the building and each time we solved one clue we would have to figure out the next one until we found the treasure. Email me if you want more details about how this worked out.
The map led us around the building until we came to our after-care room. Mysteriously ;) the door had been left open! When the kids came into the room this is what we found!

There were eyepatches for everyone (oriental trading catalog), mardi gras beads, gold coins (party store) and "rubies." (sequins from craft store) I had all the kids sit and hang out while I helped pass everything out to everyone. They were SO excited and couldn't wait to show their families their treasure.

Again, this was different from last year. Last year I had parents donate shoeboxes and I spraypainted each one with gold paint. I put their names on top of each little "treasure chest" with glitter paint. We had the same things inside; gold coins, rubies, eyepatches and mardi gras beads. I also put copies of each of the kids pictures I had taken during the year into their boxes. I ran out of time this year and didn't get this done. The shoeboxes were a lot of work but it was so fun to see each kid get their own treasure chest to take home. Either way this has been one of the most fun days we've had in Kindergarten! More details of our end of the year activities coming soon!

ocean and pirates part 3

PIRATE AND OCEAN CENTERS!!!

We had so many ocean things going on the last two weeks...my post-last-week-of-school brainfunk is causing me to forget some of the details (I will try to update later when my memory comes back) but here's a couple of the center activities we had going. 

Ocean puzzle: We had an awesome coral reef puzzle in one of our centers. I found it in the back closet, must have been left by the last Kindergarten teacher! Obviously I haven't organized the whole thing yet since i've been teaching there for four years ;)

Whale matching:  We've been reviewing a lot during the last two weeks. At this center the kids were to match up cvc words with their picture on the correct whale. I made these with felt and a sharpie. Works great on a felt board or on the floor. 

 

Art center: The kids made pirate flags to hang up around the classroom. 

We also made jellyfish to hang from the ceiling. (Just fyi-I put these ribbons up my first year of teaching with a binder clip on the end of each one. They have been AWESOME as a display place and I would recommend it to anyone with a lack of display areas in your classroom!) We used paper plates, paint and streamers (crepe paper).

 

Math table: One of the days we did a pirate subtraction activity in small groups. I found a pirate coloring book awhile ago and made copies of the coloring pages to use for activities like this. It has worked great for making sight word activity pages and math pages to use in small groups. 

 Seashell sorting: I put out a box of seashells and let the kids do what they wanted. I was going to make a recording sheet for them but I decided to see where they took it. I was really excited when they started sorting, graphing, comparing, and making observations on their own!!! I loved listening to them discuss how they should sort them, then deciding which category some of the shells should go in. 

 

 Beach list center: I had them draw a picture of themselves at the beach, then make a list of what they would take to the beach. They had to use details in their picture, fill up the "white space" and have at least three things on their list. 

LOVE that she drew pictures for each of her items. Especially the pretzels. Gotta have snacks :)

Dramatic play: We live in Oklahoma, and the only "beaches" we have are surrounding lakes..so we brought the beach to our classroom! I had life jackets, goggles, sand toys, a baby pool, "sunscreen" bottles, and lots more. One of the best things was this awesome backdrop I bought in a roll (by the bulletin board paper) at Lakeshore. I've used it over and over again these last four years. Isn't it cool??

Okay! Gotta run but i'll upload more end of the year stuff later! Thanks for checking out my stuff :)

more ocean and pirates!

Okay so we talked about pirate eyepatches and found pieces of a treasure map...what next? I got this labeling idea from another site but can't find it, so if you know who had the idea first please let me know! I looked up a picture of a pirate on google and drew it myself for our labeling activity, then laminated it so we could use it again next year. We worked together on the carpet to label this picture of a pirate.

After we did it together, I told the kids they were going to do their own labeling picture. They could either draw their own pirate and label it or they could draw something else and label it. I erased the labels we had done as a group so they would sound out some words on their own, and we did a short drawing lesson on drawing pirates (for a few who weren't so sure about drawing one on their own :) Here's how a couple turned out:

"hook, sword, pants, peg leg, belt, shirt, face (in case you weren't sure haha)

"Bandana, eyepatch, hook, sword, peg leg"

"jet, plane wings"

Too cute. They did really well with this but I thought 23 photos would be too many :)

Next...THE PIRATE SHIP CHALLENGE!

