July 2015 – Patties Classroom

Dr. Seuss Decorating

This year at our school the theme decided by the principal is “OH THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!” by Dr. Seuss. I decided I would designate one of the walls of my classroom to the theme.

Dr. Seuss Decorating with Fun Bags, Paper Cut Outs, and some first day Pencils and Erasers! Won’t the kids LOVE em?

I went over to Target the other day with my daughter and grandkiddos and what do you know? There is a big bunch of fun stuff over in the dollar section that has lots of Dr. Seuss and lots of Disney products for teachers.

I found a boatload of stuff. Lookee What I got!!

I loved these cardboard Dr. Seuss Decorating Posters. They’re about 9 x 13 size.

I’m going to use these 4 clocks to give the time when school starts and ends, and when recess and lunch are. This will help the kids to learn to tell time, and will reduce the number of times they ask me when lunch is. That is one of the hardest things about 1st grade. They are not used to staying the whole day.

Foam Clocks to use for Telling the Time of Day (School Start time, Recess, Lunch, Dismiss) for my Dr. Seuss Decorating.

I also got these cute erasers. I don’t know what I will do with them yet. Maybe I’ll give them out in a little baggie with candy and a pencil on Back to School night. They also had Dr. Seuss Pencils. Target also had banners and cute clip art items with Dr. Seuss characters on them. I will use this on my bulletin board that says “Oh the Places You’ll Go!”.

Dr. Seuss Pencils and Erasers from the Target dollar bins.

I don’t know what I’ll do with these cute Cat in the Hat decorations, but I couldn’t resist them.

The cute Cat in the Hats are a border. But I thought I could cut them apart and add the kids pictures underneath with a blue wig like they are Thing 1 and 2. That would be super cute to use to vote in my Graph a Week chart. The light up balls were only $3.00 but they probably won’t work lit up for long. I’ll just string them across some area of the classroom that needs a little “POP” of color!

My Weekly Graph has a different question each week and as the kids walk in on Monday they vote for what they like. Then later at math time we talk about it using math terms such as “greater than, less, more, equal, least greatest” and kids get used to that vocabulary.

Last year for the Graph a Week chart we used these little people icons. This year I’ll use the Dr. Seuss hats and add the kids’ pictures in blue wigs. That will be cute.

I got a few games too. I’ll use these for centers. The back of the ABC flashcards I’ll use another way. They have cute pictures (in the Dr. Seuss tradition) and words under the pictures. I’ll put these in a pocket chart at the writing center. I’ve wanted to have a cute word bank of some sort over there but didn’t want to use up all my color printer ink. This is a very cheap way to go!

Telling Time Dr. Seuss Games and numbers and letters too. A darling aqua blue pocket chart will be great for schedule or center activities listings. Most of these were $1.00! What a steal!

Here are a few Dr. Seuss freebies that I will use to decorate my classroom wall this year. HERE is a cute Triangle Dr. Seuss banner to print out with red and blue designs on all the triangle shaped banner pieces. It is really cute from from the Carefree Classroom. HERE is a hall pass and some other cute things from Julia Rother. Thanks guys! Now I just need to get into my classroom and start decorating!

Butterfly Activities Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Books we made for Butterfly Week.

LANGUAGE ARTS
We made Hungry Caterpillar books in my classroom. They turned out so cute. The kids were pretty good about drawing items for the caterpillar to eat around the holes I had punched in their little books.

Butterfly Activities and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Fun.

We read the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar first. Then we talked about all the things we could have OUR OWN caterpillar eat. We made a big list on the white board of our brainstorm. Then I drew a little picture next to each of the words so the kids could read, write it, and copy the easy picture to color.

Then we went to work on our books. They had already been previously made up by ME the day before. Then I punched out all the holes. You could also have a mom helper do it but it is kind of complicated. I’ve just found it easier to do it myself.

After we drew and colored what the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate, we glued one on each page. They were so tiny and cute!

Luckily Bennett had the stuffed animal of the caterpillar from Kohls. I had left mine at home. So he brought it in so we could use it as a visual aid. Fun! A cute Dot to Dot Butterfly art is HERE at Activity Village.

Stuffed Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet.

Then we did a bunch of Caterpillar and Butterfly activities. Here are a few.
A cute VOCABULARY list with cute visuals you can print out is HERE. It was a great center activity for the pocket chart and some HAND pointers too. A roll and cover game was HERE at TPT.

Last year at recess I passed out these “find a bug” jars and kids LOVED them. They fought over doing this activity for 2 weeks. In never got old. This is science at its best. Little scientists observing nature.

A cute SONG to sing about Caterpillars is here.

POETRY or MUSIC (Sing to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider)

A little, green caterpillar crawling on a leaf,

Spun a little chrysalis, and fell fast asleep.

While she was sleeping, She dreamed that she could fly.

And later when she woke up, she was a BUTTERFLY!

MATH:

Graphing- What is your favorite bug? Butterflies? Honeybees? Grasshoppers?Dragonfly? Ladybugs? These were our top 5 we voted on. Guess which one was the winner?

We do a weekly graph where I ask the kids a question and they vote from 5 choices.

Here is our “What is Your Favorite Insect” Vote. It looks like dragonflies won.

We also did an estimation jar with plastic Dollar Store insects inside. That is always a fun math activity.

SCIENCE

Do a life cycle of a butterfly. A link for a black line page of the 4 stages of a Butterfly can be found Here at Digital Pencil.org. They have lots of games, a podcast and another video of a butterfly pupa stage. You can also buy the butterfly larva at Carolina Biological Supply for about $15.00. The link is Here for Carolina Biological Supply. I usually don’t send away for them until Springtime. A cute wheel life cycle is HERE on TPT. You can get the butterfly garden below from EAI Education for $15 bucks.

