2015 – Page 4 – Patties Classroom

St. Patrick’s Day Leprechauns

St. Patrick’s Day Leprechauns we did last week sure turned out CUTE!

We did some OPINION WRITING since it is on our report card. What is YOUR opinion? Do you believe there are real Leprechauns or not? Hmmm?

Last week we did a fun activity making green and orange Leprechauns with curly beards and then doing a Graph on whether we believe in Leprechauns or not.

It was 18 to 5 in favor of believing in Leprechauns, of course.

Here is some of our great kindergarten writing! Gotta love it.

Do you Believe?

Then they had to write what they would do if they found one. Most of them would trap it with something…….

This kindergartener did NOT believe in Leprechauns.

Cute little Leprechaun beards and glittery hats.

A poem we read about Looking for the Leprechauns. Lots of the kids had already
“seen one”. tee hee.

Some of the books we read about St. Patrick’s Day leprechauns.

Then we shared leprechaun traps we had invented. They sure were great!

I wish I had done a close up of all of the traps. They were all done so well, and were so pretty!

Great job everybody! I loved seeing your St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Traps. I hope you all catch one and get 3 wishes! (If you believe in them of course…..) 😀

Penguin Art and Acrostic Poems

Check out our cute penguin art and acrostic poems.

Last week We learned about Macaroni Penguins, Emperor Penguins, and Chinstrap Penguins. And then we read lots of penguin books and stories. I got the information I read the kids from this freebie at TPT. It also had a wordsearch and a cute dot to dot and some vocabulary cards we cut and used.

Then I had the kids brainstorm words that began with PENGUIN. And we wrote them in a big list across the whiteboard. Some of the kids came up with phrases such as “up on an iceberg” or “noisy birds” or “not at the North Pole”.

Then we wrote our own Penguin Acrostic poems on this cute paper I found and added the PENGUIN to. I love how they turned out.

Penguin Art and Acrostic Poems

The kids did a great job on their Penguin Arcrostic Poems!!

I also read the class my favorite Children’s book; Tacky the Penguin. He is an odd bird that is not accepted in his group, but he ends up saving the other penguins from Hunters. He saves the day. And everybody loves him after that. Kind of like the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer story. He saved the day too!

Penguin Art and Acrostic Poems

Very nice Job on these poems guys! I am so proud of you all!

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This cute penguins art and acrostic poems made a darling bulletin board

ANYHOO, we had to make some cute Penguins to go with our little Penguin Acrostic Poetry. Here is what I came up with. The kids are not really great at cutting yet, but I think they did a fabulous job. These little eyeballs were very tricky too! I made a bunch of bow ties like Tacky the Penguin wears, using some scrapbook paper scraps I had at home. When they were done we did a cute wordsearch.

This is our cute bulletin board for February. I just love it!

Put on your tux was my favorite phrase. Super cute!

Lots of penguins make lots of noise, don’t ya know?

These kindergarteners had really good handwriting too. Awesome!

Then they chose little ski caps from scrapbook and colored paper and topped them with some fuzzy balls. The eyeballs I got on TPT in a kit of freebies on the Penguin theme. Check them out HERE. I had them do this addition and subtraction page using the cute counters I have on every desk. We have lots of fun with the cute variety of math mats and math counters I’ve put together. Check some of them out HERE. And we did this for a center during Penguins Day. It is a cute math matching activity. HERE.

We also did this math game where you roll 2 dice, add together, then ADD 1 or TAKE AWAY 1 and then cover THAT number! It was a little more challenging! But the kids loved it!

I used this stencil of a penguin to cut out the black body, the white belly and the arms (sort of). I actually used this one and then made a slimmer version, and then a short version. Then the kids weren’t all exactly alike. They just chose the two they liked and put them together and glued them down on pretty brights papers. I used blue, green, purple, pink, orange and red and yellow backgrounds.

This title page for our bulletin board I found HERE. A really cute GRAPHING activity that is also a freebie is HERE.

I used astro bright paper to back the black and white penguins with. I think that always adds a little zing to the art project. It also would have been cute with a watercolored blue and purple and white background.