We had a day with some awkward amounts of down time (between the talent show and our end of the year assembly) and I desperately needed to finish some assessments, so I quickly organized a "Pirate Challenge." Next year I think i'll spend more time prepping for this because it could've been a pretty great activity if I had put more thought into it. Again I saw this idea somewhere and can't figure out where... I put a box of manipulatives or building materials in different spots around the room. I broke the kids up into teams and told them they would have 20 minutes to make a pirate ship. If I had planned ahead we would have been mapping out the parts of a pirate ship throughout the week, then had a checklist for each group. Oh well, they had fun anyway!

I was pretty impressed actually. Most of them came up with a few levels, a mast and walls on the side. My favorite one was the one built with blocks because they used our tunnel to turn it into a ship that could rock back and forth, and made a little spot for the "captain" at the front!

Commotion in the Ocean

I can't believe this year is over already! I spent the last three days of school holding back tears...both from exhaustion and from not wanting these kids to go to first grade :( People said it would get easier but I always cry at the end of school. We spent the last two weeks learning about pirates and the ocean! It's one of the best units we do all year, and it's pretty easy to throw together (which helps when i'm taking everything apart in the classroom!). At my school we have to be completely packed up by the time we leave on the last day of school. Meaning the shelves are cleared off or covered up, all the chairs and desks are stacked up in the hallway, floors and counters are cleaned, bulletin boards are empty and all the furniture is pushed up against the wall. Trying to accomplish this while keeping 25 kindergarteners sane is a little difficult. SO! We do our ocean unit. Here's a few things we did (and I know I am not remembering everything. My mind is a total blur right now but i'll upload more info/pics when the last day of school fog lifts).

We started out with a KWL chart about the ocean and one about pirates. I forgot to take a picture of the KWL charts before we took them down but you know what they look like :) Next we read a pirate book.

When we got to the end of the book, a note fell out! (GASP! WHAT A SURPRISE!) Here's what it said:

Of course the kids freaked out. (In a good way :) Over the next two weeks we found pieces of a treasure map and the occasional pirate clue, including an eyepatch, a "spyglass" and a bandana. Each time we found a piece of a map (somewhere in the classroom, the hallway, or the playground) we taped it to the other ones we had found.

The map appeared to go from our classroom to various rooms and locations around our school. Since the pirate was leaving a map for us the kids wanted to know what the directions meant. I hung a sign up on each wall in the classroom for North, South, East and West. We also did a treasure map activity to practice using the directions on a map. I did this in small group because it would've been way too hard to make sure everyone was following along otherwise. (I don't know why I can't rotate the picture...sorry!) Basically the kids start at the star in the middle. Then we read the directions together and do one step at a time. One space north, two spaces west, etc. When we've done the last step, the kids draw an X on the spot where the treasure would be buried. I downloaded a 100 grid off the internet and drew my own "island" and directions onto it.

One of the next activities we did was inspired by Mrs. Williamson at her "Welcome to Room 36" blog. We made a "What we think" chart about pirates wearing eyepatches. The kids talked about why they thought pirates wore eyepatches, then I looked up the answer and we discussed it as a class. I was totally surprised by what we found out!

My favorite answers are "because they want to look like pirates" and "pirates were alive when dinosaurs were alive." lol.  The picture cut off the answer but we found out that pirates wore a patch so they could have one eye "in the dark" and one in the light, so that when they had to go into the ship (and into the dark) quickly they could just move the eyepatch over and wouldn't have to wait for their eye to adjust to the dark. Interesting huh? More to come later...check in to see what happened with the treasure map, the ending is pretty fantastic.

Fairy Tales part 2

We just finished up our three week unit on fairy tales! We had our fairy tale day on Friday and it was SO fun! But i'm getting ahead of myself...Let me start over. We read a TON of fairy tale books. We started off with Jack and the Beanstalk. If you want to see what we did with that then scroll down to my last post! Next we read "The Three Little Pigs." I sent out homework for the kids to do with their families. They were to find out what their house was made of so we could make a graph. Here's how it turned out:

Looks like brick had the most! Personally I would love to see a house made of "rox"! Gotta love Kindergarten spelling.
We read four versions of the story and compared them to each other. We read two versions with the title "The Three Little Pigs," and then read "Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig" and "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs." My Mom got to read the last one to the class and she was pretty excited about it, she taught Kindergarten for 20 years and hasn't had a chance to meet my class yet this year so she was thrilled. :)

This version has to be my personal favorite. It's told from the wolf's side of the story and the illustrations are VERY different from other fairy tale books. We talked a little about point of view, then voted on who the kids believed (the pig or the wolf). 19 out of 23 kids believed the wolf! Click here to get a copy for yourself.
Next we read "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." We also read a few different versions of this story. We compared each book to our list of fairy tale characteristics (see the last post) AND tried porridge in our classroom. My wonderful assistant made it for the kids in the crockpot that morning. We made a graph of who liked it and who didn't.

