Fire Dog Hats

Welcome to kindergarten, 2013! This is my first actual blog post of the school year, although I hope to go back and post-date blog about some of the things I've taken pictures about this year. The blogging isn't going quite like I expected because I have been dealing since May with sever tendinitis in both wrists, and it is difficult and painful to type. So, while I have composed lots of posts in my head this summer and fall, none of them have made it into electronic form! At least none until now...

October is Fire Safety month and our "Bomberos" unit is in full swing! We have been talking about what fire fighters wear and use, and what they do. Our fire department shares different goals for different grade levels regarding fire safety (I think this is a national program? Not sure), and for kinder the biggest thing is for kids to learn that fire fighters are safe and not scary. Every year children die in house fires because they hide from the "monsters" that try to come and get them in a fire. With their respirators on, fire fighters really do look scary! We have been learning about the special clothes and equipment they wear, and why they need them in Spanish and English.

I've used several resources throughout this unit which I will share below. One of my favorite new finds this year is a Sesame Street video on YouTube. It's a little less than 12 minutes long, and it is so clear and well-done that even my students with very little English were able to understand. Elmo and Maria are at Hooper's store when there is a fire, and they have to get out and call 911. Elmo gets scared of the fire fighters in the masks, so they show him all about their clothes, and invite him to the fire station. At the end of the video, he isn't scared anymore and eats dinner with them. My kids loved it and it hit all the right points!

Dot, el perro bombero by Lisa Desimini

My sister, Miss Coco, is a volunteer firefighter and brought us her turnout gear to look at and play with. We used it as realia for our ELD lesson, and for the rest of the week the kids will get to play with it during free choice time. They were surprised by how heavy the clothes are, and super excited to get to touch them!

Another of our favorite stories is Dot, el perro bombero. Available in English and in Spanish, this sweet book again shows clear pictures of all the firefighters' clothes, and tells the story of a fire department Dalmatian who goes with her unit to a fire and saves a cat from a burning house. The kids love it! Then we made Fire Dog Hats. LOVE this project! Over the last several days, each student has had the chance (in a small group with my assistant at the back table) to paint a piece of white 9x12 construction paper and one white sentence strip with black bingo dotters (that we found at the Dollar Tree). Then today they each cut out a red hat and a yellow K-9 badge. Next, our 5th grade buddies came down and helped us trace their shoes on the big white paper (we folded it in half and just cut once to go faster). Finally, the buddies glued it all together and sized and stapled the sentence strips. Aren't they the cutest little fire dogs ever? =)

Lastly, I've created some fire-safety-related patterned texts at a variety of early reading levels. You can find them for sale in English and Spanish on TeachersPayTeachers!

Fire Safety Resources:

1. Readers by Mrs. Doring
2. Reader by Hubbard's Cupboard (in English, Spanish, French, and German!)
3. Mailbox Magazine link to fire dog hat patterns
4. Books on Amazon

Clifford, el perro bombero by Norman Bridwell

Dot, el perro bomberoby Lisa Desimini

¿Qué haydentro de un camión de bomberos?by Sharon Gordon

What are the seasons of the year?

"The seasons of the year are winter, spring, summer, and fall!"

I love coming back to school in January and starting our seasons unit in ELD to go along with our January snow unit in reading & math. By now my kiddos have seen 3 seasons in recent memory, and occasionally it snows in January so they can identify with what we're reading! We have a song and a project to go along with each season, and two years ago I combined it with a unit on clothing, colors, and patterns so we sorted seasonally-appropriate clothing as well.

Intro
To begin our unit I introduced "The Season Song" I got from The Mailbox. It's sung to (one of) the tune(s) of "Head and Shoulders." (Try singing it--if it doesn't work, try the other version!) For some reason, this is one of my students' favorite songs that we've sung all year. It's nothing special, but they love it! Maybe because we shout, "We like them all!" Then we talk about and/or sketch each season. On this day I had kids color & cut out flash cards with various season-related clip art.

Winter
We started with winter since that's the season we're currently in (although we haven't had any snow yet this year to prove it!) and it's the first season in the calendar year. Our winter chant is "5 Little Snowflakes" which is fun addition practice as well! They really seem to like this one, too. For the project we cut snowflakes out of coffee filters and taped them on the windows.

Spring

For spring we talked about all the flowers that come out (more on that when they actually start blooming!) and the weather we can expect--LOTS of rain! Our chant is a super-adorable one again from The Mailbox. I like to use the Smart Board to search "umbrellas" on Google Image search (ALWAYS with Safe Search ON!), then click "Search Tools" toward the top which will pop up a toolbar. You can click the "All Colors" arrow, and then select just one color in the drop down box. This will filter the results so you get just one color of umbrella. We go through all the different colors in the drop down box, practicing color words and talking about what our favorite colors of umbrella are. Then we look for patterned umbrellas, and talk about stripes, polka-dots, plaid, etc. (This is a great place to jump into clothing colors and patterns.)

For our project, we color paper plates cut in half, and tape a pipe cleaner handle on the bottom to make umbrellas! These look cute hanging on our lights. In years past I have (with 4th grade buddies) had kids trace and cut 4 raindrops and hang them from the bottom of the umbrella with string or ribbon. These turn out SUPER cute, but they are a TON of punching and tying! To do them independently with kinders would require lots of cutting prep, and then lots of tape.


Summer
I don't have a good summer song (yet!) so if you have any good ideas, please let me know! On our summer day we talked about places we like to go in the summer, and then graphed our favorites. Surprisingly, going to the park beat going to the beach, but our favorite was going swimming!

For our project, we made.... Flip Flops! I passed out file folders from the file folder graveyard in the office work room (I tore them in half at the fold). This would also work with cardstock, but I don't think construction paper would be stiff enough. The kids helped each other trace their shoes onto the file folders, and cut them out. Next, they colored their footprints. When they were finished, they brought them to the carpet and used their closed scissors (the rounded-tip ones don't really work, but we had enough sharp-ish pairs that it wasn't an issue) to poke three holes in the footprint. Doing this on the carpet allowed them to poke their own holes without poking their fingers. Sharpened pencils or skewers would also work. Finally, I passed out pipe cleaners, and we folded them in half, stuck the middle in the first hole and folded it down about a cm on the back. Then we inserted each end of the pipe cleaner into the two remaining holes and folded a little bit down on the back again. Some students chose to tape theirs so they wouldn't fall out.

Of course, when they were finished, most students had to take their shoes off and try on their flip flops! =)

Fall

I had a sub the last two days so I could work on our ADEPT English testing in the hallway (such a huge blessing! I was able two test all the kiddos who weren't absent without giving up any instructional time!). She introduced our fall song and project. The song is sung to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down." The projects turned out amazing--they're so striking! The first day she had them watercolor paint a white page, swirling red, yellow, and orange to cover the whole page. This made a mess on the tables, but the kids seemed to enjoy it, and they followed directions fairly well (only one child used a color other than red, yellow, or orange). The next day, she had them sketch a tree with branches (no leaves) with a pencil, and then passed out black tempera paint and thin paintbrushes. We didn't use the straw method as indicated on the website, because it sounded way too complicated and messy! I love the way the trees turned out, and the kids were really proud of them!

Here is the example I found on Pinterest from  That Artist Woman

I'm really enjoying this unit, but it's about time to wrap it up. Bathroom Unit, here we come!