December STEAM Activities

Hello everyone!  I am back to write about my recently uploaded December STEAM Activities resource.  The November STEAM Activities have been a HUGE hit in my classroom, so I cannot wait to continue them for the rest of the year!!  The December STEAM Activities also comes with five activities.  I again tried to incorporate every letter of STEAM's acronym (science, technology, engineering, art and math) throughout the month's activities.

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The first activity in my December STEAM pack is "Snowball Fight Catapults."

In this activity, students will use Popsicle sticks, rubber bands and a spoon to make a catapult.  If your students are unaware what a catapult is, you can read the "What is a catapult paper?" to your students.  I also think it is beneficial to search "kid created catapults" to see a variety of catapults to get their minds working!

The students will use a blank piece of paper to create snow balls to catapult at the snow ball fighter template.  Included is a graphic organizer for building the catapult and a paper if you think that your students are capable of measuring the distances the snowballs go!

 

The next activity in my December STEAM pack is "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"

 For this activity, students will use a mixture of baking soda and hair conditioner to build a snowman.   Teachers will begin by explaining what they will be mixing.  Students can use the graphic organizer to predict what they will be doing with the mixture once it's created. They will then build a snowman and use different craft pieces to decorate their snowman!

 The third activity in my December STEAM Pack is "Winter Wonderland building" with pipe cleaners.

During this activity, students will use the provided Holiday task cards and given pipe cleaners to build Winter and Christmas images.  Teachers will review shapes that the students see within the images and how they will create a 2-D image!

Next in the December STEAM Activities is the Christmas Tree Art.

 Students will use triangles and rectangles to build an entire Christmas tree.  After the students put the puzzle together, they will glue it on construction paper, and finally color and design it like a Christmas tree!

 The final activity in the December STEAM Activities is the Google Classroom and Lego lesson.

 Students will start on Google classroom.  They will move the colored Lego pieces from the left side of the screen to the puzzle on the right side of the screen.  This will help them build December images: a snowman, present, tree and sleigh!

While the students are completing the Google Classroom lesson, they can color the graphic organizer to then visualize what each winter item should look like.

Finally, they can use the graphic organizer to build with real Legos!  The Google and graphic organizer are a great way for students to plan what to build!

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I hope these December STEAM Activities make Science class extra fun for you and your students! Enjoy!

December STEAM Activities

November STEAM Activities

Hello!  I cannot believe that October is almost over! The days can be long, but the months go by fast!

This is the first year that I am incorporating STEAM into my Science curriculum.  Many of my students told me at the beginning of the year that Science was their favorite class.  Then, as the year went on I heard "Science wasn't what I expected" from one of my students.  That was because our Science curriculum provided by the school is SmartBoard lessons followed up by activity pages.  BORING!  That comment gave me a swift kick in the you-know-what to create STEAM activities for our class.

I am SUPER excited about starting them next week.  Each activity comes with a set of directions, materials needed, how to activate prior knowledge and tips for the teacher.  My goal is to incorporate every letter in the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) acronym into each month's activities. 

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The first activity in my November STEAM pack is "Unbe-leaf-able turkeys."

With the Unbe-leaf-able Turkey students will go outside to find 10 leaves.  They will want to try to find as much of a variety of colors as they can.  When every student has 10 leaves and the class goes inside, each individual student will sort and graph his/her leaves.  They will then use the leaves to create the turkey feathers of the turkey template.

To activate prior knowledge before completing the Unbe-leaf-able Turkey activity, teachers can discuss the parts of a turkey and provided turkey facts.  The students will be even more excited about making them!

The next activity in my November STEAM pack is "Hayride Wagon Building"

 

During this activity, students will use parts of an empty cereal box (or any cardboard), a water bottle, four water bottle caps (or Ritz crackers), four toothpicks (or skewers) and tape to create a Hayride wagon.  Teachers will instruct the students that they will want to make a wagon that has the ability to roll.  Before having the students complete the activity, the teacher will want to describe the graphic organizer provided and activate prior knowledge by showing pictures of the hayride wagon.

