Leprechaun Messes and Portrait Successes!

My OH My!  March is one busy month!!!!  Between pink slips, conferences, IEP's, St. Patrick's Day, rain, and much more, I am barely keeping my head above water.  How about you?  Hanging in?

Back in February I attended a two day GLAD training. I HATE making sub plans and could have attended the same workshop in June, but because of job uncertainty I figured I should take advantage of the workshop now. Fast forward to March and there is an additional 4 MORE days of training. Now don't get me wrong, if you have not been through a GLAD training I highly recommend it, and I am learning so much buuuuuuuut 4 DAYS of sub plans!!! Le sigh.  Last week I realized leaving a sub with leprechaun visitors on Monday may not be the best idea.  I don't know about your classroom but my leprechaun visitors always have a tendency to wreak havoc.  Tipping over chairs, dumping out  table supplies, and just leaving classroom messiness in their wake.  In order to save the subs sanity, I had these wily leprechauns come during recess on Friday while the kinders were out playing.  When we entered the classroom students were in shock.  I quickly handed out their leprechaun view finders so they could go around the room looking for leprechaun clues.

Ah HA!  They must have come from the closet!  Green footprints were found outside the closet door.

One must get in REAL close to find leprechaun fingerprints. 

Once students had investigated every nook and cranny of the classroom, they headed back to their seat to draw these clues.  For those that needed an extra challenge they made a list of the clues.  Above, you will see a student's hand drawn clues such as: the leprechauns put sparkles on our leprechaun finders; the leprechauns left foot prints and left us lucky green coins; and the leprechauns tipped over the recycle bin.  Students were more than happy to draw, write, sound out words, all in the name of leprechaun fun.  As I was saying goodbye, students were barely out the door before I could hear them rattling off, to the parents waiting outside, the amazing leprechaun event.  The true magic of teaching comes in moments such as this where students are bursting at the seams ready to share.  

Below you will see examples from a parent led art activity.  We call our volunteer parent art program, Art Vista.  This lesson happened to be on portraits.  Students observed and discussed many famous examples of portraits such as Renoir's, Girl With A Watering Can and Goya's, portrait of Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga.  Then with step by step directions, they sketched a portrait of themselves, or someone sitting at their table, or they could even sketch ME!  They turned out fantastic!  

This portrait of me was perfect!  I especially love my eyebrows.  

Oh and here is my kitty LuLu ready for St. Patrick's Day wearing her flashing bow tie!

A Potato Play Kind Of Day

Today was a potato play kind of day!  I am a HUGE potato fan!  I like my potatoes mashed with garlic, baked with green onions and cheddar cheese, or even some boiled red potatoes hit the spot.  It just so happens that one of my favorite St. Patrick's Day stories is all about a BIG potato! 

At the beginning of the week we listened to this story on tape.  Then for the past two days, students assembled a potato flip book!  As a class we brainstormed the beginning, middle, and ending parts of the story.  Hello reading comprehension!!!!  I sketched everything the students brainstormed on the white board.  I made a point to ask students specific details about each character including hair color, clothes etc.  We also talked about what facial expressions to draw on the characters for each part of the story.   Students went back to their seats and got to work!  I stapled the potato flip books together.

Want to make these in your classroom?  This would be a great activity k-2.  Click HERE!

Students shared their potato flip book with a partner.  Pride for hard work was beaming on their faces! 

For this activity, students cut out potatoes and glued them as beginning sounds or ending sounds for each word.  After the potatoes were glued, they had to practice reading each word with a partner.  I went around and each child read the words to me as well.  Those that finished early could challenge themselves further by making a list of rhyming words or words that have the letter 'p' in them.     

                                        

Hard at work thinking of 'p' words!

Our final Potato Play Activity turned out EXTREMELY CUTE!  I highly recommend giving this a try with your class.  On the SMART board I flipped through Mr. and Mrs. Potato head google images.  A class discussion followed about silly potato heads, all the different parts you can put on a potato head, who has a potato head at home, and much more.  I love fun discussions like this because my shy, and english language learners come alive.  Comfortable oral language opportunities give them a chance to shine and speak up on a topic they 100% know and are an expert on!  Every student was smiling during the discussion and EVERY student was successful sharing their thoughts in front of the class.

I gave students two pieces of paper.  The Potato Portrait Play paper can be found HERE.  The other was a white paper.  Students colored their potato brown and then used the white paper to draw eyes, nose, mouth, and eyebrows.  They colored these parts in, cut them out, and glued them on their potato head.  All other parts students just drew directly on the Potato Portrait Play paper.  Next, they labeled each part of the potato head with words (eye, nose, mouth, eyebrow, and ear) cut off the bottom.  This activity can be done in one day, during centers, or spread over a couple days.  Students LOVE this activity and they do their most JUICY SPARKLE work.  We got quite a hoot and holler seeing all the potato heads finished!  This activity can be found HERE!

If you liked these activities be sure to check out my Teachers Notebook Store!  I am having a SALE on all items related to St. Patrick's Day INCLUDING this Potato Play activity pack.  Can't beat the low prices!

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head!

It's raining it's pouring and THIS teacher wishes she was snuggled up in bed snoring!  Luckily, my kinders were not trapped inside ALL day and in between showers we snuck out to play.  Thank goodness!  Unfortunately, rain is in the forecast ALL week long!  Rainy day recess here we come!!!  In honor of a rainy week we completed a raindrop art and sentence writing activity.  

First, students cut out a large raindrop from blue construction paper.  Next, they used laminated yellow construction paper for the rain jacket.  We added details to the rain jacket with black sharpie.  Students drew their face on a square white piece of paper and glued it to the raincoat.  We left yellow around the face for a hood.  Scrapbook paper was used for rain boots and oil pastels to add details.  (you will soon discover that I LOVE OIL PASTELS and use them all the time!!!)