Then we put on these cute eyeballs after cutting them out. I think this was the hardest part for the kiddos. Many an eyeball got cut to pieces before all 23 of them had a good pair. haha. They added their flippers in any sort of way. Some are flipping theirs up high like their penguin is waving. So cute!

Penguin art and Acrostic Poems

They DO use their beaks a lot, don’t they?

If you have older students, I have read the play as a choral read together when I taught 1st and 2nd grade. Most of the kids can read the words by now. The Grandview Library has a freebie copy of the play HERE.

And penguins have lots of new chicks every year. For G she wrote Graceful. So sweet.

Penguin Art and Acrostic Poems

Then we made our own beaks folding a piece of orange bright paper and cutting out a triangle. This way it looks 3D like the penguins are quacking. Then I cut out a bunch of sets of feet and everybody chose ones they liked. Another grade could probably cut their own out but we wanted to save some time. Then they added the hats and bow ties. The hats I just freehand cut, and then they glued down a band over the top with the corresponding color, and we all chose a fuzzy ball to glue on top of the sweater hats.

Lastly I punched out some little snowflakes and they glued 2 down wherever they wanted. Here these little men are! I love them so much!

I always make a giant Penguin and write facts the kids remember from what I’ve read to them. Then we use this as a mini report starter. Kids can copy some of the facts they see. This year I decided to do an acrostic instead. But this is also great to use for brainstorming words with the P E N G U I N letters.

Some years I’ve had the kids write their own Penguin Stories using Tacky the Penguin as the Stencil Story. I start with a story frame and the kids fill in the missing parts according to their character.

One year we did Winter Poetry. That gave me the idea to do some Penguin Acrostics. That is a very EASY way to have young kids start writing. They can copy words to go with the acrostic letters.

We have to sing a bunch of fun songs too of course. This one is to the ABC Tune or Itsy Bitsy Spider or Jimmy Cracked Corn or whatever fits.

Last year I had 2nd graders so we painted footprints and made our Penguin art out of our black footprints. It was very messy. The baby penguins are out of thumbprints. It took a few tote trays of water on the floor and lots of paper towels to wash and dry those little feet off! The hats and scarves are painted on. You would have to be sure your kids are old enough to design a penguin.

One year I had them do a funny story and some tear art penguins. That is my favorite, but I can’t find the time with half day kindergarten. It takes a lot of time to do tear art. And these penguin stories were soooooo cute. I loved them so much.

They had to have a problem that matched one their character would have. Then they had to have 1 friend, and a solution, and a setting. My favorite was the Katy Perry Penguin who broker her microphone while doing a concert. It was a hoot.

This penguin was also a singer. Lots of rock stars started out in my classroom. tee hee.

Here’s my hubs and I at the Ice Castles last year in Midway, Utah. They were awesome. This year they are in Park City right near Soldier Hollow HERE. It is so fun to do winter activities in the snow. And it is fun to be creative using penguins as your theme.

Valentine Cootie Catchers V

We were in the mood for some sweets at my house today. And we decided that maybe we’d take a trip in the car down to the new SWIG drive through in Draper. They have the most maaaaaavelous Swig Sugar Cookies there. They are soft and big and covered in pink, sour cream icing. But we were kind of lazy. Correction, I was kind of lazy. So I roped my daughter into making some. HERE they are on my cooking blog.

Valentines Cookies and Valentines Cootie Catchers…..which one sounds like more fun? Hmmmm……

Kids LOVE these fun little fortune tellers. Mine all did. So what luck to stumble across this cute one you could make for a Valentines Day craft or to make up at home and play.

Valentines Day Decor I have in my classroom and at home.

I like that this one at Design Mom has cute Valentines in all the 4 corners along with some sight words and numbers for the kids to choose. Number recognition is still hard for some kiddos even this late in the year. The more practice they get with numbers the better.

Make these up just for fun at home! It is kind of a fun mommy and me project.

The link to my cooking blog is here at Weekday Chef. Go make some cookies! They are creamy good! Bad me. I keep saying I’m going to give up sweets, but do I ever mind myself? NO!

