We love Dr. Seuss!

We do Dr. Seuss big in our classroom. For two weeks in March, we celebrate the world's favorite author. It's one of my favorite times of the year because the kids are more enthusiastic about books and reading than they've ever been before.

They literally fight over books. Glorious. I love every minute of it. :)

Here are a few highlights from our unit this year:

The kids always love There's a Wocket in my Pocket. It's silly and all the words rhyme. I love it because it is great practice with initial phoneme substitution. :)

This year, we made an adorable class book to go along with it.

First, each student drew their own little "monster" -- like the characters in the book.

Then, each student picked a place to "put" their monster, and I took a picture. 

After printing the pictures, the kids created their class book pages by first sounding out where it was (on the second line) and then replacing the first sound to "name" their monster (on the first line). Like this:

[There's a harpet on the carpet.]

[There's a zasket on the basket.]

[There's a toor on the door.]

Next, we did the world's cutest Dr. Seuss art project. I saw it somewhere on Pinterest (but I can't remember where!!!) 

Thing 1 and Thing 2 with handprints -- so fun and cute!

We also always do these cute Cat in the Hats. The kids love bringing them home.

Lastly, we set-up a "Dr. Seuss Station" in our classroom where students could bring any Dr. Seuss books, characters, etc. to share. They loved it -- we even made it a rotation during our literacy workstation time.

Can't catch me... I'm the Gingerbread Man!

Every December, I do a unit on the Gingerbread Man with my kinders. It's one of my favorite units of the year-- and every year it grows! Here is a recap of a few of my favorite things from this year:

First, we read about 10 different versions of the story -- from the original "Gingerbread Man" to "The Gingerbread Girl" to "The Gingerbread Pirates." The kids loved every one of them -- and the different versions provided the perfect opportunity to compare and contrast. For each version, we identified the main character, setting, chant, other characters, and the ending. 

Later that week, we decorated cookies and graphed our "first bites."

I'm not going to lie to you... the cookies looked pretty gross! Ha ha! But the kids loved every minute of it.

After taking our first bites and adding them to the graph, many students were given the opportunity to "defend" their choice. For example, one little guy said: "I bit off his head so he couldn't see where he was going! That way, he couldn't run away from me!" 

Math + cookies = fun, fun, fun!

One of my favorite parts of the unit was our "science experiment." In all of the versions of the story, the Gingerbread Man never wanted to get wet in the river! Why?... we wondered.

So, of course, we had to find out. First, each kinder was given a cookie. We drew what he looked like before his "swim."

We added our cookies to a cup of water (one cup per group), and waiting for a minute or two. As you ca see in the background, we also had a quick snack while we waited. :)

When we tried to take them out... they crumbled into pieces!

And, we drew the results. Great fun -- and the kids were very surprised by the results.

Click HERE or on the picture above for a printable of our Gingerbread experiment worksheet.

Apples and pumpkins

To transition from our unit on apples to our unit on pumpkins, we have been comparing the 2 fruits -- both great for the Fall!

 I love saving the last 15-20 minutes of the day for old-school traditional units. You know... apples, pumpkins, insects, animals, holidays, etc. They are a great way to get the kids interested in literature, shared writing, questions, charts, graphic organizers, etc.

Evidence: This adorable Venn diagram. Yes, it's cutesy (I love it!), but it was a very valuable tool this week. We ended our day all week by sitting at the carpet and reading a non-fiction book about pumpkins. The kids then suggested facts to add to the poster -- comparing apples (from the last 2 weeks) to pumpkins.

Every one of my kids was able to tell their fact (ex: "They're both round.") and point to where on the diagram it should go (ex: in the middle). Great, valuable way to use the last 15 minutes of the school day (a.k.a. the death hour in kindergarten).