Egypt

Another great unit! Ancient Egypt, continuing the grand olde tradition of Magic Treehouse with the Kindergarteners by reading Mummies in the Morning. It was a bit trickier finding preschool books but found some good ones about desert animals and, of course, triangles!

Moon sand creates an awesome medium for Egypt because you can really get nice pyramids with the molds! Add in a Toob and everything looks great. In that first picture you can see a large cardboard pyramid. That sucker mathed me out for a couple days, it took me the whole of Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III to design, trace, cut, and assemble it. Ultimately worth it, it became something concrete for the children to remember, and the only 3D shape they never need coaching on is the pyramid! Speaking of pyramid that was one of our special words this unit! (Pyramid, Egypt, Hieroglyphics, Mummy, and Sarcophagus) Hieroglyphics were a big hit with the kids and they'll occasionally drop that term in conversation. I played this CD the whole unit (beware that last song, funny, but maybe not to be played as part of a serious study), and I totally give credit to the song about hieroglyphics being the reason, I still find myself humming it!

We also colored in some sarcophagi as our first marker practice of the year. (I don't break out the markers for art very often because I think work done in low grade read: washable, looks awful.)

We did some other cool projects that I haven't got any pictures for, including making a cartouche with our names for the lockers and making a landscape. The landscapes looked really cool and I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get any pictures... they had crayon ground yellow, orange, and brown, and a watercolor sky, there were some nighttime skies but most of them were sunsets. Later we cut triangles out of sandpaper and put them on to be the pyramids. My favorite activity was our culminating event... painting the pyramid! The catch? They had to invent or copy hieroglyphics, instead of painting it a solid color. Some examples:

Water

Boy (Green)

Bug (Orange)

The alphabet.

Finito!

Dinosaurs!

This year I've been focusing on some more exciting units. The first one was Dinosaurs, because what kid doesn't love dinosaurs? In the morning we read Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osbourne. I also gave the Kindergarteners their first research assignment for the year. They extracted dinosaur bones from some 'tar' and then examined the characteristics of the bones and looked for pictures of the dinosaur they thought the bones must have belonged to.

Pictured: Serious science.

Later the Kindergarteners showed some of the preschoolers how to properly excavate the bones that were sunk in the tar using the popsicle sticks. Adorableness ensued; seriously, those science googles were the best investment ever.

One of the books that we read in the afternoon with preschool was I'm BIG! Part of this book shows a dinosaur following footprints to find his friends. We used clay to make our own fossilized footprints. (Fossil was one of our super words - along with herbivore, carnivore, paleontologist, and extinct, because if you are going to expand vocabulary, you might as well do it right.)

Some students always make every project very serious.

Another day we read how paleontologists go into the field to dig up dinosaur bones before they bring them to a museum. First we went to our sandbox to see what we could find. After discovering the fossils they wrapped them up and brought them to the 'lab'.

As a wrap up to our dinosaurs unit we painted some nifty feet to stomp about in. I later used these pictures (along with one of their dinosaur face to make a class book. )

The text for the book is repetitive and even months later it is a total hit in our room.

Dino feet! Dino feet!

Roar! Roar! Roar!

Who did I meet?

(Turn page to see face...)

It's Bob Dinosaur!

I wrote that in a stroke of brilliance. Thank you.

Love My Set-Up

Last year I began without any idea of how to set up my classroom. Consequently, I ended up rearranging a handful of times... a.k.a. exactly how not to maintain an environment of consistency. But I was so glued to the idea of having my silly desk in a corner that I never considered moving it. Well, this year I came in - knowing roughly how much each space would get used and where I wanted it to be. So far it is working really well. I've set aside one section of the room to be super serious. That way my students knew that when we moved into that area it was time to get down to business.

It was a toss-up between this or defeating the Huns.

It has the added benefit of  placing a divider between the kids and the door. My classroom is mostly open-door so that the kids can run to the bathroom fast, however this meant that everyone else walking by turned into a big distraction. ELIMINATED! 

Tarp generally not included.

It contains our carpet area carpet, the art center, working tables, and two bulletin boards used primarily for Kindergarten. This area is where all the curricular work takes place. The rest of the room is a loosely arranged free-for-all. 

My zone - I'm officially disorganized. If there was an Olympic event concerning messy. I would win. The rest of you can go home, buh-bye. I don't actually get to spend loads of time at my desk - next year I will have more kids so I might try to use it for reading lessons, this year it is just a landing pad for things I need to get out the way. I also pinky promise that the area underneath is not so bad anymore. it was literally the worst at the time of the picture. The top can get that bad EVERY SINGLE DAY, it is a constant battle for me to keep the top clean.

Dramatic Play - So.... last year the 'house' area was over by the door, but kids kept pulling EVERYTHING out and taking it by the window. This year it is by the window but they take it over by the tables. Go figure. This is also where the fish hangs out (he's new as of January). He is relatively safe here, sitting on top of a small cabinet that I use for math supplies.

Book Land - A magical land that houses the books. I think all my kids enjoy books... but they don't usually go here for free time, about once a week books migrate around so everyone can look at a certain picture. Kindergarten does get a fair amount of use here. It contains our class books, informational print about the unit subject, and the word wall.

Free choice time... all eight students present that day went for the Lego option.

Build-a-palooza - My kids love them some Legos. Sadly the Legos are co-oped and do not always live in our room. There are also giant cardboard blocks (fun once and a while), Duplos (meh), and the cars (rather build from Legos honestly). This is also where the doll house chills.

 Ermmmmm... The next two items don't come with photos, but you can see them lurking in other photos.

Sand-box/ Water Table - While technically a water table I tend to put moon sand in there. The sand itself is fun, but also makes a nice medium to put everything in - I've done Egypt, the moon, and animals, it all works. 

Big Easel - Segregated from the rest of art land means that students forget about him a lot. He is very popular on those occasions that he is remembered.

Storage Wars - Haha. A giant double-sided bookcase that is one of my struggling points of organization.

Sink - To be fair I couldn't move this item. But I did give it a massive overhaul. New not-yucky toothbrush holders and organization. (Sort of.) I promise this is not usually so bad! This picture is really the only one I have of the sink and was taken after the world's single messiest art day.

Small Items shelf - Random items rotated through by interest, also the place where I keep my curriculum math games.

Games and Puzzles - Finally we have the puzzles (my kids go through phases - they will do every single puzzle one day and then not touch them for weeks), and then we also have the board games. Lovely, lovely games - I think I'll do a whole post on them.

Anyway, it is all working out - next year I'll keep most of it, but there will be more kids - so the work tables will need to be split to make more seating. But one simple switch between carpet area and work tables will maintain my serious area that way kids will still recognize when we are about to get down to get down to business.

That really couldn't be avoided.