Understanding Diversity

Last year I wrote this post about diversity.  My cuties last year really understood the lesson on diversity through that activity so I did it again this year.

We started our lesson on diversity by talking about our skin and the colors we see.  Of course most answers were black and white.  One cutie did say peach.  Then I read this book:

Then we learned we were going to create our skin color with paint.  I asked my cuties what colors of paint we would need to create our skin color, and again, I heard black and white.  So I asked them, "To make Mrs. Crowder's skin color, what colors would we need?"  Many of them said white, so I rubbed a little white paint on my hand.  They all agreed it wasn't correct.  So then we mixed a little more of different colors, from the choices of red, yellow, black, brown, and white.  We all agreed I wouldn't need brown or black, so we tried with a little yellow, red, and white and then we did it!  We made Mrs. Crowder's skin color.

Then it was their turn.  I gave them little plates of paint to mix small amounts to make their skin color.

Once they made their color, then we mixed a little more in a Dixie cup for them to create a self portrait.

Then we all checked out each other's work and came to the conclusion (YAY!!!!!!) that we all have different skin and none of us are really the same color so we all need to be freinds because, really, we are all different!

A quick freebie for the 100th day!

Hi friends!  Out 100th day is coming on Thursday and I am so excited!  One activity my cuties need to do to prepare for the day is send 100 small items that fit in a baggie.  Since we are beginning our learning about measurement, I wanted us to compare the weight of our baggie to a friend's baggie.  Here is a little freebie to help us compare the weights of the two baggies.

Here are my past post about the 100th day.

Publishing Authors

In Writer's Workshop we have been publishing like crazy!  I am so proud of my cuties.  We follow Lucy Caulkin's curriculum and I must say that I am a fan.  Take a look at some of our published books:

 (Can you see the dedication stamp at the top.  We love dedicating our books!)

 

Once we have published a book, then it gets to go home for families to enjoy for one evening.  I send them home in a gallon baggie with this label from my website.

When the book is brought back to school, my cuties get to create a puppet show about their book using the Sock Puppet app for the IPAD.

 

You can read more about my Writer's Workshop here.

Have a happy Monday!

Super Bowl Sunday Sale

Hi friends!  What a week this has been and next week is going to be even more cukoo!  I will be out for three days to attend TCEA - a technology conference here in Austin, TX, and then I will return on the 100th day of school.  As Pete the Cat would say - "It's all good!"  Anyways, I just wanted to let you all know about the Super Bowl Sunday sale on TPT tomorrow.  Enter the promotion code SUPER to get 28% off your sales.

 

Click the pic below to visit my store.

What Comes Next? Freebie

We are getting ready to start addition in my classroom.  We work on it all year, but this will be a more focused few weeks on adding and writing number sentences.  To help them understand adding, I wanted to provide them with more practice with counting on from a number using a number line, so I created this little freebie.  It's nothing fancy, but I hope you can use it too!

Ewwweee! Germs!

Last week we learned about winter health and germs.  We did a little experiment to help us learn about germs spreading.  I started the lesson by having my cuties sit around a paper that said Germs are Gross! and they all signed it if they agreed. 

 Each student signed the paper and then I stated that we were going to agree to not spread germs and that we would "shake on it".  Before we shook hands, I gave them all a dot of paint on their hand - either blue, yellow, or red.  Then we walked around and shook hands to agree to not spread germs.

After a few moments of hand shaking, we sat around our paper and stamped our hand above our name.

We washed up quickly, than I informed my class that the students with red paint were germs.

We then looked at our handprints and noticed that we all had red paint mixed with our hand print!  Yikes!  How easily germs spread.

We reveiwed hand washing with my song below:

  This idea came from Little Miss Kindergarten's blog.  Check it for more science goodies!

Very Busy Vowels

Happy Saturday, friends!  We have been working like busy, busy bumble bees this week to master medial vowels and CVC words.

To review vowels, we observed the shape of our mouths when we said short vowel sounds.

 

 We also sang Vowel Sound Hound Dogs to review those sounds.  I love Jack Hartman's music and Kim Adsit has an awesome book to accompany the song at here TPT store.

We made words with Deanna Jump's Stretchy the Word Snake and practiced stretching sounds with slinkies.

We also played What's that Vowel? from my Very Busy Vowels unit.  To play, students take turns rolling a picture dice and naming the medial vowel sound.  Then they move their pawn on a game board to that vowel.

We also enjoyed medial vowel scoot from my little unit.

 You can grab these goodies from my unit by clicking the picture below.

 I will give it away for free to the first 5 people to leave a comment with an email address.

Enjoy your weekend!