Skip to main content

A Picture Palooza of Animal Homes & Life Cycles

Happy Wednesday everyone and congratulations on making it halfway!  I have been meaning to post this for awhile, but it has been crazy busy.  Today though I had a GREAT day.  Seriously, today was the best Wednesday ever.  My kiddos were great (and hilarious... I just love overhearing their conversations!  Today my favorite was when one of my kids told her group, "Last night my armpit farted."  The rest of the kids were all so astonished and wanted to know how!)  and I got done with half my Bracken tests (on which everyone so far has made great growth), so I'm feeling pretty motivated and awesome.  :)

These last two weeks have flown by, so be prepared for a lot of pictures!  We've been learning about animal homes and then life cycles.  Back in September we learned about animals around the world; so this time the theme was more "close to home."  We studied animals and their homes underground, by water, and in the forest; we also learned about the life cycle of a frog, butterfly, chick and plant.  Here we go (hang in there for freebies in store!)

Art:

Fork Painting Hedgehog

Tear Art Paper Plate Turtles

Painting with Nature Brushes

Do you know how hard it is to find twigs when everything is buried under a foot of snow?  It's IMPOSSIBLE!  So I had to attach the bush/pine needles to pencils instead.  Still worked great though!

TP Roll Chicks

Coffee Filter Butterflies

These were great!  The kiddos used watercolors to paint a coffee filter.  After dry, I folded them accordion style and stuck a clothespin the in the middle.  Cute!


Paper Plate/Egg Carton Frogs

Aren't these so cute?!  The kiddos painted a paper plate and two egg carton cups green.  After dry, we folded the plate in half and glued a tongue in between, attached the eyes and added eye stickers.  

Hand Print Flowers


I love how these turned out!  They are now adorning our "Have a Hoppy Spring" bulletin board along with the frogs.  :)


Literacy:

Animal Homes Shared Writing/Anchor Chart

ABC Turtle Beginning Sound Game

We played this great game from Julie at Make, Take and Teach!  If you don't know her, she is fabulous.  This game was also a FREEBIE, which you can grab by clicking here.

Frog Leap & Write the Room

My kiddos LOVED this activity.  I bought the headbands at Target and the lily pads at Dollar Tree and laminated them so my kiddos could go on a variety of letter hunts throughout the week (circles/no circles, capital/lowercase, tails/no tails).  

If you like this, you can check out my cute new product: Pond Pals Leap N' Write the Room!  Check it out at my store by clicking on the picture below.


Math:

Introduction to Measurement

This week I spent a lot of time gradually introducing my kiddos to measurement.  We talked about different ways to measure things (with eyes, cubes, a tape measure) and why we would want to measure (when we want to find how exactly how tall/long/short something is).  We started to explore the relationship between length and height.  First I had the kiddos build "trees" with cubes, then we figured out how tall they were.  After a few days of visually building and comparing height, we chopped down the trees and saw that they were just as long as they were tall.

Frogs on a Log

I had this fun number recognition practice going on while introducing measurement in small group.  The kiddos turned over a log, then had to put the number of frogs on their log(s).  It was also great fine motor and one-to-one correspondence practice!

Caterpillar Body Stamp Book

Making Learning Fun has a fun free printable of this book with number words; grab it by clicking here.

Science/Sensory

Woodland Homes Sensory Table

Science was actually my favorite place in the room this week!  There was just so much cool stuff going on.  This was a great sensory table for some free exploration and it was great to watch the kiddos try and use the materials to build animal homes.  Here's what's in the table...


The jasmine potpourri was GREAT for a calming effect.  The brown paper shreds were great for filling out the table, and the moss filler added a nice effect (it was just so darn expensive!)  And yes, that brown stuff you saw in the table was PLAY-DOH.  :)  I also added some acorns, wood chips and twigs.

Frogs in the Bog Sensory Table

This was such an awesome table!  My kiddos loved the water art deco beads.  I grabbed mine from Hobby Lobby, but Dollar Tree sells the clear ones.  They sorted the frogs by color, then recorded their findings...


If you don't have frog counters or if you just want this super cute recording sheet, check out the activity in detail with my FIRST FREEBIE: Frogs in the Bog Sensory Table!


Animal Track Detectives

The kiddos examined different pictures of real-life animal tracks with magnifying glasses, then picked their favorite one and drew a picture of which animal they thought made it.

Animal Home Sort

Yay for fine motor/glue stick/scissor practice and science rolled into one!  :)  The kiddos cut and colored different animals, then glued them into which environment they live in (forest, underground, or in/near water).

