This month, we've dived deep under the sea to explore the world underwater! It's been a wonderful unit, and the only problem I've had is there is just too much to pick from! As usual, we started out by doing some KWL charts, so I gauge their knowledge and interests. I also invited the kids to bring in any books or sea creatures they have to share with the class. We created this lovely little display for everyone to see:
We started off by learning about the 5 different oceans, and the different type of habitats that are in them (simplified as Rock Pools, Reefs, Wide open Ocean, and the Deep and Dark). I found this great book at Costco Oceans: A Journey from the surface to Sea Floor. I printed off a map of the planet, and then we labeled the oceans colored in where examples of each habitats were. I got this great book at Costco that opened up and had little scenes from each that was just awesome!
The next thing we studied were Coral Reefs, talking about how they are like forests and why all the different animals choose to live there. All the tables in the room made their own mural, and where each student was given a different creature from the reef. They colored and cut them out, and I called over all the kids doing one animal at a time and taught them a few facts about the one they had. They then went back to their tables and taught the other kids what they had just learned! Here is our mural:
Our next project was Jellyfish! In a lovely coincidence our letter of the week was "J", so we completed a journal activity using all sorts of "J" words to describe jellyfish. The next day we made this great craft inspired by Pinterest, with a bit of modification. We used a paper bowl covered in tissue paper for the body, and then fishing wire, streamers and ribbons to make the squiggly tentacles. They looked great hanging up around the room!
We then moved on to the big giants of the sea: Sharks, whales and Narwhal (the last one was specifically requested!). We made these adorable Sharks, and inside each of their mouths (red paper plates - haha!) is an interesting fact about sharks, that the students then shared with each other.
After learning about Sharks and Whales, we then completed a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two. It was great to see how much they learned about both!
For Narwhals, we watched this short video off of National Geographic- Wild Detectives: Narwhals and completed a Fact Sheet about them. We learned that Narwhals are about 6 kindergarteners long (7 meters), by laying down head to toe in a line. They really loved the annoying Narwhal Son, that went viral on the internet last year. I found a clean version, and then had it stuck in my head for the next three days!
Lastly we learned about Sea Turtles. We read a book about how baby turtles are born, and wrote in our journals about how they bury their eggs in holes in the sand and hatch at night to avoid getting eaten! We then made these Wax Resistance Water Colour Turtles that just turned out amazing! I drew the outline of the shell for them, and they added the details including drawing different line patterns in each section of the shell. When we painted them, half the students did the shell while the others did the sea and then switched paints. This helped to keep the different colored sections from bleeding into each other, and gave me time to sprinkle sea salt on the ocean part to give it the look of bubbles. I am so proud of how great these look up in the hall!
In April, we spent the month learning all about the different people who help in our community. It was a great way to introduce the little ones to different jobs that everyone does to keep our town a safe and fun place to live. We did several "behind the scenes" field trips during the unit to local businesses to really give them a chance to understand what "grown-ups" do at their jobs.We visited Walmart, a local hotel and grocery store, and will be going to fire-hall and library next week!
We started out the unit by brainstorming an A to Z poster of all the community helpers we could think of - some letters were a lot harder than others, but I was pretty amazed by some of the answers they came up with. My personal favorite was Y for "Yoga Instructor"!
We then spent a day learning all about firemen and fire saftey! We practiced "Stop, Drop and Roll!", counted all the fire extinguishers and alarms in our school, and even had a fire-drill in the snow! We then made a list of everything Firemen Can, Have and Are, and made some fireman puppets! Then I read out a list of firesafety tips and everytime it was a good idea they made their puppet "jump for joy!"
We also read the book Flat Stanley and created our own versions. Then over Spring Break I sent home a letter asking parents to take Stanley to their work, and take some picture and write a little blurb about their jobs. It was a great way for them to share more about Mom and Dad with our class!
As the last part of our unit, and as part of school wide initiative, we've been doing Random Acts of Kindness around our community. To begin with, we baked some cookies together and made some lovely cards. I then took them and dropped them off at our Police Station, Veterinarian and Hospital. I've heard feed back that they were very appreciated!
We also made some cards (with a little treat!) for our buddy class and put some of our favorite artwork up in the staffroom to brighten it up!