Another fun writing activity I found on TPT for freebies! It is a Valentines Read the Room activity. It has Valentine monsters to match to the word, then write the word in the correct space. HERE it is on TPT. Thanks Camp Kindergarten! It’s super cute!

I’ve almost got all of my Valentines Decorations up around the house. I changed the classroom calendar and put up some hearts and fuzzy bears and I Love You wall hangings.

My students will all love the little light up LOVE light I bring into class each year. Isn’t it sweet? I keep it lit up during the day.

I bought all kinds of fun stuff at the dollar store for our Valentines Day Party. I have plates, napkins, heart counters for math, candy, pencils and a goodie bag, and some tic tac toe games we can play at a center. Cootie Catchers will be a hit too! I have lots of other fun things in mind too.

For our Halloween Party we’ll be making cookies like these darling Valentines heart cookies. I have a gazillion little jars of sprinkles we can have fun with. I might need some tiny candies too. Maybe I can get a few donations.

And we’ll be making bead bracelets for our craft. The kids always love that. And the tic tac toe will be fun. We should do some kind of relay race too. That always adds to the chaos of a kindergarten party!!

I have a few other fun ideas up my sleeve too. It will be a fun month. I always love February. And the kids always Love the fun Valentines Day par-tay.

Sight Word Games

I have been looking for lots of sight word games for center activities these next few weeks. A very cute one I found is a Snowball Sight Word Writing Game. It is HERE at Mrs. Lirettes Learning Detectives.

The kids could stamp the words into playdough, or write the words in flour. That is always fun. My recipe is HERE.

The girl and boy superheroes are HERE at Melonheads.

We also did these superheroes last year with “ing” words. I could have kids write sight words inside the “pow” shapes instead.

Another fun game was a fly swatter attached to a picture of a cat. Then fish with the sight words are spread all over the floor and the kids take turns “swatting” one of the fish with the fly. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me too, except that I know kids will find it engaging. And hopefully they will read the word on the fish as they play. You could also just use a magnet and a string on a stick and make a “fishpole”. That is what I will use to play the game with the fish laminated and with a paper clip on each one for the magnet to stick to. This game is HERE.

A game I made up a long time ago is a Spider match game for compound words. I may just use the webs for sight words too! I’ll have to come up with a sticky spider of some sort to “stick” to the webs.

Another cute one was a colorful gumball machine with gumball sight words to read and cover. And this site also had cute little fried eggs with sight words inside, that kids could pick up with a black, plastic spatula from the Dollar Store. I loved these HERE at TPT. They are free.

I also found a cute Princess and Dinosaur Bingo Gameboard pack at Walmart for only a $1.00. I cut out the calling card pictures and wrote a sight word on each one, then wrote the matching word on each board. It took me some time but I just plugged in a DVD and did it while I watched the movie.

Any Bingo game with words would be helpful for K-2 Kids during centers.

It was cheap and the kids have fun playing it. The last thing I used for this week is a sight word wall. It is really cute with little pictures along with the words. This would be great for kids to use with Magna Doodles of any kind. They can choose words and write them on chalkboards with colored chalk or even on paper or whiteboards. The link is HERE on TPT.

Martin Luther King Day Activities

I have kindergarteners this year. So I wanted to do a little bit of the activities I’ve done in the past but just make them a little simpler. My Martin Luther King posts from the last few years are HERE and HERE.

These little guys did such a good job. I told them some of the stories of the civil rights movement, and nobody thought anything sounded AT ALL FAIR. It is amazing the adults of the time thought things were when 5 and 6 year olds can tell they weren’t.

They did a great job writing some Dr. King quotes and phrases for Martin Luther King Day.

I will put their art and writing up on the bulletin board! It is awesome!

I can’t believe these kiddos are only 5 and 6 years old.

I told the kids all about how blacks had to ride in the back of the bus, drink out of their own drinking fountains, and be refused service in restaurants. Nobody thought it was fair at all!

I told them about the fire hoses that were sprayed on people who were marching peacefully with signs because they didn’t like the unfairness of it all. They didn’t think that was very nice either.

I told them about the marching people did in large groups holding signs. They wanted to change things for blacks. It wasn’t fair the way things were. The key was that the marches were peaceful. Dr. King helped people to dissent without violence. Boy do we need some of Dr. King’s influence these days!!!

