This week’s Reading Streets literature story is The Bremen Town Musicians. I thought it might be fun to do a simple puppet show retell. My class are very good readers and would put a lot of drama in their retelling using lots of expression.
At Haynes Marionettes is a cute printable puppet head collection. I will use 3 of the puppets and adjust the 4th puppet to be a horse. A fun FLASH story interactive for the kids to read along with is HERE.
Anyway, we did a lot of fun acting today while reading The Bremen Town Musicians.
Education.com has a cute coloring page that you could use to add math facts to or just as a fast finisher or a retell. The possibilities are ENDLESS!! . You could also do cereal box puppets. We did those last year covering a cereal box with construction paper and making stick puppets to retell a story. Here are some pictures. The link is for Cereal Box Puppets is here for you to check it out. It’s fun to do a puppet show as a retell too. Yeah!
Some interactions and some other games can be found HERE.
Veterans Day Report Writing and Handprint Art Project
This week is Veterans Day. We will celebrate the day by honoring soldiers who have died in the line of duty, protecting Americans in the U.S.A. I will teach the kids all 5 branches of the military; Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Navy, Marines. We will also share that they all have their own song (with lyrics) and their own cool uniforms. We listened to them and watched them march out with the flag on utube.
Veterans Day reports. I love Henry’s description of bombs “such as the smoke bomb”. Spoken like a true 2nd grader! 😀
HERE is a Veterans Day Crossword Puzzle. The kids really enjoyed. I told the kids about Mr. Moss’s dad, and how he was a flying navigator in the U.S. Air Force. He flew bombing missions in several wars. He is still alive and retired. I will also share a picture of my nephew Garrett, who was in the army and shares my birthdate with me.
We painted our right hand brown with a blue thumb and left hand brown with a red thumb. Then we did a white finger for the white tail feather and painted heads in white and a yellow beak (I outlined them in pencil first). Then we glittered red, blue and silver glitters over the tail feathers.
Veterans Day Youtube we watched. There are 2 others on my last year’s post HERE. I am the daughter of a U.S. Marine who served in 2 wars and was in the military for 8 years. He is gone now, but he is buried in a military cemetary in Southern California. I honor him this week and all other vets who serve, protect and defend our citizens at home and abroad. As a classroom teacher it is my duty to teach my students about Veterans Day each year.
I got this book for $6.00 and free shipping on Amazon and it’s a HARDBACK! Woo Hoo! I read is called H is for HONOR. It gives kids an education on lots of different things in the military.
Jill Biden’s book is a wonderful way to introduce to kids all that Veterans and their families sacrifice for us to be protected. I got a copy used for $6.00 which was hardback. It is hard not to cry reading it though, just warning you!
HERE is the link for some cute Veterans Day Bookmarks printables.
Then we brainstorm a list of things that military men and women do for us in the USA. I teach the students the 5 branches of the military; The Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and the Marines, and what each branch protects.
Our finished bulletin board for Veterans Day 2012.
I told the kids about my dad, Mr. Russell, who was a marine in 2 wars. He was a great soldier and Marine for the U.S.A. I’m very proud of him.
We discuss how the military are stationed all around the world to protect us from terrorists and people who would harm our country. Boy are we thankful for our brave Veterans and all that they do!
They wrote about seeing the military men and women at Air Shows.
Some kids had uncles who were members of the U.S. Military.
Lots of kids have grandfathers who were in the military.
My nephew Tyler is in the Army reserves and he posted this poem last year on Facebook. I AM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER POEM. I loved it. So I added it to our cool bulletin board.
The students each chose 1 branch of the military to do a colorful seal as a fast finisher.
We had Marines, Navy Seals, Army, Coast Guard and the Air Force.
The military seals look cool, but the Eagle handprints look awesome!
We made our own themed stationery with an eagle on it. It’s easy from DLTK Kids link here.
. I show the kids several videos. Check out last year’s post on 11-11-11 on Veterans Day to see a few more great ones, as well as the tutorial on how we did the Eagle Handprint art project HERE on 11-11-11 post.
I’m proud to be the daughter of a U.S. Marine. He is gone now, but I love and miss him. And I think of him with honor and pride on this Veterans Day. Thanks pops for all you did for America! Happy Veterans Day everyone!
My students exercised their right to vote in the Mock Presidential Election in our classroom. It turned out that my students called it pretty close.
President Obama won by 2 votes. I have a pretty international classroom so it was a good cross section of American voters. I thought it was interesting how close they were to the actual results.
There are so many fun picture books on the theme of Presidents and running for President in an Election. These would be great springboards to writing a paper on “If I Were the President” or a letter to “Dear Mr. President” asking for some things kids might come up with that America needs. Those would be pretty priceless!
We were writing about Veterans Day this week so I had to choose. Maybe later in the week we can write a letter to the winning candidate.
I told the students a little about the two candidates. Then we voted. They already had their minds made up (no undecided voters HERE!)
Presidential Elections for Kids are a great way to teach some current vocabulary about how we vote in America…..candidates, elections, undecided voters, ballot, etc.
Our school happens to be a polling place too. So we walked down the hall to the gym and looked inside to see what a voting booth looks like and there were some American citizens voting right while we peeked in!
