Letter E (part two)

About ten years ago I attended a training by Janet Chambers, a teacher-author who shared wonderful ideas about teaching literacy.  One of her ideas that really stuck with me was that of a "big event" to introduce each letter of the alphabet.  Ever since, we've had an alphabet worth of big events here at school each year. (See her book, Ready, Set, READ here.)

For the letter E, I've put together a small Easter basket of plastic eggs, each with something that begins with the letter e: envelope, Elmo, toy eggs, elephants - and some that are empty.  The kiddos LOVE it!

 I also took two groups of children to the zoo, to see the elephants (and of course, other animals.)

 

 I have to admit, I was surprised that the children had an idea in mind for the letter E, and were quite insistent that we do their activity: an Easter egg hunt.  I certainly didn't mind, I had that in mind myself, but I think it says something about the relevance of the activity, that the children who reviewed E with egg hunts last April remember it, and wanted to revisit it.  Not for candy, our eggs were empty every time except for our Good Friday egg hunt.  They loved the hiding and the seeking.  Needless to say, I dug out 6 dozen eggs, some baskets, buckets from the sandbox, and we had at it! 

 The kiddos hid the eggs (usually in a big clump, in "their" spot, so they could find them again quickly.)

 We lined up, and....

 Go!

 We hid and found the eggs over and over!

.

Next week, letter F!

Farm, puddles, bugs, BRIT, and zoo!

We're continuing our farm theme this week and next, as there is just SO much we want to learn about.  I made this sorting game board for our plastic farm animals this week, and the kiddos sorted animals and seeds on it.

 We did a lot of piggy activities this week, including Piggie Pie! by Margi Palatini at the listening center, and the Wee Little Piggies memory game.

 This was an exciting game, especially when someone remembered all five piggies in order to make the "This little piggy went to market" song play all the way through!

 We also practiced planting seeds like farmers, putting in hundreds of beans, chard, beets and kale seeds this week.  There's still more to go, and we'll keep working on it.  One of our youtube.com videos this week was a time lapse video of beans growing, so we're hoping that by Monday our plants will be sprouting, and we can watch them grow in real time!  I'm also hoping we'll have lots of yummy fresh veggies to eat this summer, there really isn't anything quite like picking vegetables fresh off the plant and popping them in our mouths - yum!

This week we had two different field trips.  The first group of kiddos went to Bella's Storytime at the Botanic Research Institute of Texas.  I've mentioned this story time before - it's the best story time I've ever been to!  This month we listened to the story The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Janet Stevens (see it on Amazon here), and did lots of fuzzy activities.

 We counted fuzzy pompons, sorted items by how fuzzy they were, painted with fuzzy things, and made fuzzy creations, as well as dancing with fluffy balls of fuzz.  We love Bella's Storytime!

 Another group of kiddos went to the zoo to see the giant animatronic insects.  Most of them loved it, but one kiddo isn't in any of these photos, because he was hiding behind me each time.  There's nothing quite like a 20 foot tall moving tarantula to make some of us nervous!

  I wasn't really expecting these insects to be very educational, just an extra thing to see between other animal exhibits at the zoo.  I was wrong!  Seeing the insects so much larger than life allowed the children to see some of the adaptations that make them great hunters or flyers.  On the dragonfly we could see the spikes on it's legs, and how it held its legs in a basket shape for catching mosquitoes.  We like them helping us with mosquitoes!

 When the ladybug opened it's wings, we could see that the red parts are stiff wing covers, there to protect the flimsy brown flying wings below.  It's very hard to see that on a real ladybug, but we had plenty of time to check it out on these.

I planned to take one more group of kiddos to the zoo, but we had a very rainy day, and it was not good zoo weather.  Luckily, there was a break in the rain, and we were able to go puddle stomping.  The children were so excited!  We took our shoes and socks off, rolled up our pants, and ventured out with bare feet.

 The children stomped and splashed in puddles....

...found bugs and snails in the soil....

 ... and ran around and around the circle planter in our cul-de-sac.

 Walking barefoot in the rain and stomping in puddles is one of those things that I believe every child needs to do sometimes, but it's often hard to find the right time for it.  As adults, we're so often rushing from place to place or chore to chore, that these moments can slip right by us.  Today we really did stop to smell the roses... covered in rain drops.

 Here we all are, damp but happy.  Yes, we did need a lot of baby wipes and towels afterwards.  And yes, we will definitely be ready to do this again!

Here are a few more pictures of the fun and learning we enjoyed this week:  painting...

 ...cleaning the table with shaving cream after we finished painting...

 ... learning on the ipad - I love how focused these children are, and that they are helping each other.  It's great to see the children working together to help each other learn!

... playing outside - of course!...

 ...checking out the cool caterpillar I found (but can't identify)...

 ...looking for roly pollies and other critters...

 ...and enjoying a picnic in the backyard.

Z is for Zebras and Zoo

 We're at the end of the alphabet, and like the other last few letters, there's not a lot that starts with Z.  Fortunately, zoo and zebra do, and we live near a great zoo, so we can include a zoo visit in our learning activities this week.