  

 The third activity in my November STEAM pack is "Pumpkin Sun Catchers" or "Stained Glass Pumpkins"

During this activity, students will make "stained glass pumpkins" out of coffee filters, markers, green construction paper and a spray bottle.  They will color the pumpkin mostly orange, with a bit of yellow, and then spray the coffee filter with the water spray bottle.  It will create a tie-dye look and make it the perfect sun catcher for the window.  Included is a graphic organizer to discuss various aspects of the project.

Next in the November STEAM Activities is the Tee-pee Construction.

 Students will use a small amount of play-doh, a coffee filter, markers, two rubber bands and six Popsicle sticks to make a tee-pee.  They will first decorate the coffee filter and then build the tee-pee.   To activate prior knowledge, teachers can read the "What is a tee-pee?"page.  Students can complete the graphic organizer as they complete the activity.

 The final activity in the November STEAM Activities is the Google Classroom and Lego lesson.

 Students will start on Google classroom.  They will move the colored Lego pieces from the left side of the screen to the puzzle on the right side of the screen.  This will help them build Thanksgiving dinner dishes: a turkey (although it is a live turkey), a pumpkin, a carrot and a corn. 

While the students are completing the Google Classroom lesson, they can color the graphic organizer to then visualize what each Thanksgiving dish should look like.

Finally, they can use the graphic organizer to build with real Legos!  The Google and graphic organizer are a great way for students to plan what to build!

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I hope these November STEAM Activities make Science class extra fun for you and your students! Enjoy!

November STEAM Activities

Beginning Sound Cards

Hello!!  My apologies that I have been MIA on my blog, but sometimes I don't even know where my life goes?!

I have come to write about the beginning sound cards I use in my classroom.  I absolutely LOVE these cards because I use them for so many things!  In my Alphabet Beginning Sounds Sorting Centers product, there are 24 sound cards for every single letter and a sorting mats for each letter in the alphabet.  It has amazed me over the years how beneficial it is for my class when learning letters and sounds.

You can find my Alphabet Beginning Sound Cards: here

Here are the variety of ways that I use my beginning sound cards.

WHOLE GROUP:

The first way I use the beginning sound cards is whole group.  Every Tuesday (after we introduce our new "spotlight letter"of the week on Monday), we use the beginning sound cards to identify words that begin with our spotlight letter. Students are called up one at a time to identify a picture card that begins with the letter of the week.  This reinforces our reading strategies for figuring out unknown words:  they use Lips the Fish to get ready for their beginning sound and Eagle Eye to match the picture to the words.  After the individual student says the word on the picture card, we all together clap out the syllables of the word. The cards are hung in the pocket chart at the front of the room, along with the previous weeks letter to refer back to when needed.

CENTERS:

The current week's "Spotlight Letter" and the previous week's letter become a Pocket Chart center during Guided Reading centers.  Students remove all of the given cards and sort them together.  It is fun to see them play and clap out the syllables of the cards as they sort them.

TUTORING:

Another way I like to use the Beginning Sound Cards is for tutoring.  At the beginning of the year I assessed the student in my class that I tutor on letters and sounds.  Each week, we use different beginning sound cards to practice the letters that he needs extra work on.

I am so pleased, year-after-year, at how well these beginning sound cards have worked in my classroom.  I hope it helps you, also!

The beginning sound cards are a part of an Alphabet Bundle.  If you want even more alphabet resources click here.

**For advanced learners you may also find the Digraph Sorting Centers beneficial.  Find them here.**

My Favorite Seasonal Children's Books!

Good Morning!!  This week's blog post is all about Seasonal Stories!  Thanks again to Minute Mommy for the super fun blog hop!! 

  As a Kindergarten teacher, I love creating seasonal units while incorporating books, of course!  During the past two years at my current school as a Kindergarten teacher, I have held an after-school club called Little Readers.  During the hours of this club we would focus on a seasonal book, complete a comprehension skill and a fun craft, so I spent a lot of time focusing on seasonal stories!  It was tricky to pick just five books, but here are a few of my absolute favorites!

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon:  Stellaluna is an excellent book to read during anytime in the fall that definitely tugs at my heart strings!  I personally choose to read it in October near Halloween because the main character is a bat.  This book is amazing because it also correlates the theme of kindness and accepting everyone despite their appearance and abilities!  Students absolutely love this story!

Click the link: Stellaluna Extension Activities to find the resources in my store!

