The Way I Teach

Yea, I know, a lot of good this is now but the activities were so engaging that I wanted to throw it out there so you have a whole year to think about it! I am going to post some activities with a brief explanation, some were inspired by other pinners, some were bought units, and one is project based and quite easy to do. Up first is the Great Rot!

I saw this idea on Pinterest for decomposing and since we had a rotting pumpkin and a cool pretzel container left over from snack - it was a match made in heaven. I didn't teach the children about any of it. I wanted to get them nice and CURIOUS about the whole thing and get them to write questions on post-its. So It sat and as days past there curiosity began and so did the questions. We are actually still observing it and adding more questions as they arise. We will eventually get to the answers . . . but not yet.

Next up . . . A great Spider Unit by Kristen Smith found HERE and an inspiration from a Pinterest pin that looked similar to this.

I used this chart to help review and teach about nouns and verbs then the children wrote spider nouns and verbs on colored post-its for the chart. The words were then used to create a poem about spiders. We added painted hand print spiders. I looked for the original source to link it but cannot find it. If you know, please send me the information so I can give credit where credit is due. Here is the hand print with the poem.

Finally, the best project ever and the kids absolutely loves was the model of a Haunted HouseVillage made from a 2-D map that they created.

They had to position everything on the model according to the map they created then I placed the roads where they drew them on the map. They make the stop signs, houses, trees, cars, signs for community buildings (using names from our own community). When I locate the 2-D map picture I will add it. We display the village at our Harvest Festival but I leave it in the class for the children to use directional words.

I used the back of my library bookcase to place the spider vocab. words on. I stapled black felt to it, a black border around it, then spray glued laminated vocab. words from the spider unit to felt. That way they just stick. No tape and no magnets that keep PEELING off everything! Yea, I know . . . Excuse the mess! It is a first grade classroom and we get BUSY in here!