Here is one of the voting booths we saw in our school gym. Too bad we couldn’t all traipse inside and see what it looked like close up. That would have been a small riot!! LOL (my kids can be kinda rowdy!)
Here was our tally after only 6 people had voted. It’s an even tie; all votes are equal.
Here was their “official” ballot. They had to bubble in their choice, then color his picture, and cut him out. I put glue on the backs as they came up to vote. The cute graphics and ballots and things can be purchased from Hooray for Election Day TPT store item from Casey Dawson for $5.50.
I sent away for a set of Republican and Democrat stickers from Scholastic Book Clubs to make our chart with. I used red and blue butcher paper and then some scrapbook striped paper for the poster chart. A friend gave me a few poster decals and I gave her a sheet of stickers.
After 15 votes it looked like Governor Romney would take the lead……
But, alas, at the end of the day, he was overtaken by President Obama, who won the mosts votes; 12 in all to Mitt Romney’s 10. I was the last to vote. And I lost. Oh well. We Americans get behind our presidents. Good luck President Obama. I hope we have a good 4 years ahead of us!
Did you know there are not only service dogs but now service monkeys?
Tara and Tyree were rescue dogs. Lots of kids in the class have pets like dogs, cats, fish and birds.
We started by reading a few Weekly Readers on Dogs. And I had a lot of cute Dog read alouds we did throughout the week.
Then we talked about our favorite pets and why we love our pets. Most of the class have fish as pets this year. We didn’t have very many dogs or cats, but we did have a few birds.
For red ribbon week we focus on Drug Awareness and Saying “NO” to drugs. Since Red Ribbon Week is always the end of October we also have Halloween art projects that sometimes can be linked up. We then talk and discuss ways to say no when someday we are offered drugs, or a drink or cigarettes and how to creatively say no, maybe in a funny way. ANTI DRUG SLOGANS from Mrs. Moss’ Classroom…..
Here are some funny slogans we have come up with; “We won’t get caught in the WEB of drugs” with a spider web design and a cool, black spider. Or a haunted house picture with “Drugs will HAUNT you!” and the students decorate around the house with witches, pumpkins and ghosts. Here are some funny rhymes we could say when offered drugs that are kind of funny and cool; iTune out drugs,,don’t huff, don’t puff, stay away from that stuffIt’s no lie, drugs will make your mama cry, drugs druel, sports rule!
WRITING: We wrote all about avoiding smoking, drugs and alcohol.
A fun wordsearch on the side effects of alcohol can be found HERE at Too Smart to Start. There are also many interactive online games HERE too. We drew pictures of ourselves as Winners!
The students wrote about why it would be “A GRAVE ERROR” to take drugs or to smoke. Then we decorated the tombstones with Halloween ghouls, pumpkins, black cats and other fun stuff.
We read some Weekly Readers on Drug Awareness and RED RIBBON WEEK, which is celebrated all around the United States.
My favorite 2 things our school has done in the past were;. To plant a red tulip in October and we all got to enjoy them in the spring when all 600 of them came up. The kids remembered Red Ribbon Week that year. Another year we all painted red handprints on a giant piece of butcher paper and we glued them all together down one wall of the school. Each child later put their name on the hand. And another was using red cups in the chain link fence out front to spell out a drug free message for all the community to see. WEAR SOMETHING EVERY DAY THIS WEEK! This year the PTA had the whole school wear different things all week just for fun. CLEAN, DRUG-FREE, and SOAR! Monday: “Give Drugs the Slip” Wear slippers to school! Tuesday: “Stomp Out Drugs” Wear boots to school! Wednesday: “Shade Out Drugs” Wear sunglasses to school! Thursday: “Sock It to Drugs” Wear crazy socks to school! Friday: “Turn Your Back on Drugs” Wear your shirt backwards!
From Lesson Plan SOS a great idea so kids can see how similar candy and over the counter drugs are. Skittles can be confused with lots of dangerous drugs in pill form.
I saw these candies in Pill Bottles from Williams Sonoma. They were pretty cute. But don’t get fooled! These are definitely for Halloween!
MUSIC I got this song off a Red Ribbon Week Website and added a few different words to it. It’s from Dewey. DRUGS ARE SPOOKY RAP! Have kids snap or clap to the rythm of the song. Or sing it to the tune of the ABC Song. Drugs are SPOOKY! They”re not cool! So Let’s Promise to be A drug-free school They’re no treat, they’re a bad trick! Drugs can make you awfully sick. Because I think that you’re the most, Hear our friendly Sunrise ghosts: Say Boo to Drugs! Say Boo to Drugs! Say Boo to Drugs! Here is our finished writing and artwork for Red Ribbon Week.
We watched a video from McGruff, the crime dog and then we wrote our own speech bubbles for what we would say if somebody offered us drugs, cigarettes or alcohol. Some are pretty funny.
MATH – Copy a 100s chart for each child and then follow these directions. Color in the red ribbon and then give place value instructions for them to color each one red. Example. 20 + 10 = what? Color that red. 50 – 10 + what? Color red. 45 plus 1 = what? Color red. 12 +10 = what? Color red. Adding 10 or taking away 2 or 10 or adding 20 is great place value practice for kids.
We decided on all sorts of things we could spend our money on instead of yucky cigarettes and drugs. Including these cute Candy Corn Gummies and Sour Bats!!!