Most of them didn't like it. Possibly because it was really just plain oatmeal without any seasoning or fun flavors...but what do I know?

OH! I almost forgot. My Mom bought us an awesome book to use with our fairy tale unit. It has a short version of each fairy tale, reproducible activities to go with each one and headbands to make if you want your kids to act them out. I haven't done it with this class but we did it last year during our fairy tale unit. I split the kids up into three groups and each group acted out one of the fairy tales (one each Friday for three weeks.) They had SO much fun doing this! Get a copy of the book here.

We also read "The Princess and the Pea"  and made a graph of which kids like peas and which ones don't. During our plant unit we planted peas so we used the pea plant for observations and discussions during these couple of days. We made these cute princess and the pea beds in small groups. I can't remember which website the idea is from but i'll look around and let you know when I figure it out.

 The kids cut matresses out of scrapbook paper and put a princess on top. Then they chose a character from the story and wrote what happened at the beginning of the story (to that character) and at the end of the story.

Here's another version of the story we read, it was really cute!

We read "Little Red Riding Hood" and listened to a (very random) great cd to go along with all our fairy tales. My mentor teacher had this in her classroom and I got a copy for myself. The best two songs on it are little red riding hood and the wolf and the three little pigs. I would listen to the songs and just download the ones you want. Here's the songs if you want to listen! Click here

We read all the other fairy tales; Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Rumplestiltskin, all the good ones :)
The last day we had our "Dress like a fairytale" day! The kids came dressed as their favorite fairy tale character and we had some GREAT outfits! They got to dress up, listen to a few more fairy tales, do a special fairy tale project with their fourth grade reading buddies, do fairy tale centers and watch "The Princess and the Frog."

I'll edit more pictures and put them up soon. (For anyone who was wondering, I dressed as the fairy godmother :) Let me know if you have any questions!

Garden (part 5) and Fairy Tales :)

Oh my gosh I forgot how busy April is! We started our fairy tale unit this week and I am LOVING it. We had more garden stuff to do and it worked out great because I had planned on starting off with Jack and the Beanstalk for our Fairy Tale unit. So! We started out by talking about Fairy Tales. I found a cute fairy tale chart online and I've been looking all over but I can't find the original website, so if you know where it came from please let me know! I'll put a picture up soon but basically it's a castle poster that says
 "What is a Fairy Tale?"
"A Fairy Tale is a make-believe story that has...
-good characters
-bad characters
-magic
-a special beginning
-a special ending
-love
-talking animals

We talked about what a "character" is and then jumped into reading Jack and the Beanstalk. The kids were super excited to point out things from our list that they noticed in the story. At the end of the story I went to put the book back on the shelf and we saw that the Giant had left us a note!

Then we found a bunch of his footprints that he had left behind. Each kid got a footprint and a recording sheet then they went to work looking for things that were longer, shorter, and the same length as his footprints.

Note to self: Make the footprint MUCH bigger next time! I had some sneaky kids come up to measure my foot and one of them said "Hey, the giant's foot is the same size as yours!" oops.

The next day we read another version of Jack and the Beanstalk. The kids started comparing the second version to the first one we read without any prompting! I have a bunch of smarties :)
Then I gave the kids some "magic beans" to plant! We asked the parents to donate 2 liter bottles. I cut them in half (almost) but left about an inch still connected. This keeps the top half from falling off over and over again. Then they planted their magic beans and decorated a label for their bottle.

I printed off these cute covers for their bean journals. Thank you to Christie at First Grade Fever for the journal covers!

The next day we talked about the beginning, middle and end of stories. I gave each kid a picture of a weiner dog that I drew. Then I told them part of one of the fairy tales we had read (we've been reading lots of fairy tales in addition to Jack and the Beanstalk) and they had to point to the beginning (the face), the middle (the tummy) or the end (the tail) of the weiner dog depending on which part of the story they thought I was describing. It was a fun way to assess the kids understanding of story parts. (This was also my spring observation day and my principal loved the activity!) After we finished with the weiner dogs the kids made their own leaves for our classroom beanstalk. Thanks to Brooke at Primary Perspective for the awesome idea! The kids wrote out their favorite part of the story then illustrated it on the back of the leaf. Here's how ours turned out.

Our hallway is TOTALLY covered with projects and work the kids have done. Next up: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Princess and the Frog and the Three Little Pigs. More to come tomorrow! Have a WONDERFUL week friends :)