Scuba Diver, Water Lilies, and Ocean Layers Projects

Hello Friends,

I am beginning my second week of Summer break and I have been doing all those things that I put off during the school year .... things like cleaning closets, purging clothes I do not need, cleaning closets, organizing the garage, cleaning closets and cleaning closets....... yes, most of my time has been taken up with cleaning closets! I am an "out of sight, out of mind" person during the school year..... yep...... It takes me FOREVER to go through all the stuff that I STUFFED in my closets.... It is my goal this summer to make sure that this does not happen this school year...... we shall see......... My plan is to do all these household tasks in June, then work on my TPT store in July, and then gear up in August for school. In between those things, though, I have been enjoying having NO schedule! I also am looking forward to spending some family time in Michigan and soaking up the lake, sun and beach.

And speaking of the beach.... I thought I would share with you a few activities that I did with my students during our Ocean/Water theme.
 
I got this cute scuba diver project from my kindergarten partner across the hall. My kids had such a great time creating these cute divers. We discussed the differences between scuba diving and snorkeling. We discussed how our hair goes up when we are in the water.... If you look closely, you can see that they listened to me; hair is going up! (so cute).  There is a writing component included with this project, but I did not take pictures of it. Basically, this was one of those "let's have fun" type of projects that teaches without too much stress!

If you would like to do this project with your students (or kids), you can find it for free in my store. Just click the image below to take you there.....

Another fun project we did was NOT about the ocean or beach, but it IS about water. I am sure that many of you will be visiting ponds with lily pads this summer. Here are a couple pictures of the lily pads that we saw on the pond that we visited.....

 After discussing the watery look of the pond and the flowers attached to the stems my students took watercolors and painted a water background. Then they used their watercolors to paint a coffee filter flower. They put glue on the paper and attached their flower. These turned out so pretty!

The last project we did  before school was out was studying the layers of the ocean. We did many projects with this theme, but the one that the kids really enjoyed was creating a mural of the layers of the ocean. Here are a couple of examples of the seashore poster....

We studied 3 Ocean layers;  Sunlight Zone, Twilight Zone, and the Dark Zone. We had studied the layers of the Rainforest, so I equated the Ocean to the layers found there. They were, of course, fascinated with the scary creatures of the Dark Zone. Our study encouraged research of ocean animals and caused my students to learn about animals that were different from the usual dolphin, crabs, and sharks! If you would like to do this project with your students, I have the resource in my store. Just click the image below to take you there!

Here is hoping that most of you are either finished with school or the last day will be here soon!

Until next time!

Gettin' Buggy With It

Spring...a time of renewal, birth, pollen, and bugs...
right!?
It's Rachel from the tattooed teacher and I'm just sharing a few quick buggy freebies today!
Our meal worms and caterpillars just arrived yesterday! The kiddos are pretty curious since I haven't quite wrapped up the weather unit and I didn't tell them what's in those bins!
Now let's get onto those insect freebies!! This first one is a 3 page cut and paste life cycle diagram plus the writing piece I used last spring! I loved how they turned out! I had them paste both onto a piece of brown construction paper to display with our birth certificates for our little larvae! And one option doesn't say "mealworm" in case you want to use a different insect!
DOWNLOAD HERE

Next, crawl over to First Grade Parade and read about Cara's Hey Little Ant writing craftivity! Here's two from last year! I love those faces!

and then here's another freebie from me about bees! 

Need more on insects?

check my units out! 

Each of the bee organizers came from here! This is a great intro unit!

Mealworms! one of my best sellers!

And here are two lifecycle files!

Centers

and interactive notebook templates!

Stay Buggy!

Earth/Space Themed Draw and Write Freebie

Hello Friends,

Looking for a fun Earth themed writing activity? In this resource, students create a fun book cover and then write sentences and illustrate inner pages that describe the Earth. We use this for our "Earth and Space" unit, but it can also be used for Earth Day, too.

Click the image below to download this freebie.

Until next time!

Blessings,

Gardening with Kids - With or Without a Garden!

Hello Friends!
This is Cindy (Kinderkay) from  Love Those Kinders. It is the end of July and I am thoroughly enjoying my summer! It is so wonderful to step back, reflect, and not run on a schedule for a few months. One of the things that I LOVE in the summer is gardening. I have 6 small flower beds in my yard and am in charge of our garden at school. Nothing brings me more joy than to spend a few hours among the flowers, bees, and quiet!

I thought I would share with you a few ways to enjoy gardening - with or without a school garden. I am lucky in the fact that I have 3 raised beds at school that we use to plant a variety of flowers and vegetables.

We use these beds for so many things in the fall..... We look for insects. We look for vines and stems. We look for leaf shapes. We look to see if we can find all the colors of the rainbow. We take our plastic spoons outside and dig a small area to see what we can find under the soil. We look for living and non-living things. We use our ears to listen - I love using this sense because the kids have to get REALLY quiet. They hear things they often ignore like birds singing, wind blowing, and jets flying overhead.

Each child has a clip board, a pencil, and paper. They use this to sketch or to do texture rubs. I have a sixth grade partner who enjoys the garden as much as I do, so we work hard to find a time when our classes can come together and do an outdoor scavenger hunt. We pair a 6th grader with a kindergartner. Both the big kids and the little kids LOVE this opportunity to work together!

Another fun activity that we do is to link our outdoor activities to an artist study. You can use any artist that does naturescapes. The artist that we link to is Georgia O'Keefe. We like her because she paints little things BIG! This gets our kiddos busy using their eyes to look for tiny things in the outside. After they have had the opportunity to explore, we show them examples of Georgia O'Keefe's work and then get them busy creating their own masterpieces!

I think it is super important to get kids outside, so I have put together a little freebie that you can use even if you do not have a school garden! Kids use their senses to search for items on task cards and draw and/or color them onto a recording sheet.  I hope this freebie encourages your kiddos to use their senses to enjoy the outdoors

Blessings,