We started the week with Animal ABC's, and a sensory box full of plastic zoo animals.  After we read the book, the children dug in the sensory box for the animals, and then sorted them by initial letter.  This was a fun, sensory activity that engaged the children, and let us review our letters all at once.  After we completed this activity as a class, I made it available for free play too, and the children used it all week.

 

To follow up the whole class sorting lesson, the children made their zebra striped uppercase Z craft.  Teachers prepared plain white paper with lines to show where the children would need to cut, and the kiddos glued torn black paper stripes onto the other side.

 Later in the day, once the glue was dry, they cut out their letters.  Our Z's stripes were all unique, just like zebras'.

On Tuesday, we read two class-made books.  One was an alphabet book illustrated with photos of a previous class at the zoo.  (A is for aviary, B is for birds, etc.)  The children helped me brainstorm lots of zoo animals, and what letters they start with.  I wrote them all down, to prep for our field trips to the zoo, and for making a new photo alphabet book about the zoo with this year's kiddos.

We also read a copy of The Zoo Book by Heidi Butkus which we've been singing along with all week on YouTube.com.  After we read the one made by last year's class, we illustrated a new one - OUR copy.  The children love reading books that they helped to make!  

We also made our lower case z craft, once again cutting out the letter z, and adding stickers and cut paper zoo animals.

 Here are some of our completed letter crafts.

On Wednesday, I took 2 trips to the zoo.  Boy, was I tired that afternoon!  It's nicest all around to take a small group of kiddos, so I divide the kiddos into three groups of 4, take one group at a time, and leave the others at school with Ms. Julie.  Next week, I'll take the final group!  

The kiddos back at school made their z page for their individual alphabet photo albums.  This page is a bit sparse looking, as I couldn't find clip art, stamps or stickers for zucchini, zither or zig-zag, and the zero looked like a letter o, so I didn't want to use it.

To prepare for the zoo field trips, and to make sure we get a picture for each letter of the alphabet, I made a list of animals for each group to look for.  The first group went to the Museum of Living Art, and the birds, penguins and kangaroos, all located towards the middle of the zoo.  The second group went to the far end of the zoo, to Texas Wild, and the last group will go to the African Savannah and Asian Falls areas.  There isn't time to see the whole 64 acres of zoo in one trip, not with little legs that get worn out easily, so we try to see different areas on each trip.

 In case you would like to make a similar alphabet book on your trip to the zoo, here's how I divided our search.  I've included some letters in more than one area, and of course, there are many other possible choices!
MOLA and central areas of the zoo: C (cobra or crane), D (diamond back rattlesnake or ducks), F (flamingo, fish), I (iguana, insects), K (kangaroo, komodo dragon), N (newts), P (penguins, python), S (snake, scorpion), U (underground snake - the Louisianna Pine Snake), V (vulture, venemous vipers)
Texas Wild: A (alligator, ammonites-fossils in the Texas map near the entrance to Texas Wild), B (bald eagle, bobcat), J (jaguar), L (longhorn cow), M (mountain lion), O (otters), Q (quail), U (sea Urchins - touch tank in the Gulf Coast display), W (white tailed deer, wagon, wolf), X (in Texas, or in exit), Y (Yellow Rose Express train).
African and Asian animals: B (sun bears), E (elephant), G (gorilla), H (hippo), I (ibex), L (lion), M (monkeys, meerkats), O (ostrich, orangutan), R (rhino), T (tiger), W (warthog), Z (zebra).

On Thursday we read More Life Size Zoo by Teruyuki Komiva, but again, there are many choices of zoo themed books to choose from.  Here are some others I have available for the children:

We followed up with a cute craft, creating our own zoo pictures with foam stickers.  Simple, easy enough for the smallest kiddos, but still working fine-motor muscles for the preschoolers, and of course, the children had to write their name.  It's hard to see from these photos, but they wrote "My name's Zoo" in the center of their picture.

On Friday, we made our zebra hand print crafts based on this one, and zucchini muffins. We used this recipe, because I was fairly sure that having chocolate chips in the muffins would convince everyone to at least try them.  The ingredients looked yummy!

 I had 3 small zucchinis to grate, and 12 kiddos to help, so I cut each zucchini into 4 pieces.  One of the kiddos exclaimed, "Hey, that's in quarters, just like when we cut up bananas!"  I love when they remember concepts weeks after I introduce them - it means they are really learning.

 Each child got to put a piece of zucchini in the food processor to grate it.  This was their first time to use the food processor, so they were very excited!

 We all took turns adding another ingredient, and of course smelling the spices and chocolate chips.

 At snack time we got to try them!  They looked so good!

I had the children predict whether they thought they would like the zucchini muffins, and to graph our predictions.  After tasting we checked to see what the actual results were - we are scientists, after all!  The final veridct?  Well, there were 48 mini muffins to start with, and here's what was left:

Only one child didn't like them, everyone else ate 2 - 5 muffins each!  We will definitely make this recipe again, and next time, I'm going to add a cup of applesauce to the mix, to moisten it a little more.  Yum!