Butterfly Garden is a great science Activity and it usually comes with a certificate for free Butterfly Larva. This is how I ordered mine the first time. I’ve put butterfly, praying mantis and ladybug larva in here before. Once the praying mantis got out through a hold overnight and they were all over the kids’ desks in the morning. It was funny. Buy it HERE at Insect Lore for about $15 bucks.

P.E. “Bug Garden”. Have students sit in chairs in a big circle. This game is like FRUIT BASKET. One student is in the middle without a chair. I’m usually the first one as I have to teach the game. Go around the circle of chairs and give students names;1 ladybug, 2 dragonfly, 3 butterfly, 4 honeybee. Then start over going around till all are named.

Then tell the caller to call out an insect name. (bees) All the bees must jump up and fly to another chair. Everyone else stays sitting and just watches. It is FUN to watch, believe me! Nobody who was a bee can stay in the same chair. The caller grabs one of the chairs and sits during the commotion. The one who is leftover with no chair is the new caller. Then one fun part of the game is if the caller says “Fly Away Bugs!” then all the bugs get up and trade places. Last one to find a seat is the new caller! I do this for a Halloween party, a Valentine or Christmas party too. Just name the kids theme names for the holiday (skeleton, ghost, bat, witch for Halloween, and for Christmas; stars, candy canes, ornaments, trees, etc.

We had a great time doing Butterfly Week!

Brown Bear Brown Bear Teddy Bear Picnic

Here the kids are getting all ready to run over to the bounce houses on field day on the last day of school. There was also a giant parachute we played with.

It is the last week of school and the end of my year teaching kindergarten. I have loved it. It is like trying to keep a lid on popping popcorn!! Yup. I wasn’t that successful at keeping the lid on, but we had a lot of fun every day!

This is the little Patriotic Bear I painted and put on a wreath on my front door. I added a little flag and some stars and flowers too.

I love the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. It is perfect for Kindergarten. They know most of their color words and can read the simple text from the story since it is so repetitive.

These were the 3 funny 6th grade teachers who dressed up all in the 50s for the dance festival the last day of school. haha. They looks so cute. Our class danced to Ball in the Jack. We rocked it!

So for the Teddy Bear Picnic that I usually have at the end of the year we will do some Brown Bear Activities. Here are a few I came up with that are lots of fun.

We went into the gym and watched a Disney movie and ate popcorn after field day. FUN!

1. ART – MAKE A BEAR WITH MOVEABLE ARMS AND LEGS or just a Bear HAT- We are only using the head this year to make a hat. It is HERE. The arms and legs if you want a jointed bear are on this page HERE at Virtual Vine along with a gazillion other great resources. Look under the quilt for 3 printable body parts. It turns out cute but takes a while for the kids to color. Or make a Bear Hat. Use a Bear coloring page and just use the head and a brown strip of construction paper to go around heads.

We made this Brown Bear only we didn’t make it into a hat. We made Bear puppets on a stick instead. But we’ve made these in past years. HERE is a cute art bear from Girl Scouts of USA.

2. SHARED READING – Read the Book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Make a necklace after coloring all the brown bear characters. Add pony beads in between each character on yarn for a cool and colorful Brown Bear Necklace. Perfect art activity for kindergarten. Free printable is HERE. Or you could make a fruit look necklace and add the characters in between several fruit loops. That’s fun too.

Read the book together with the Youtube of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? It is a cute one.

3. PHONICS – Matching Center “Rhyme Time” Activity after reading the book Bear Says Thanks. HERE. There is also a writing activity and a cut and paste freebie. A cute mini books for $3.00 is HERE at TPT. A free version is HERE at TPT. Thanks gals!

There are always activities you can do with addition and subtraction using counter bears and a number line.

4. MATH – Fun Brown Bear “counting the characters” cut and paste math activity great for kindergarten. It is a freebie on TPT HERE.

Holding our Teddy Bear Puppets and puzzles.

5. PICTURES – Take a picture with your Teddy Bear. I also found a picture
frame to color and put a picture inside with the bear hats and their teddy bears they brought for the read-a-thon. It is cute. Check it out HERE.

You can always do a Bear art project using lots of brads and brown paper. We didn’t have a lot of time so we made bear heads on a stick (puppets) instead. They were cute.

This is my little patriotic bear and Uncle Sam on my entryway table. I’ve got all my red, white and blue stuff out for July. I got the little stars and stripes (the red and white one is to the right but you can’t see it in this pic) buckets from the Dollar Tree.

6. Read-a-Thon with Bear books. After doing all of our BEAR activities we will do a read-a-thon with our Teddy Bears we’ve brought from home. Then we will have a picnic with hot dogs, root beer floats, chips and gummy bears of course. Then we will go outside and draw bears with sidewalk chalk. It should be a very fun Teddy Bear Picnic this year.

Here’s the hubs and I at Yellowstone visiting one of the fun gift shops in Jackson Hole. We usually go to our cabin at Bear Lake the weekend I’m off of school to unwind. And we usually take a short tip up there or some town close by.

7. Writing our own Brown Bear Brown Bear innovations. “I see a red fish (or Blue Bird) looking at me”. OR….Each child can write about things that are brown. “Brown can be a bear, a hamburger, a chocolate bar and a coconut.” Brainstorm on the board a list of brown things for them to choose from. This is an especially good idea for ESL kids who need language experiences.

Field Day and Teddy Bear Picnic on the last day of school.

We came back in the classroom after field day and ate hot dogs, chips, cookies and drinks. It was fun to have a picnic with our Teddy Bears! Teddy Bear Picnics are the bomb! The last day of school was sure lots of fun. Have a great summer everybody!