Hi friends! I've been super busy these last couple of weeks. But I had a minute today, so I thought I'd pop in and share some of the things we have been up to in our class! 1. MOTHER'S DAY PORTRAIT GIFT BAGS So originally we were going to make "All About My Mom" books and these portraits were for the cover of the books. But then I changed my mind on the gift (more below) plus lost 2 days last week due to a suspected fifth disease case (it was a false alarm, thank goodness!) and a half day this week for an OB appointment.. so I knew we wouldn't be able to do the book too. So I cut out the portraits they did for the cover and stuck it on brown paper bags! I used the directed drawing from First and Kinder Blue Skies. You can buy it by clicking here if you are interested! 2. MOTHER'S DAY CARDS I got the idea for this card off Pinterest (click here to see it on Pinterest, and if you know the original owner of the photo please let me know so I can give credit!) and knew I wanted to try it, since it looked soooo cute. But after I made my sample (above) I knew it would be waaaay too tricky for the kids to do independently. Then, I realized that this would be the perfect activity to do with big buddies during our weekly big buddy time! They did a great job with their buddies and they did most, if not all of the the work! The buddies were just there to give them verbal direction when they were stuck. 3. MOTHER'S DAY SHRINK FILM KEYCHAINS I originally saw this idea posted by Simply Kinder on facebook. She has a blog post about how to make these! Click here to read her blog post! This was a slightly stressful project, what with the prep work involved (cutting the shrink film and adding the lines with blue and red Sharpie), writing with Sharpie, and the shrink film was not my friend (I think I had to redo half of mine because they curled funny). One major thing I learned... don't put more than 2 in the oven at at time, and bake on the middle rack (I heard that one at a time produces even better results). I put 4 on a cookie sheet and put 2 cookie sheets during my first try.. and ruined all of them :( In the end, they turned out super cute and I think the mom's will love them but it was a stressful project! I have a class of 15 with no major behaviours and great fine motor this year but I don't know if I would attempt this with a full class! 4. DINOSAUR WONDERS The kids have been wondering about dinosaurs, so we have started our dinosaur inquiry! My kids this year have such good schema and come up with the most interesting questions! The one on the left really blew me away... I have a lot of research to do so that I can explain DNA to Kindergarteners! 5. DINOSAUR PLAY DOUGH + CHATTERPIX KIDS I've heard about ChatterPix Kids in the past and I can't believe it took me so long to download it! It's an amazing app for oral language and story telling! I modelled how to use the app and record a story first and then I let the kids make a dinosaur story with this dinosaur play dough tray and record their own stories. They had a BLAST! I'm planning to post a few on our inquiry bulletin board and already planning to use ChatterPix to document their inquiry learning in other ways! Stay tuned! 6. EGG PREDICTION CENTRE Since we were starting our dinosaur inquiry, I got this egg from Dollarama and set it out for the students to make predictions with! On the first few days the students observed the egg and made predictions. As it cracked and they were able to see parts of what was inside, they changed and added justifications to their predictions (e.g. "I think it's a chick because I can see a beak.") Finally, it cracked fully and I had the kids observe and record what hatched! (It was a triceratops!) They loved this activity and it kept them engaged all week! 7. DINOSAUR INQUIRY CENTRE {FREEBIE} I also set-up this dinosaur inquiry centre for the students to observe and read and also to record what they see, think and/or wonder! I added dry erase cards for the students to practice matching the dinosaurs (they are from the Dinos TOOB you can get at Michaels) and tracing and printing dinosaur names too! If you are interested in the dinosaur tracing/printing cards, you can grab them for FREE by clicking here or on the image below: 8. CVC STAMPING My kiddos could use some practice with CVC words and we haven't used letter stamps in ages so I updated my CVC stamping freebie and made it a full product! Now it has 17 pages with updated fonts and clip art! It also has pages titled "CVC Stretch It!" so that if you don't have stamps you can just have students use a pencil or marker and write the letters in! You can still grab the freebie version here. If you are interested in grabbing the full version, you can click here or on the image below: It's also been added to my CVC Centre: The Endless Bundle, so if you own that make sure to go and re-download it to get this pack for free! 9. STACKING CHALLENGE I got this idea from either the Ontario Kindergarten Educators facebook page or Durham Region K Educators Unite facebook page (you need to request to be a member for both, but I highly recommend both groups if you are a Ontario/DDSB K educator!). Students are invited to stack cards with cubes in between and see how many cards they can stack. We kept track of the tallest stack and the kids loved trying to beat the "high score"! It's an easy and cheap but engaging centre! 10. SPRING SURVEYS I wanted something that would combine oral language, tally marks and comparative language (more/less) so I made up these spring surveys! Students picked a survey, walk around and surveyed their friends and kept track of the answers using tally marks. Then they were encouraged to write the number beside the tally marks when they were done and also record the spring animal/insect that most people in the class liked! These surveys are in my "Kindergarten Spring Activities" pack. You can click here or on the image below if you are interested in checking it out! 11. BINGO DAUBER PATTERNS {FREEBIE} I'm always looking for new ways to practice and reinforce patterning so when I saw this sheet that @mrsmacskinders posted on Instagram, I knew I wanted to do it with my kids too! I love that it encourages kids to make 5 different kinds of patterns. Perfect for my kiddos who ALWAYS make AB patterns! You can grab this printable for FREE by clicking here or on the image below: Ok that's it for this week! I hope you are able to use some of the freebies :) Talk to you soon! - Yukari