Earth Day

I couldn't decide on the many ideas I had for Earth Day this year, so I did two projects with my kinders.

The Lorax is an awesome story and has a great message for Earth Day.

I have the original book The Lorax, of course, but I also have two other books that are have the character The Lorax in them. 

All of these books are great. And of course, there is the movie, which I personally loved. Our kindergarten field trip was to see The Lorax in a theater last year. 

So what I did with my class was I used this freebie from a blog I found through Pinterest. 

I copied mine on plain old white paper though so that the kids could color it on their own.

We re-read The Lorax (original) and I asked them the question that the book leaves you with: What would do if you received the last Truffula tree seed from the Onceler?

And these were the results:

"I will plant a Truffula tree and I will plant it behind my house and I will take care of it and I will water it."

"I would plant it on tow. I will water it. I will let it get sun."

The other idea I came across was one where the kids make a hand print Earth.

Cute, but next time I will use a lighter blue......

This is where the book "How to Help the Earth by The Lorax" came in. We also read other nonfiction books about taking care of the earth.  

"I will say "Please do not throw trash on the Earth!" "

"I will turn off my lights when I go."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here are a few things I did with my class for St. Patrick's Day this year. 

I came across this on Pinterest - Lucky Charms Treats! A perfect snack for St. Patrick's Day! Very easy, very messy, and very yummy!!!

 I created and printed these little labels and used green ribbon. I also made some for my teacher friends that said: I am Lucky to work with you!

Every year I also let my kids graph Lucky Charms marshmallows. I have a graph that I use, but this one from TPT is much cuter! :)

A friend shared this idea from Pinterest and I thought I'd give it a try!

Shrinking Leprechaun Hats

On Thursday, I had my kids use permanent markers to decorate their cups (hats). I told them that we were going to see if we could get a leprechaun or two to come to our classroom, so the hats should have things that leprechauns like. The kids drew the Irish flag, pots of gold, rainbows, and shamrocks. The came out really well!

I told the kids I would put them out at their seats once they had had time to "dry" that afternoon.

I took them home and followed the directions on the link above. 

Preheated my oven to 250, put 4 cups on a cookie sheet at a time and watched for (a long) 3 or 4 minutes until the cups began to shrink. When this part happened, it happened fast! Mrs. Miner says to watch them and she isn't kidding! If you aren't careful, they will shrink too much! I had a few that tilted and few that fell over and kind of melted closed...oops. But, many of them came out great!

We had a read a book earlier in the week called The Hungry Leprechaun by Mary Calhoun about a leprechaun who gets caught by a greedy man who only wants him to make things into gold. However, the little leprechaun has trouble with his magic.

I wrote a little message on the board that said that the leprechaun friends had come and loved the hats so much that they wanted to wear them too! So, they tried to shrink them, but some of the friends were not that good at magic, yet...

The kids were able to infer what happened in the room based on the clues left for them - leprechauns are little so they shrank the hats, they are short so they needed the chair to reach to markers. They dumped the markers out so they could find the green. They wrote the message down low because that was how high they could reach. 

It was really a fun day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you and your kiddos! :)  

Kinder-"Garden"

Our Exploration Room is back! This time our theme is plants, creepy-crawlies, and all things spring!

Our adorable reading center!

The flower shop: Petersburg Petals!

There are also wings and antenna headbands to dress up as bugs!

Hopscotch rug between reading and the math and puzzles shelf.

Science center complete with snakes, bugs, frogs, a pond, balances, magnifying glasses, and real bugs in acrylic. 

Blocks center complete with a barn, farm animals, and trucks.

Grass growers - one for each class. I think we'll go with a little green guy. I will let the kids name it and we can see which class can grow the tallest "hair!"

Art Center

Our door! 

 Adorable little planters! 

We named ours Alvin!

Planting a garden!

Working at the flower shop!

Reading buddies

He is making the shapes on the bucket.

Spring Fling in effect!

The art wall!

Dr. Seuss

My classroom is ready for a Dr. Seuss study! Since Dr. Seuss' birthday was on a Saturday this year (and February FLEW by!) we will be doing our author study this coming week! Part of my theme is Dr. Seuss, so there are characters up all year my classroom and on my door. To go a little further, I made these truffula trees for the door!

I will add more to this post this week as we do cute Dr. Seuss activities!