Skeletons and Other Fall Fun!

My littles and I began our study of skeletons today. They were excited to learn that bones grow as we grow! We read the book Your Skin and Bones from the “Your Body” pack by Scholastic. Click on the picture to see the set on Amazon!

The kids enjoyed reading this simple book about bones. They were particularly fascinated by the names of the bones and the skeleton diagram in Chapter 2! After we read the book, I asked the students to draw a skeleton! It was a simple activity that my littles really liked! I gave them white crayons and black construction paper and let them go! The drawings are adorable. Check them out!

I love the finger and toe bones! :)

He drew his skeleton's teeth!

It looks like this skeleton only has one eye...but check out that neck and back bone!

Love the ribs!

There are lots of ribs on this one!!! :)

He drew his heart inside his skeleton...I am also loving the pelvic bones!!! Or are those "butt bones"....?! Ha ha! He also told me that he wrote his name using a "skeleton style"!

I just love her simple skeleton! So cute!

I also had the students practice writing sentences today. I wrote the sentence, “The leaves are falling!” for them and asked them to copy it. I reminded them to use finger spaces and to use a capital “T” in the word “the” since it is the beginning word of the sentence. I asked them to draw a picture of either themselves or their families underneath their writing.

Then, I gave them some foam leaf stickers and asked them to place the leaves onto the paper to make them look as if they were falling off of the trees and blowing in the wind! I threw in why leaves change colors in the fall but it pretty much fell flat! Ha ha! Anyway…here are some pictures of the results!!

Too cute, right?!

Tomorrow we are continuing studies of our bones!

Happy Monday everyone! J

P.S. – I found this cute font on Font Space! It is by “The Butterfly”. 

Concluding Nocturnal Animals (Trick or Treat for the Freebie that's hidden in the post!)

Nocturnal Animals conclusion:

My littles and I have been learning about nocturnal animals for the last few weeks (see previous blog entries!) After reading these books…

 I wanted to “test” their new knowledge! I asked them to draw pictures of nocturnal animals. When I handed them black construction paper, they protested! Their eyes lit up when they began drawing on the paper with their crayons! 

Here are some pictures of the results!!

We also read parts of “Owls” by Gail Gibbons. I asked them to draw three facts they learned about owls. I made this template for them:

Here are some pictures of their drawings. 

Fact 1: Owls catch field mice. Fact 2: Some owls make nests inside a cactus. Fact 3: Some owls make nests in trees.

Fact 1: Some owls nest in a cactus. Fact 2: Owls catch snakes with their talons. Fact 3: Owls lay eggs.

Fact 1: Owls catch mice. Fact 2: Owls can swallow a snake whole. Fact 3: Owls catch snakes.

Fact 1: Owls live in a cactus. Fact 2: Owls live in trees. Fact 3: Owls like snakes to eat.

Fact 1: Some owls are brown. Fact 2: Snowy owls are white with black spots. Fact 3: Owls catch snakes with their talons.

My goal for this activity was to help students organize their thinking and new information. I also want to use this to help them tell the difference between fiction and nonfiction books in future lessons!

Since next week is Halloween week (YAY!), I am thinking my theme will be “Skeletons”. This will be a wonderful way to integrate Science into my curriculum! Here are a few book I’m planning on using (I ordered "Skeleton Hiccups" too!):

Of course, we will attempt to make a skeleton out of Q-tips and MAYBE I'll make a game or two to review skills? Who knows what I'll convince myself to do! I do enjoy my weekends! 

Well, that’s all from me tonight folks! I hope you have an amazing weekend! My husband and I are taking my niece to Cedar Point for Halloweekends! Woo Hoo!

Mary

Nocturnal Animals and Other Fun! :)

I’m trying so hard to blog more often so that I don’t disappear again! J

We have been learning about nocturnal animals for the last few weeks and the students are really enjoying it! I finally took pictures of the “Characters/Settings” maps that my sweet littles created after we read “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat”! Check out the pics…so cute! J

My students said that there were two settings to the story. One setting is a "graveyard" and the other is "inside the lady's belly"! Can you see the graveyard on this chart!?

This group informed me that the setting drawing depicts the inside of the lady's belly. I love it!

I love that you can see the purple outfit of the wizard character and the owl character on this chart!

This group has clearly shown they understand what characters are in this story: a ghost, a wizard (see his hat!?), the old lady, and the bat (or is that the owl?). Their setting appears to be a house...hmm...I don't remember the story taking place inside a specific house...BUT they have shown that they understand the setting is WHERE they story takes place! Yay!

I purchased Sharing Kindergarten’s There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a BatLiteracy Centers and am STILL in the process of preparing them for students to use! I HATE how behind I let myself get! Argh! Here is one of the reasons I still haven’t gotten the awesome games ready…I’m obsessed with making the cards super cute using construction paper border and “craft” scissors! How cute is this?! I’m only a little bit obsessed!

We also began work on an Owl Glyph that DeAnna Jump created. See her blog post about it here. All we have done so far is collect data! We will get to the owls soon!

I also let the students have some fun while working on fine motor skills…they made Jack O’ Lanterns for their locker tags! I handed them orange, yellow, and black construction paper and let them at it!!! J The results were adorable! I just wish our lockers were "cuter"! Ha ha!

Our “focus” sight word this week is “like”. Since we have also been working on color words, I had the students get out the “I Like Colors” book from a few weeks ago. BTW…This book is available on TpT for $2.00. I found out how to shrink the pages down on my school’s copier so that my littles could quickly color in the book without wearing out their hands/fingers! J They really liked revisiting this book! Here are some pictures of one of my sweet peas reading her copy of the story!

This has been an eventful couple of weeks and I hope to share even more tomorrow (or soon after!) Thanks for following!

Pretty please consider following this blog’s Facebook page, Oceans Of Kindergarten Fun! I would really appreciate it! Thanks for sticking in there so long… J

Happy “Hump Day”!

Mary