Transportation Take Three: Into the Air & Friday Freebies

Happy Friday!  I hope everyone had a great week.  I don't have as many pictures this time because I spent a lot of this week doing middle of the year assessments, but I'm really glad I did because I have a good picture of what skills we need to focus on in the coming months and I am SO proud of my kiddos' progress.  It really is amazing.  I look back at the beginning of the year, and kiddos who knew maybe 10 letters of the alphabet now can recognize the entire thing (upper and lowercase)!  Yay!  (So I'm completely vindicated for not following the curriculum, right?)  :)

Here's a look out our week all about air transportation:

Art:

Blow Paint Sky Scene

These were also lots of fun!  When they dried, the kiddos drew airplanes into the scene and also glued on stretched-apart cotton balls for clouds.

Paper Plate Hot Air Balloons

I LOVE these cute hot air balloons!  They are now gracing our ceiling.  :)

Fingerprint Airplanes

Literacy:

If I Could Fly Anywhere... Class Book

I just love class books!  They are an especially great alternative to traditional journal writing prompts.  It's still a prompt, but the end product is so much more authentic.  Here's some pages from the book:

(Went here for our honeymoon and loved it!)

Letter H (Helicopter) Handwriting Racers

We spent some time discussing letter H and the sound it makes!  Then I let the kiddos race away with their favorite handwriting activity.  :)

Letter P (Plane) Alphabet Maze

These are also from my Transportation unit.  This time instead of using bingo daubers, I used the alternate version where students had to trace the P's to the end of the maze.  And, as one of my kiddos pointed out, I really should have the sky on top and the plane on the bottom, so I will go back and change this in the unit.  :)

Upper/Lowercase Hot Air Balloon Match
I can't believe I forgot to snag a picture!  This was another fun activity from my Transportation students, in which students matched the uppercase balloon to the lowercase basket.

Writer's Workshop
I am SOOOOO happy I am starting to see books with shorter titles that don't give away the entire story!  Yay!  We have really been focusing on this, so I'm glad it's starting to click!  Here's some of my favorites from this week.

Math:

AB/ABC Patterns with Colors and Shapes

This week the kiddos practiced applying AB and ABC patterns with colors and shapes.  Next week I'm thinking of introducing ABB and AAB patterns, they seem to really have this down! 

Flyin' High Math Mats

These were so great!  I loved the combination fine motor/teen number practice all rolled into one.  They were also easy to differentiate: with my lowest group, I drew little circle spots for each cloud.  That way they count count if they couldn't recognize the number.  This activity is anther goody included in my transportation unit.

Color by Number Planes

Another transportation unit activity.  I am so excited because my highest group has started to sound out and recognize color words!  Yay!  :)

Science & Manipulatives:

This week I basically just let the kiddos fold different pieces of paper and test them out as airplanes during science.  It was a great free discovery time, and I was careful to make a special "flying ground" for them to test their creations!  They also used play-doh to build airplanes this week.

Dramatic Play:

Cardboard Box Plane Prop

Oh what fun!  :)  I seriously love this cardboard box prop idea for various modes of transportation.  This week they took their suitcases aboard the plane!  They also used our pilot hat and serving trays.  :)

Here's a look at some great books from this week.  Let me just say that ALL of Patricia Hubbell's books on transportation are amazing and are well-worth buying!  They have great illustrations and are also great for noticing rhyming words.  Angela's Airplane was also a favorite (who doesn't love Robert Munsch?) and what's even better is you can download the audio version read by Bob himself from his website!

I've totally spaced it, but I wanted to tell you about some fun games we've played outside in the past weeks. We played Red Light/Green Light during our Land Transportation Theme (of course), and this week we played Can Fly/Doesn't Fly.  This is similar to Red Light/Green Light, except the kiddos listen for what I call out.  If I call out something that can fly (e.g. bird, airplane) they have to fly around the playground like that flying object.  If I call out something that can't fly, they have to freeze!  These games were a ton of fun and they were great for getting back in the habit of "listening ears" after coming back from break.  :)

While we're on the subject of things I've forgotten to mention, it's been too long since I posted a song freebie!  There are so many great songs to help kids remember and learn about transportation.  We used this song for three weeks, but changed the lyrics depending on the theme (so this week during air transportation, we sang about airplanes, helicopters  hot air balloons, etc).  Click on the picture to be directed to the freebie, and remember, your feedback always means so much to me!

Also, don't forget to grab my assessment freebie while you're here!  I have created a PreK assessment pack with recording sheets and resources for the beginning, middle, and end of the year.  You can download this freebie at my TpT store by clicking here.  And don't forget to grab all the other great Friday Freebies from TBA!

Have a good weekend everyone!  I'm off to plan for our upcoming adventure into outer space!  :)