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey:  Here is a story that aligns to the rhyme of "The Night Before Christmas," so my students love that they can make that text-to-text connection!  The story is honestly so comical!  Characters in the story go on a field trip to a turkey farm, and find themselves dealing with a big problem.  Their solution to the problem is what really makes the students laugh! I definitely recommend celebrating Thanksgiving with this great book!

 Check out my best selling product: extension activities for the story!   The product includes graphic organizers and a fun Problem and Solution craft

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving Extension Activities

"Go to Sleep, Groundhog!" by Judy Cox:  "Go to Sleep, Groundhog" is the perfect book to read around Groundhog's Day.  It consistently reinforces the job of the Groundhog as reviewing the months of the year.   The primary students laugh as the Groundhog wakes up at the wrong time during the year!

I celebrate Groundhog's Day in my classroom by comparing "Wake Up, Groundhog!" and "Go to Sleep, Groundhog!" Check out more of the extension activities by clicking here.

 100th Day Worries by Margery Cuyler:  I love 100th Day Worries!  This book is perfect to read on the days upcoming the 100th day of School.  Kiddos feel empathy for the main character Jessica as they read the story.  The story is also fantastic for reinforcing counting to 100s by 5s, 10s and 1s!

 

Have fun practicing sequencing the story with your students by clicking here.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover by Lucille Colandro:  All of the "There Was an Old Lady" books are so exciting to read for the primary grades.  This story is my favorite St. Patrick's Day book!  Students love to read along and finish the sentences of the story as they have mastered the patterns of the book!

 Sequencing the story is fun on sentence strips! Students absolutely love decorating the pieces of the story.  Find the sequencing clip art here: "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Clover" Extension Activities.

Hop on over to Ashley's Brainy Centers to read more!!  Enjoy and Happy Reading!

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Building Character Through Books

Good morning!  I hope you are having a wonderful summer.  I have teamed up with some amazing teachers all over the country to discuss different books we love each week that align to a certain topic or genre.  This week is all about building character through books! 

Believe me, it was very hard to narrow this down to only five books.  I organize my "teacher books" based on genres and holidays, and my building character section is definitely the largest! 

 "Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun" by Maria Dismondy:  "Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun" is a new book that I have bought this past year.  It's an amazing story that discusses how each child is different and how you will be happiest by accepting everyone.  The main character grew so much as a person throughout the story in a wonderful way.  My students absolutely loved the illustrations while learning. I was so happy that I bought this book!

"Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes:  Chrysanthemum is a wonderful story that takes me back to my first year of teaching Kindergarten.  I was extremely nervous about the first few days after teaching fifth grade.  My partner told me to start my days with Chrysanthemum.  We taught a mini unit about names (perfect in early K) and being kind to everyone.  Children can really relate to this book and feel empathetic for Chrysanthemum as the story progresses.  It really is the perfect story to use at the beginning of the year!

 

 "Peanut Butter and Cupcake" by Terry Border: "Peanut Butter and Cupcake" is a new story that I received this year from a student and her family at our Book Fair.  It was so sweet for them to purchase this book for our classroom, and it was a GREAT gift!  This story had the students laughing the entire time, as different type of foods were acting as people.  However, there is an underlying purpose in the story about being kind.  It's a great new story to add to your classroom!

 "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister:  Here is a classic story surely makes me feel nostalgic!  It was a favorite book of mine as a little girl and I still use it to teach kindness and sharing in my classroom.  If you haven't read this book before, please, find it at your local bookstore or library!  It's a fantastic story about learning what it means to be kind and sharing.  It's a great story for early in your school year!

"It's Okay to Be Different" by Todd Parr:  I absolutely love all books by Todd Parr.  Students gravitate towards his writing style and illustrations.  As I read this book to my Kindergarten class, you hear them chiming in "Yeah, it's okay to look like that!" or "It's okay to have glasses like I do!" They absolutely love it and truly understand what Todd is describing to them! I'm sure your students will love it, too!

I hope these stories help build character in your classroom.  Check back every Wednesday now through August 3rd to learn about even more fantastic stories in various genres. 

Hop back to Katie at Minute Mommy by clicking her button. Enjoy your Wednesday!