The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We just finished our literature unit on Eric Carle's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We did so many fun activities during this unit.

Language Arts:

The kids made name caterpillars with an AB pattern.

 We made a chart with the day of the week, the number of fruits the very hungry caterpillar ate, and the type of fruit he ate.

The students finger painted a picture of the food they would eat if they were the very hungry caterpillar.

After they finger painted their paper, they drew the food they would eat on the back of the paper, cut it our and glued it to the paper with their writing.

Math:
We made a graph for what we wanted to write our class book about. The students chose a frog. So we wrote the book The Ravenous Tadpole.

The students made caterpillars and counted by 2s, 5s, and 10s. They wrote the numbers on the segments of the caterpillar.

The students made dot pattern caterpillars.

Science:

The students categorized food as not healthy and healthy.

The students made caterpillars and then labeled the parts of a caterpillar.

The students made butterflies and then labeled the parts of a butterfly.

We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly and made the craft below. We also sang the song "The Life of a Butterfly" (sung to Skip to My Lou).

We made a can, have, are chart about caterpillars.

Cooking:

The students made this caterpillar using grapes, a grape tomato, carrots, and black decorating gel.

Poetry:
The students wrote caterpillar acrostic poems

Art:
The students made butterflies. They folded their paper in half, put paint in the center of the paper and then squished the paper to spread out the paint.

Social Studies:

The students practiced putting the days of the week in order. They had to match the day of the week with the food that the caterpillar ate.

Another fun literature unit complete!

Art Masters: Michelangelo

During Art Masters we learned about Michelangelo. We read a book about Michelangelo and then we wrote about him.

The students learned that Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They painted their paper as if they were painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Here are two of the finished works by my students.

Class Book Update

We have finished our class book and I am sending off to the publisher today! Here are a few more pages that the kids worked on. I have my students divided into two groups, the frogs and the dragonflies.

The frogs wrote an acrostic poem about frogs and then they made this fingerprint picture. 

The dragonflies wrote a diamante poem and then made this fingerprint illustration.

We always learn the poem The Crocodile by Lewis Carroll and perform it during our graduation ceremony so I included it in our book too.

I love how our book turned out!

Studentreasure Class Book

Look what came in the mail. Our Studentreasures book making kit! We have been working on our book for two weeks now. 

First, we had to decide what to write our book about. We have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for literature this month so the students wanted to write a variation of that book. Each student voted on what they wanted our book to be about. The frog won. We decided to name our book The Ravenous Tadpole.

Next, we started writing our rough draft of our story.

We used a list of synonyms to change some of the adjectives in the original story.

Then, we chose new foods for our tadpole to eat.

Next, we rewrote our story.

Last,  we started our final draft. Here is the cover of our book.

Here are some sample pages. We had to do eight foods instead of ten because we were running out of space. 

It is still a work in progress. I will share some more pages later this week. 

Christmas Play

Last month, the students presented a Christmas play. We called our play A Nativity Story. We sang seven songs and learned two of the songs in ASL. Here are the students in their costumes. I made most of the costumes; they are pull over vests. I bought the angel, Mary, Joseph, and shepherd costumes from the Oriental Trading Company. The students wore all white or all black under their costumes. They looked so cute!

I decorated the walkway up to the school with paper bag luminaries.

We decorated this tree with ornaments that the kids colored. The ornaments had a picture of the child who made it in their play costume.

The students made these cute candy can "J"s our of Crayola Model Magic. I found the poem online. I gave each student a 1 inch square of white and red Model Magic and they rolled the Model Magic into a snake. Next, the students laid the two snakes next to each other and twisted them together. Finally, they made the Model Magic into a "J" shape and let it dry for 48 hours. I attached the "J"s to the paper with ribbon.

I bought these program covers at LifeWay Christian Store and printed the information for the program on them.

My room moms set up this area for refreshments.

We borrowed this Nativity set from our preschool as well as the wall hanging in the next picture. 

This is the set for the field where the shepherd were.

 This is the main stage. Next year, I want to build a manger out of wood. 

 This is the Bethlehem scene that the three kings stand in front of.

These are the inns that Mary and Joseph stop at before they reach the stable.

It was a beautiful play!