Students wrote sentences to go with their art.   These sentences had to include spaces between words, a capital at the beginning of each sentence, lower case letters throughout, and proper formation of the letters 'p', 'j', and 'y.'  Once sentences were complete, students used markers to trace each word in a rainbow pattern.  

Adorable!  I can't wait to hang these cheery raindrops up in our classroom window!

Yesterday I posted THIS FREEBIE!!!  

Be sure to check out my Teachers Notebook store and download a copy.  My students LOVED making the leprechaun viewfinders from this FREEBIE!!!!  Here are some tips:  I found green cellophane at the grocery store in the floral department of all places.  The florist sold me two yards for a dollar!  I would highly suggest running the viewfinders off on tagboard or heavy construction paper.  I copied mine on regular paper and then stapled green construction paper to the back for a bit more sturdiness.  Students cut out the viewfinder and construction paper at the same time.  A parent helper cut the cellophane in squares.  Then they stapled the white viewfinder on the front with the cellophane in between and green construction paper on the back.  Craft sticks were also stapled on the bottom!  We decorated viewfinders with stickers, glitter, foam shamrocks, and our own personal art work.  Leprechaun hysteria is in full swing!!!!  

How are you celebrating St. Patrick's Day in your classroom?  Will you celebrate with your students this Friday or next Monday?

If you are looking for some last minute St. Patrick's Day ideas see the items below and click the picture!  Both are available in my Teachers Notebook store.

St. Patrick's Day SIGHT WORD book.  Easy teacher prep... easy book assembly... great sight word practice for students!

Leprechaun direct draw that ties in rhyming and St. Patrick's day fun!  The poem was created by me!!!!  Yes, I am bias, but I think it is stinkin cute!  

Word Walls and Leprechaun Subtraction Work Mats

Happy Monday!  Thanks to Daylight Savings Time and an action packed weekend (going to the Counting Crows concert with my man) I had to drag myself out of bed this morning.  How is everyone else holding up with the time change?

Now on to kindergarten fun!  At this point in the year my kinder cuties are on a roll memorizing sight words.  Most sight word memorization is done at home with my  Rainbow Sight Words Homework Program.  In class we use the Houghton Mifflin Language Arts series to learn sight words in order by theme.  These sight words, along with any other commonly used words, must be made visible in the classroom for student reference.  Unfortunately, bulletin board space in my classroom is limited so I had to get creative.  First stop was Michael's craft store for cute ribbon and velcro.  At Lakeshore I purchased the sight words bulletin board set.  Attach velcro to the back of sight word cards and ribbon.  Next, hang the ribbons from cabinets.  Today we focused just on Houghton Mifflin sight words(see picture below).  During Writer's Workshop I velcro all words on the wall.  If a student is stuck spelling a word I pull it off.  The student now has the word at their seat for easy reference.  Students love recording words from the word wall during 'Read the Room' time.   The velcro feature allows me to sort words with students, pull words off and hand them out, play word games, and focus on specific words.  Word Walls that are stapled do not allow for this flexibility.  

Up close and personal.

Have you found a successful way to make your word wall more interactive?  Do you think this word wall strategy could work for you?

Today we kicked off subtraction Unit 7 in enVision math.  To start the unit on a fun note we made leprechaun subtraction work mats.  Students cut out their face and glued it on white paper.  Then they turned themselves in to a leprechaun.  I stapled the cut leprechaun puppets to a craft stick.  Then they made a large pot of gold on a piece of white construction paper and decorated the background.  Each student received 10 yellow coins I cut from construction paper.  On the back of the mat I stapled a ziplock bag to keep the coins and puppet.

Here are some pictures of the work mats and leprechaun puppets.

Once everything was assembled we were ready to have fun with subtraction!  Students used mats in pairs of 2 or 3.  One student was responsible for recording the subtraction equation on a white board and the other student acted out the leprechaun subtraction problem.  I made up the word problem and had students provide me with the numbers.  By the end of the week students will work together and make their own word problems.  In the picture below I told students, "Once upon a time their was a leprechaun skipping through the grass.  He stumbled upon a pot of gold.  How many coins did he see in the pot?"  Students chose the number 10.  They placed 10 coins on the mat and wrote 10 on the white board.  "The leprechaun snuck three gold coins in his pocket.  How many are left?"  Students had the leprechaun puppet pick up 3 coins.  They would shout, "7 are left!  7 are left!"  Subtraction has never been so fun!

A sneaky leprechaun ran away with ALL 10 coins!

We will use these mats all week to practice subtraction. This activity exposed students to word problems, story telling, math vocabulary, symbols, writing a math sentence and much more!  At the end of the week students will take home work mats and teach parents leprechaun subtraction!

Click HERE if you want some more adorable and educational St. Patrick's day lessons.

Leapin Leprechauns!

Leprechaun magic is in full swing!  Today I read students the most ADORABLE poem.  Within the poem were underlined mystery rhyming words students had to guess.  These mystery words provided clues on how to draw a leprechaun.  I modeled the leprechaun on the white board to guide students.  In the end these leprechaun's turned out SUPER cute and each one is different and unique.  After reading the poem multiple times some students had it memorized.  The kindy cuties were so proud of their leprechaun pictures they begged me to hang them right away!  Clearly, every part of this rhyming/direct draw activity had them hooked!  

We also finished our St. Patrick's Day sight word books!

Sprinkle Leprechaun Glitter Magic

We sprinkled magic leprechaun dust today while making our March quilt squares.  I seriously love glitter!  Any chance I have to pull out the glitter for an art project and I do!!!