Life Cycle Sequencing Pages

My kiddos worked on a variety of life cycle sequencing sheets, which I grabbed for FREE from Sparklebox- click here to see all their great life cycle activities!

Manipulatives

Animal Habitat Lacing Cards

These are great!  The kids have to find the animal card, match it to its' habitat, then lace them together.  I got these on clearance at Mardel a few months ago and I'm so glad I did!

Check out some (okay, a lot) of the GREAT books we've been reading:




And now for my last freebie: a new song for helping your kiddos remember animal homes and habitats.


Lastly, don't forget to enter my giveaway, which I have extended to run until NEXT WEDNESDAY (because everyone needs good news on a Wednesday!)  Good luck!  :)

Comments

  1. Best ideas ever! Thank you for sharing, dear!

    Irene
    Learning With Mrs. Leeby

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hooooly awesomeness girl!! You have been a busy little beaver over there :) I am pinning lots of fabby fab ideas from this post. You have inspired me to do a unit on animal homes! The hedgehog fork painting was super creative :) thanks for being the amazing teacher that you are and sharing your greatness with me!

    Hugs and love,
    Khrys
    Keepinitkoolinkinderland.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great ideas... I LOVE the fogs in the bog sensory bin!

    Cindy
    Granny Goes to School

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Cindy! :) I just love the sensory table. It's great for integrating so many different kinds of fun skills practice!

      Delete
  4. Can you be my son's Pre-K teacher? Seriously, such great ideas you have. Your kids must have so much fun!
    Karen
    Mrs. Jones’s Kindergarten

    ReplyDelete
  5. LOVE all your activities! Your kiddos must of had so much fun!

    Kimberly Ann
    Live, Laugh, I love Kindergarten

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Kimberly! We have been having a blast. I'm pretty tired now though! :)

      Delete
  6. I would love to use the Animal Home Sort sheet shown above -- did you create it? If so, where can I find it? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holiday Customs & Belated Friday Freebies

Saturday is here and Christmas Break has begun!  Well, in my case it's a 4 day weekend, but I'll take it.  I confess I am very jealous of my peers right now that get a two week break.  But I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a good break, and I can't wait to see the exciting stuff you create!  :) What a busy week it has been!  Between practicing for the Holiday Song Program, doing the Holiday Song Program, recovering from the Holiday Song Program, I'm not sure how we accomplished anything at all!  But accomplish we did, and largely thanks to you, my wonderful fellow blogger teachers!  I am so thankful for the great resources you make and share, they were a lifesaver this week for sure!  Here's a look at our week of Holiday Customs Around the World: Art Snowflake Craft Stick Ornaments (Parent Gift) These turned out so great!  I poured some craft (tacky) glue a bowl and they used Q-tips to place glue onto their gemstones.  Then, they put

There's No Place Like Space: Outer Space Adventures & Friday Freebie

TGIF!!!  What a week!  I absolutely adored seeing my kiddos learn about space, but this week was a toughie.  Sick and tired kiddos do not make for a happy class.  Everything kept going the wrong way: food spilled on the newly cleaned carpets, bloody noses on the newly cleaned carpets, bathroom accidents during the middle of centers, pink-eye working its' way around the room, forgotten materials at home, the printer at FedEx Office went haywire and messed up my play-doh mats, the copy machine at work broke, I broke the side mirror of my car coming out of the garage... Yikes!  I was seriously scared to leave my house this morning!  :)  So here's hoping the stars re-align this weekend and my class comes back rockin' and rollin' and ready to learn on Monday! With all that being said, it was still a fun and jam-packed week.  I loved overhearing one of my kiddos tell his parent, "Mom, did you know the sun is ACTUALLY a star?!?!"  And I got to test out another

Families & Freebies on a Friday... err... Monday!

Happy Friday !  Er, Monday?  Well, originally I was going to post this on Friday but I had no time (big surprise, right?) so here it is on Monday!  Here's a peek at our fun Families unit from last week, with a few freebies for my bloggy family!  :) Art: George Washington Color by Number Many thanks to Maria at Kinder-Craze for this great freebie!  On Tuesday we learned a little bit about what a President does and why we celebrate President's Day.  Pick up Maria's great freebie at her blog by clicking here . Paper Bag Houses Love how these houses turned out!   Family Trees Some of my kiddos were even able to write most of the names on their family tree! Magazine Family Hunt Are you ready for your first freebie?  Click on the picture to grab your own copy of this fun family magazine picture hunt!  The kiddos cut out pictures of people in magazines and placed them in the category they thought fit: mommies/daddies, grandmas/grandpas