Eric Carle Activities

Eric Carle is the last artist-of-the-month for my FDK class. By now the kids are fearless, creative, talented artists - okay, I know all kindergarteners are but I like to think my artists are the BEST!
We spend one hectic hour or half hour or whatever it takes (this year on a half day Friday) making our "Eric Carle paper." We have bright colors of paint set out on each table. Each table has a couple of brush types and texture stampers or objects. I make sure we have lots of browns and yellows as we will want these colors for brown bear and rubber ducks. Then we paint and paint and paint. Kids can partner up and move to other tables.  It's chaotic creative fun. We fill up two drying racks and look for flat surfaces to dry more. Phew.

Our "big" Eric Carle project is completed in small groups at our "stations." Each student chooses from: bear, duck, butterfly, fish, or bird. The kids pick papers to use and trace their templates on the back. Experience has taught me to write UP on the templates. Then the kids cut out and assemble.  There are models to look at but as you can see there is plenty of room for individual taste and interpretation. I like a black background but since Carle uses so much white I let the students choose. I made the templates on poster board using Eric Carle's work as inspiration.

These two butterflies show how each student used the templates, papers and their own details to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.








This week at stations we are using Eric Carle's book Ten Little Rubber Ducks to inspire our writing and research.  After reading the book together we discussed writing our own book. As we rotate through our stations we have 7 groups.  Perfect.  Each group would choose a continent to represent. Next the students each decide on their own animal to meet up with the rubber duck. Here is where the research comes in.  What animals live in Asia? Africa? Australia?  What are some of their characteristics.  We have books and a laptop at the station. The students also use some yellow "Eric Carle" paper to make a duck for their pictures.  Honestly I think I saw the "duck" idea somewhere else - but it was a couple of year's ago so I can't give proper credit. Here are some samples from last year:

We also do a play based on The Grouchy Ladybug. I know blogs and Pinterest are full of other great ideas. I hope to squeeze in at least one more fun / educational Eric Carle project!

Some Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers from this year's bunch!

You can see this one in progress below.

Georgia O'Keeffe - O'Yeah!

It’s finally springlike outside and that means in FDK it’s time to paint giant flowers inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. And yes they look FANTASTIC! The beautiful flowers will be on display en masse for Open House.

But last week the FDKers impressed me with their Georgia O’Keeffe knowledge recall and research. At our BOW WOW (word work or writing) station the students filled in a flower-shaped character map. The groups chit-chatted about favorite details from stories about O’Keeffe, reread books looking for fun facts, and planned how to condense their ideas onto flower petals. The resulting character maps were insightful, cute and clever.

 Last week the FDKers drew still lifes also inspired by O’Keeffe. The still life had a skull, shell and trumpet (in honor of our music study of jazz). WOW! The drawings looked great but what really impressed me was the students’ fearless attack of drawing a trumpet. There are a lot of little parts on a trumpet. Lots of curves, straight lines, and intersections. Each child had a unique interpretation. They observed closely, drew carefully and kept trying! Perseverance personified!

Keeping with the O’Keeffe theme we had a math game featuring a BIG Flower - got the idea from thefirstgradeparade.blogspot - then adapted it for my class. The kids dropped 2 foam butterfly stickers over a large flower with numbers 0 - 9. They rolled a die with + and - on it.  Then they filled in and solved an equation using the numbers the butterflies landed on.  Blooming brains! Click to get Free Worksheet for game.

Get the worksheet FREE. Click on worksheet above.

Happy

Happy by Mies Van Hout is the title of the book that inspired some fun art in FDK. This book was fantastic for vocabulary enrichment. Everyone enjoyed acting out the words after we read the book (wish I could show those photos). Later we put the "feelings" in a basket.  When students came to the ART station they chose a "feeling" from a basket and then illustrated the feeling through their fish. The display greets us each morning.

 

Check out the book for yourself. Great art and words!

Simply Water - and free water worksheet too

Free H2O Worksheet - Solid Liquid Gas Ice Water Steam   Follow up page.  Click and download.

Sew Fun for Spring Break

It's spring break, I'm home with a to do list as long as my arm - SOOOOO time to make a project that I don't need from off Pinterest. My granddaughter loves fabric and she is learning to sew. We saw a cute fabric basket on Pinterest and headed to the fabric store.  Because she is about the sweetest girl ever, she suggested we get fish fabric since her mother is studying fish in her kindergarten classroom. She thought the basket would be good for holding the "fish stuff."  Brilliant.  I'm starting my Fish/Water Unit when I get back to school. We each made one. I am feeling an urge to make a bunch more BUT that aforementioned unit is not quite done yet.

A serious seamstress.

I'll put the fish nets and food in here at school. Saved some fabric for a table cloth too.

Everything looks better with good fabric draped over it! 
Now back to school work.
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Free St. Patrick's Day Puzzles

Click on pot of gold to get free puzzles and worksheet.