So maybe Dr. King day comes at a good time in our country. America needs to feel more unified and peaceful after the recent events in Ferguson and other places in our world. There is so much violence!

Show that you care……what a great sentiment!

Dr. King would be proud of these students who really got his message.

This one kind of resembles Al Sharpton! How did that happen? lol

I thought this one turned out great too.

We had a good day learning about a Great American Hero. Dr. King lives on even though he was assassinated.

Treat people kindly. That is one of his messages and a great take away from today’s discussions.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

We will try to follow his example this week and this month and always!

Martin Luther King day is this coming Monday, January 19th.

I like this writing paper I found on TPT as a freebie. I like the dotted lines for my little kinders to help them form good habits and proper handwriting. It is HERE at TPT. There were some cute coloring pages also.

Martin Luther King, Jr. art and writing for K-2. We read the poem and wrote phrases from it in Kindergarten today.

I liked these activities for Dr. King Day too. Check them out HERE at TPT. Another cute one with an “I Have a Dream” header for a bulletin board or a shared writing is HERE from TPT. A cute wordsearch is HERE too. Some writing stationery is HERE. All are freebies.

Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream quote was a springboard for writing our dreams for the world.

DIRECTED DRAWING of Dr. King…….INSTRUCTIONS: I do it on the board then turn and walk around to see who needs help. Some kids will have to try the head a few times to get the right shape.

The directed drawing I did was easy. Tell the kids to use a brown, black, red and blue crayon only. Tell them to watch you do it first and listen carefully. Then they do what you did and WAIT for you to go on to the next instruction. Tell them to color in light even strokes using the side of the crayon.

1. First draw a large oval with the brown crayon. Find the middle of the oval and Add a nose that is like 2 small mountains or a capital M with a C on the left and a backwards C on the right. NO top on the nose.
2. Then in between the top of the head and the nose draw in 2 black eyes dark and round, but leave a little circle of white in the very middle. Then draw a half-circle arch above each eye in black.
3. Then above the eyes draw 2 bushy black eyebrows kind of like a caterpillar.
4. Then under the nose draw bushy black mustache like a caterpillar.
5. Then in between the nose and chin we will do a mouth kind of shaped like a rounded-at-the-bottom heart. Color it in light brown with a hint of light red.
6. Then put 2 ears on each side of the head even with the nose and color them in with brown.
7. Then use black and make circular swirls of black hair all around the head like a short afro cut.
8. Then draw a suit coat with a V neck in black but then color it in with blue, in an even direction. Be sure it is BLUE and not aqua.
9. Inside the v neck draw a red tie kind of diamond shaped. Then draw a small black W right under the chin, so it will look like a white shirt collar.
10. Then add some fireworks shaped like a plus sign and an X in blue and then go over it also in red. 11. Then put the name on top Dr. King.
12. Older kids can also draw an American flag on a pole.

Martin Luther King was a great American leader. We have so few that really stand out these days don’t we. I hope all the kids catch a glimpse of him on T.V. this weekend. Happy Martin Luther King Day!

The Amazon ECHO is My New Favorite Toy!

We’ve been having a lot of fun with this VERY NEW and VERY COOL musical toy my hubs got me for Christmas, and I just had to share! It just came in the mail on Friday. It is called the Amazon Echo. We can talk to it just like the iphone’s Siri. It answers your questions in a fun way. It can save your grocery list and help your kids spell their spelling words. But the best part is that it will play you your favorite music. It can be left on your kitchen or desk. It will play anything you feel like listening to. It will start and stop when you tell it to. It is amazing! Check it out!

Dylan in his Little Superman Jogger with a cape. Superman is pretty awesome too, as is James Blunt. At least we think so in this house.

Superman taking off as he is rather camera shy…..snicker….

I am in wonder of modern technology. I am living the life of the Jetsons (a childhood cartoon…lots of robots and spaceships). Marty McFly was right in Back to the Future. It is not out yet in general distribution. We won an invitation lottery and were invited to purchase it for half off the $199 price. What a great gift. I love my new Amazon Echo. It’s the bomb.