Sunday, November 28, 2010

Turkey Time!

Before our Thanksgiving break we spent a few days learning about turkeys. Our centers were Turkey themed also.

At this center they sorted sentences about turkeys and had to decide if the sentence was a telling sentence or asking sentence.

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At this center they sorted turkeys by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s and recorded their work by writing to 100 by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s.

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Here they rolled 2 dice to make an addition sentence. After they found the sum they got to color a part on the Thanksgiving scene with that answer.

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They sorted turkeys by colors and graphed them and then added sets.

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This center was turkey feather math. They sorted facts on the turkey feathers and put them on the turkeys with that sum and recorded their answers.

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After reading the book All About Turkeys we made our own book to take home called Tell Me About Turkeys.

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We worked on writing super sentences about Turkeys using our story wheel, read story problems to add turkey feathers and write an addition sentence to go with the story in our Fancy Feather Math book, and made a Turkey Ten Feathers.

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We finished up our learning of turkeys with a neat art project that we combined with our math lesson on symmetry. We did our best to make symmetrical turkeys. Take a close look and see the neat designs they made.

We are all ready to eat real turkey now!  The kids loved making cards for our pen pals at Emporia State and cards for our special families. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am very thankful for the wonderful group of kids that I get to work with every day and the support of the families. Many Blessings to each of you!!

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A Special Visitor

We were very lucky to have Maria’s grandma come and share the traditions of her Kaw Indian Heritage. She shared the dressing of the tribes at their festivals and showed how they made many things and how much work is put into making the clothing, jewelry, and tools. It was fun to see Maria dress up in her Kaw clothes and then she dressed Owen up in boy clothes and showed the whole class how to dance to the beat of the Indian drums.

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We finished up this fun visit with a real Native American Storyteller! Maria’s great Aunt shared stories from their tribe and told the students how each story and Native American tale taught a lesson.

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It was a really fun and educational time!  Thank you ladies for sharing your heritage with us!

Pilgrims Join the Native Americans

We finished up our learning of Native Americans by talking about the tradition of the Pow Wow. We also read a story called Giving Thanks and understood how the Native Americans lived off the land and all they taught the Pilgrims when they came to America.

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We made Friendship Pouches that would be brought to a Pow Wow with a gift to say thanks for letting us Dance With the Indians.

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After completing our Native American study we sailed to America on the Mayflower with the Pilgrims and landed on Plymouth Rock and became friends with the Native Americans that we have learned about.

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I know we all agreed that our life today is much easier than the life the Pilgrims had and we are very thankful for the traditions that we have today. Here are our cute Pilgrim girls and boys.

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Native Americans

We spent this past week learning about Native Americans. Our centers were all Indian themed. We enjoyed a lot of Native American tales and did some fun art jobs to go along with the stories. We also worked on a study of different tribes and the different types of homes they made. We are creating a book of what we learn about Native Americans.

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At this center they  listened to the book I Can Read About Indians and then worked on drawing Indians in different setting and writing facts that they learned.

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They put Indian symbols in ABC order and sorted Indian cards with different r clusters to go with a skill in reading.

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They were introduced to using a ruler to measure to the nearest inch. They measured different Native American symbols.

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Another center they unscramble words to make a complete sentence about Indians and they worked on number order to 75 by putting sets in order from least to greatest.

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These are 3 of the legends that we read this week. In the story Raven we learned how the light was put in the sky. The Legend of the Bluebonnet taught us about making sacrifices and not being selfish. The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush taught us that everyone is different and has a special gift to share with others.

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They loved this art job where we made the Indian Paintbrushes. We also made Indian headbands and collected our feathers for good behavior. Here are our Indian Princesses and Indian Warriors.

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