Voting!

This week and Monday of next week we are learning all about voting!! I first thought that this may be a little difficult for them to understand, but let me tell you...they are doing amazing!!!

I started my lesson this morning by showing them the online video on elections by Let's Find Out Scholastic magazine (You can sign on and show your students HERE).  Then, they read their own Let's Find Out at their reading group. 

The story had some wonderful vocab words-candidates, polling place, booth, ballot, etc. We made sure to go over all of them and I will be using those terms all week!

Then, I explained to students that in order to vote you have to register. I showed them my voter's registration card and then we made our very own!

How cute are they!! They are from Glady's Election Unit that you can find here.  I had my students find their own birthdays on our birthday chart and copy it down. Then I wrote the school name and 'kindergarten' on the board for them to copy. I really wanted them to do all the work :)

I explained to the children (as stated in the Let's Find Out magazine) that when it is time to vote, you have to show your voters card. I told them that I will check their name off to make sure they only vote one time, then they will enter the booth. The booth is private so they can vote secretly. My children took this SO seriously and they were SO excited to get started!!

I am using different questions to vote, from Deedee Will's Survey Says unit. Then, I just created different ballots to go with her questions. 

Look how cute they are in our booth...

Later in the day, I opened the ballot box and we graphed the results. Today, pizza was the winner for the best food!! :) Yum! 

Every day we will vote for something new, then on Monday of next week we will make our choice for President. 

I will say, some of my students were making opinions on Obama and Romney today--I was cracking up! In the Let's Find Out magazine it talks about how Obama likes basketball and Romney likes skiing. Then it said that Obama likes chili and Romney likes granola. Some of my students were so grossed out by the chili for some reason and decided that they liked Romney instead! I told them to hold off on any decisions until we learned more--and to make sure they kept their opinion a secret!! Too funny!

Spiders! Ahh!

I am TERRIFIED of all kinds of creepy crawly things! Spiders, insects, lizards, snakes....Yuck!! But, for some reason I LOVE teaching about spiders :)

We have had a blast this week learning about spiders. We only finished our first week, so we still have another week to go and my kids continue to impress me with the knowledge that they have gained!

We started the unit off by 'splashing' some vocab words onto our Word Splash. I use the Word Splash all year and students love helping me 'splash' on new words. I read the words with them, but I don't tell them what the words mean. Their job is to recognize the words as I am reading. After we read a word we will go over the meaning :)

Then the students helped me label the parts of a spider. They also completed their own labeling sheet during morning centers.

As we read more non-fiction spider books, we are continuing to add on to our comparison chart. The children are loving this chart! I have one for the students to complete at centers when we are finished with our whole group chart.

We also made these precious spiders! They look adorable hanging in my room!! The girls have a bow in their hair and the boys have a bow tie :)

All of these activities and MUCH more can be found in my spider unit. I know I am a little delayed on adding this to TPT so it is on SALE :) You can check it out by clicking on the image below.

Thanks!!

Bats

My students' have been learning SO much about bats! It has really been a blast! We just wrapped up our two week unit so I wanted to share some of the activities we worked on. 

The first week we really focused on filling out our KWL. I spend the first day only filling out the K and W of our chart. I write everything that the children say under the 'Know' column. I make sure to explain to them that sometimes we think we Know something, but it may be a misconception. So as we learn about bats we revisit the K column and cross out statements that were misconceptions and we try to change them to make them true statements. 

I took this picture around day 3, so we weren't anywhere near finished yet, but the children were doing great! It isn't the cutest chart, but it works! :)

Whenever we are learning about a particular topic, I really want all of their centers to be based on the same topic. So we had two weeks of 'Batty' centers!

 Our pocket chart centers:

 They sorted the beginning sound pictures and worked on the sight word 'like'

Then they completed their activity sheet...

We played some dice games! This center is always a hit!

 Students' also worked on writing their numbers. This is big in my class this year! I have a lot of kiddos that need to work on this skill 

They also matched the numbers with the number word. This was the first time my students' did this and it was a little challenging for them. I am definitely going to have to make another center like this for our next theme.

The children worked on beginning sounds here. They would write the letter of the beginning sound they spun. When my students' were working on this they let me know that I made a mistake on the activity sheet! I made a 'P' for pumpkin and the picture is NOT a pumpkin it is a Jack O'Lantern! They couldn't get past this!! (I did update it in my unit if you purchased it) Gotta love kids :)

Another beginning sounds activity. We have done this center a couple times for different themes and my children are rocking it out now independently!! 

 We also had a blast working on this WONDERFUL activity which you can grab FREE HERE from Jodi at Fun in First! They worked in 6 groups and each group had to cut out and glue 100 mosquitoes. At the end they were able to visualize just how many mosquitoes a bat can eat in one hour!

We also labeled the bat whole group. I called on students to come up and put on a label. They loved this! We actually had to do it twice because everyone wanted a turn! :)

All of these activities and much, much more can be found in my bat unit HERE on TPT. 

My students also worked on these candy corn puzzles together. They are great for practicing letter names and sounds!! 

 These candy corn puzzles can be found by clicking on the image below :)

             

I made some new candy corn puzzles for them this week as well. This time they will be at one of their math centers. I am really excited to see how they do on this! Click below to see more.

Enjoy!!

Currently! October Edition! :)

It's October already! Woo-hoo!! Here is what I am currently up to!

Don't forget to link up with Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade!! Head on over there now to see what everyone else in the blogging world is Currently up to!! :)