KINDERWORLD: Project based learning

Showing posts with label Project based learning. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Cinco De Mayo and Salsa Fiesta!!!

Are you feeling HOT! HOT! HOT!

I LOVE Cinco De Mayo at school! We do so many fun activities!

One of my favorite activities is making

HOMEMADE SALSA with the kiddos!

This unit ties in great with our planting unit. We are learning about

Plants We Use

and also

What Part of the Plant Do We Eat?

As a project based learning activity, we planted a garden with fresh tomatoes, basil, cilantro and peppers (some of the ingredients for our salsa).

By the time the vegetables are ripe and ready, it's

CINCO DE MAYO!!!

Just in time to make our delicious homemade salsa!

I created this Cinco De Mayo and Salsa Literacy Pack!!!

It is FULL of a ton of Common Core Aligned Activities.

Click HERE to get it on TPT!

There are plenty of activities your kiddos can do before and after Cinco De Mayo.

You can use the Salsa Recipe I use or one you enjoy.

I created a Salsa Sign-Up List to see if parents will donate items.

We also use some of the vegetables from our garden.

You can call your local grocery store and see if they will donate the vegetables too.

I also bring in store bought salsa because the kiddos have a taste test to see what salsa they like better.

We write all about Salsa in a variety of ways:

Salsa List, How-To, and Recipes

These templates can all be found in my unit.

We make the salsa together as a class.

I set up our homemade salsa and store bought salsa

(I prefer Pace Picante).

I put on Mexican music from Pandora and the let my little amigos

TASTE AWAY!

After, we take a CLASS SURVEY and create a class graph.

You can choose which one you prefer.

During the week, we play a lot of Common Core aligned activities.

We have two Write The Rooms:

1. Salsa Words

2. Cinco De Mayo Words

We practice creating CVC words, medial vowel sounds,

syllables, blending and digraphs.

These activities can be used in small guided reading groups or during the Daily 5.

We create a class book called, "Our Salsa Opinions".

This is a great way to focus on opinion writing.

Hope you have a GREAT Cinco De Mayo!!!

Don't forget to get this MUY BIEN PACK HERE!

MUCHOS GRACIAS AMIGOS!!!

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Career Day & Community Helpers

During the month of October, we learn all about community helpers and jobs.
We invite the local firefighters and police officers to come to our school and talk about their jobs. We also encourage parents to come and share about their jobs. This year we had a chemist come do science experiments!
We also went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch and learn about farmers!

One of my favorite days during this unit was Career Day Centers. We have 3 kindergarten classrooms and we each set up 5 career centers in our classrooms (we had 16 total jobs). The kids rotated in each of the classrooms. We spent about 45 minutes in each class and about 5-7 minutes at each station. The kids experienced many types of careers!

Here are some!

Jeweler Hairdresser

Real Estate Agent Store Clerk (grocery worker/bagger)

Musician/Singer

Banker

Teacher

Archeologist

Vet Marine Biologist

Painter Postal Worker

Architect

Pediatrician

Baker/Chef

Construction Worker

The kids had so much fun and stayed very engaged.

The centers allowed the students to be creative, use their imagination and experience real careers.

Some of the centers required writing.

For example, the vet and pediatricians had to write prescriptions.

The real estate agents had to create brochures and describe the houses (big, small)

and create a price.

The teachers had to model for their "stuffed animal students" how to write correctly on the lines using a white board and read a book from their book bags.

The bakers used math to measure and make "Hunter's Hash"

(cheerios, pretzels and marshmallows).

The postal workers had to sort mail by letters and numbers.

The bankers had to sort coins by size and type.

At the end of the unit, the kids finally decide on their career and DRESS UP as what they want to be when they grow up. They come to school dressed in their career costume and present in front of the class. The kids answer the following questions:

1. What do you want to be when you grow up?

2. Where do you work in the community?

3. What tools do you need?

4. What is your job responsibility?

3D Haunted House

I HAVE MOVED MY BLOG!

CHECK IT OUT HERE:
KINDERWORLD TEACHER HAUNTED HOUSE

This is our 3D Haunted House this year!!!

The kids did a great job on it!

First, we spend about 1-2 weeks learning about 3D shapes in our math unit.

Step 1: Students bring in 3D shapes from home for a week and identify what shape they are: cone, sphere, cylinder, cube, or rectangular prism. After all the materials are in, we sort them by shape.

Step 2: The students spend 2 days constructing the haunted house in small groups (usually 4-5 students at a time). They decide 100% where everything should be placed. We do talk about using the biggest objects first and smaller objects last. Students must identify and name the shapes they are using. I use hot glue to put the pieces together. While putting the haunted house together, the kiddos love coming up with rooms/ideas for the house (i.e., trap doors, mummy tombs, bat caves, secret cannons...it's very cute!).

Step 3: The students spend the next 2-3 days in small groups painting the haunted house black. I use regular Crayola paint but it definitely needs 2-3 coats of paint. The shiny materials (party hats) or plastic materials (water bottles) do not usually soak up the paint. I end up spray painting the rest with black. I do this after school without the kiddos to touch up all the pieces that wouldn't soak up the paint.

Step 4: Last, the kids spend 1 day in small groups decorating the haunted house with spider webs and spooky items. You can find these items very cheap at the Dollar Store.

We set up our haunted house at our school Monster Bash!!

I HAVE MOVED MY BLOG!

CHECK IT OUT HERE:
KINDERWORLD TEACHER HAUNTED HOUSE

Saturday, January 26, 2013

PBL Cue

Project-Based Learning CUE

My amazing colleagues and I presented at the CUE up north.
Our focus was project based learning in kindergarten/primary grades.
Below are a few slides we used during our presentation.
They align with the 4 C's (creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication).
Click HERE to learn more about the 4 C's and 21st Century Learning!