Now, I have a glorious two-week vacation and finally have a chance to sit down and BLOG, yo!
What I've really enjoyed in Kindergarten this year is Letter of the Week. I love going on Pinterest to find fun read-alouds and projects to do with my class each week. Check out my Letter of the Week board to see some project and book ideas!
Here is the short-list of my favorite Letter of the Week books and crafts that I've done in my classroom this year:
M is for Mobiles of the Moon
Who doesn't have a zillion wire hangers lying around? I put mine (and some parents') to good use by creating moon mobiles with the kids. I made crescent moon and star templates on yellow paper. The Kinders practiced their cutting skills by using the templates to cut out the shapes. I then punched holes in each shape and the kids helped me thread string through each shape. I simply tied each piece of string to the hangers and viola! Beautiful moon mobiles!
P is for Panda Bear
All kids love Eric Carle's Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? The repetitive phrasing allows students to join in and say the names of the animals as you read. The kids loved making cute panda bear faces to go along with the book. We used mini paper plates, and again I allowed the children to practice cutting skills by using templates so they could cut out the ears and eyes. By the way, since moving down to Kindergarten I will tell you now: GLUE SPONGES ARE AH-MAH-ZING. No more messy glue clean-up or dried out glue sticks to deal with. The Kinders love using them for all their projects. It is what the used to glue the ears and eyes onto their little pandas!
R is for Roads
The children in my class love playing with matchbox cars, so it only made sense that we make road maps! They had so much fun playing with their cars on their roads before we hung them up in the classroom. One of my favorite books to read in connection with the letter R and the theme of roads is One Hole in the Road . It is a fun counting book with very cool illustrations.
U is for Umbrella
I knew when we got to the letter U, I would of course read Umbrella by Taro Yashima. It is a great story about patience and responsibility. We don't get a whole lot of rain in Southern California, but this past week we actually had two straight days of rain! WHAT THE WHAT?! Anyway, the kids used watercolor to paint a template of the top of an umbrella and a lower-case u that would eventually become the handle of their umbrellas. Once the watercolor paint dried, the kids cut out the shapes and glued them on to blue backgrounds. I love all the color combinations and mixtures that the Kinders used with the paint!
V is for Volcano
I was not about to have a room full of Kindergarteners and an exploding baking-soda volcano. I know my group now, and that would be a mess! So instead, we read a fun book called Volcano! and used extra scraps of red, yellow and orange construction paper to create a collage of an exploding volcano. It was great to see a lot of the Kinders add details like lava rocks and magma that they learned about from the book into their collages!
B is for Blueberries
As a kid, I always enjoyed hearing the story Blueberries for Sal. It was so fun reading it to my class and hearing them laugh when the baby bear and Sal "switch places" and follow the wrong Mamas! The children created blueberry baskets by gluing a template of a fruit basket onto white paper. They then used blue finger-paint to create fingerprint blueberries coming out of the basket. Good enough to eat!
Well, those are some of my faves so far. I will probably do another Letter of the Week post later in the year with some of my new projects! What are your best letter of the week ideas? I'd love to hear form you!
