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.

FREE Character Map

Okay, so I went to the fantastic ILASCD Statewide Conference for Pre-K and Kindergarten Educators. Two full days of new information, fun ideas, and expert advice. I have a list of math games to start making but first ---- I wanted to try giving my readers a free document.  It's nothing fancy but it is free and hopefully you just click and download. If I get the hang of this look for lots more free stuff coming your way. Thanks fellow bloggers!

click image to get your free character map

Sight Word Fun

I posted this activity last year too. The students "write" sight words using small building tools in our classroom. This year I added more building choices. Kids worked in small groups.  It took them awhile to discover how to form the letters - lots of intense discussions. They really wanted to use lowercase letters (I've taught them so well).  I did hint that uppercase might be easier with some of the materials. Our new "Magic E" sight words were made, make and like. Here are a few examples: