Science - Bats (How to celebrate Halloween without celebrating Halloween!)

Halloween can be a spooky and fun, however many schools are getting rid of the label Halloween and in some cases not entertaining the holiday at all. My school is one of them.

Even if we are not allowed to decorate for the holiday in the classroom, I wanted to still keep this time of year fun, memorable, and light for the students.  I decided, if we are not allowed to decorate for Halloween, I can still get around that by doing a unit on something that many relate to Halloween, but take out the scary and turn up the learning. Writing down ideas, such as pumpkins, bats, skeletons, ghosts and owls, that are synonymous with Halloween. I went through the process of elimination as to what would be most appropriate for my age group and Bats it is!

Crafts:

- paper tube bats  http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mbat.htm

Hang them from the ceiling and voila! Decorating for science project - not Halloween.  ;D



Books:

- Informative, non-fiction

- fun, fiction, can use as a compare/contrast

- informative and fun









OF COURSE, I must have some sort of cross-curriculum, interactive visual to guide my students through our bat unit.

- Display board; $2 Michael's, with coupon
- Velcro: left over from other projects
- Pictures: print on home computer
- Lamination: school

Display board addresses labeling, interactive guessing with what they can eat, as well as adding rhyming into the mix because it is so important in Kindergarten curriculum.

When we take away the stigma of bats being thought of as scary, especially in regards to Halloween, the students become enthralled with learning about just what bats can do because they are mysterious creatures of the night.

Just for fun, we ended the unit with a trip on the Magic School Bus! 

Video - episode, Going Batty!

As a child, this episode helped me truly understand what echolocation is and my students now comprehend it better than the first graders because of the visualization presented in this episode. 

After we set up a safe obstacle course and went around the class using our "echolocation" to try not to bump into chairs. Bats are so interesting, they are not scary, and it is perfect to teach around Halloween so that we can decorate and celebrate without actually doing so for the holiday.

We also did our own version of something I saw on pinterest years ago with pumpkins:

- counting pumpkins
- roll-a-pumpkin game

Community Helpers

In my experience working with younger grades over the past eight years, we have always started our year with Community Helpers. It got me thinking, "If I am doing this every year, then others must be also, even on a review level. So how can I make Community Helpers unit more intriguing for the students if they learn/review it yearly preschool-first grade?"

 I decided to make it more interactive for them and let them use their own knowledge of the subject to learn through play.

The ultimate goal of teaching Community Helpers is to have the students understand what a community is and why these people help the community run.

I started with a plain white display board and took out my trusty ruler to add "streets" and "driveways"  in the middle section of the board.

I searched the internet for pictures of where community helpers worked. Printed them out, cut and glued them on to our "community." I used two velcro dots next to each building so that the person had a place to stand as well as their corresponding vehicle.


Earlier, I also found community helper people and matching vehicles on the internet that had some consistency in how they looked. I printed them out, cut and laminated each one individually so I can hopefully keep this board for years to come. On the back of each community helper, I placed a velcro dot so that the students can easily grab, move, and play with the community helpers within our little paper community. I kept all this to one side of the display board.

Now having completed the left and the middle of my display board, I contemplated what to do with the final side flap. It is not only important for students to know who is working in the community but where and what is their community? I decided to add (from general to specific) information about just where OUR community is located. 

Through my experience, I have found that the more opportunities presented to students to be interactive with their own learning, the better they understand and comprehend what a teacher is trying to communicate. My students ask to play with this board, months after we have finished the unit because it is something that is tangible for them in our crazy city.

Total out of pocket cost: less than $10
 (lamination and velcro are majority of expense)

I will preserve and utilize this piece of equipment for as long as mother nature and my curious kindergartners will allow!

Mother's Day

I have been trying since I started teaching to come up with a somewhat unique Mother's Day craft that moms might keep out a little longer than the average "I made a hand print for you" gift. Moms love the "hand print" but, I have noticed more of my parents are more modern and have even admitted to me that they often throw out artwork. I wanted to find and do something a little different, so I combined a few ideas I have seen.

The Forever Bouquet of Flowers

Materials (all bought at a discount - let's face it, we're on a teacher's salary here)

- $0.99 pack of green pipe cleaner stems
- $2.00 150 pack of cupcake liners (fun designs to add a pop)
- $4.99 pack of 6 floral Styrofoam cut into halves (I have a small class)
- $0.99 box of glittery Styrofoam balls (Easter closeout at Michaels)

Total : $ 8.97 with plenty left over for next years class and possibly the year after.

 

 

We started by bending the green pipe cleaners to create a "stem" with a leaf.



 

Then we cut cupcake liners to look like flower petals and insert stem into bottom of cupcake liner.

 

 

Bend pipe cleaner on top of cupcake liner then glue center piece on top - some kiddos added buttons or glitter stickers to make center of flower pop more.

 

 

We put the little glitter Styrofoam balls on other stems to mix up our flowers a bit. Then the kiddos had a blast being their own little flower arrangers sticking the pipe cleaner stems into the floral Styrofoam. 

 



 

Place in a clear glass container or cover with construction paper for the flowers to be in a pot, then the kiddos and parents are free to enjoy their cute little "Forever Bouquet."

Sight Words

There has been debate over spelling test and whether they are effective or not. Whatever I may believe on the subject, I believe that above all, students really need to see the words in action, make words fun, have them jump off the page so the kiddo can say, "Hey! I've seen that word before and I know it!"

In order to make sight words fun in our classroom I decided to go with the high five method. Allow me to explain....


There are words, that are very common when reading and we come across them often, these are sight words. Sight words do not always follow phonetic rules and can confuse the kindergartner when trying to teach. In order to have the kiddos I teach still focus on the phonetic rules and yet learn every day sight words, I made it a game.

Before we leave the classroom to go to music, lunch, home, etc., the kiddos are required to high five the sight words by the door before we head out and they love it!

 

As an alternative, I call out a sight word and they have to high five it as fast as they are able. Sometimes we also have two players with fly swatters to work on the quickness of our word recognition.

 

I also made  Reading Center "Sight Word Slap" folders that are easy for the kiddos to play together.

 

 

It is the same principle as "Slap Time" however using sight words.

 

The kiddos enjoy the challenge and the healthy competition. I adore when they get so excited when they connect a sight word in a book they are reading and the same sight word on the wall. They are incredibly proud for reading all by themselves and I feel that I have done my job!