Marvelous Maps!

Today I wanted to share what my kiddos learned about maps. I like to start the week off with this very simple book called Maps. It's very short, but gives the kids a great introduction to the vocabulary.  

The main vocab words I focus on are: map, map key, symbol. near, far and next to. I also introduce the compass rose and the directions: north, south, west and east. 

We do a couple written activities where the kids have to look at maps and answer questions. I display them on my SMART board so the kids have one to reference when completing their own:

We also label our classroom walls with the correct directions. We then play the North, South, East, West game! It is so simple, but they love it! 

Here are the rules: One person stands in the middle with their eyes closed and counts backwards from 10. Everyone else WALKS to a wall of their choice. After they finishing counting, the middle person shouts out a direction. For example, if they said west, everyone on the west wall would be out and have to sit down. The middle person then counts backwards again and everyone left chooses a new wall. This continues until there is only one person remaining. They are new "it" or middle person.

This game is a great time filler and an easy way to get the kids moving. It also gives the kids a chance to work on the directions vocab.

Of course, I also have the kids try their hand at drawing their own maps. I had them draw maps of two places they know very well: our classroom and their bedroom. 

To end the week, I plan a little surprise for the kids: a treasure hunt! My classroom is pirate themed so this is always a fun activity for my kiddos. Before school I place different clues around our school. After we come in from recess, there is a clue on the door telling the kids we are going on a treasure hunt. Every year they are extremely pumped to do this! 

The final clue leads us back to the classroom where we find a treasure box!

In order to get the treasure, I tell the kids they have to walk quietly and it's amazing how calm and quiet they walk through the school. They want that treasure BAD! This is great for later too because I often tell my students if they are being too rowdy in line to remember our "treasure hunt line" and remind them that is how we should walk every day.

Our final activity is to draw a map and label the different places we went to find clues. I first modeled drawing the map on my SMART board and had the kids come up with symbols for each place we visited. Then the kids drew their own:

We had a great time learning about maps! I always love doing this unit. If you are interested in any of these activities (and MORE), please check out my map unit by clicking on the picture below. The first FOUR people to leave a comment with their email will get a free copy.

When We Grow Up...

Hi everyone! Today I wanted to share what my class did to learn all about community helpers. We always start the year learning about rules and authority figures. We start talking about rules and leaders in our classroom, our school and the community.

One of my favorite books to read during this unit is When I Grow Up by Al Yankovic. It is a super fun read and I love the message of it being OK to want to be lots of different things when you grow up. I love to encourage my kids to dream big!

(source)

We read lots of other books about different careers including fire fighters and police officers (always a  kindergarten class favorite!). I also invited some of our school leaders to come in and talk to the kids about their jobs. We were visited by our principal, vice-principal, librarian, reading interventionist, counselor and maintenance man! Our executive director (basically our charter school's superintendent) even came and spoke to the kids! Ever since whenever we see one of them around school, the kids love to wave and say hi! 

A couple other activities we did was matching community helpers to their vehicles and drawing community helpers we learned about:

 

Of course I had the kids draw what they want to be when they grow up:

 

 

During Reading the kids colored and read an emergent reader on community helpers:

 

My absolute favorite activity to do is a community helper craft where I have the kids decorate a cartoon picture of a job and I glue a picture of their head over the face. It looks adorable! I wish I could show you the kids' pictures, but trust me, it's too cute! (I got the cartoon pictures from edhelper.com)

To end our unit, we went to a local fire station and the kids learned all about firefighters! They had a blast!

Before we went on the field trip, I had the kids predict what they would see:

 

When we returned, we filled out a scavenger hunt list marking what we saw and drawing what we would look like as firefighters:

 

Some of these activities are in my community helpers unit! If you want to check it out, click the picture below! 

Coming Soon: Weather and 5 Senses

Learning about Inventors

Still trying to get caught up on sharing what my kids have been learning about this year! A few months ago (How is it already April???) we studied different inventors. The kids loved learning about inventors and their inventions and this excitement led to them writing about their own ideas for new inventions! 

We started the week by reading a book I created for my inventors unit:

Next the kids filled out webs with the names of inventors they had learned and their different inventions:

The next few days we watched movies on Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell (love Discovery Education!). The kids then did a venn diagram comparing the two:

They also did a venn diagram comparing Lyda Newman and Garrett Morgan:

To review what we had learned, the kids drew examples of what each inventor invented:

 They even drew their own examples (Dr. Frankenstein was my favorite!):

They also worked on a book where they wrote about how different inventions help us:

stop so we won't crash 

brush our hair

Finally to end the week, the kids did a writing activity where they brainstormed ideas for their own inventions:

Hope you enjoyed checking out my kids' hard work! If you like any of these activities, click on the picture below to check out my unit on TpT!