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!!
These are some fun PBL projects I have done in my kindergarten class. The Kinders wanted to create an outdoor classroom called The Light Bulb Lab. Watch our part 1 of our video (part 2 is coming soon). Learn more about this project here.
Spooky Haunted House
In the beginning of the year, we focus on shapes. We created a spooky haunted house using household, recyclable objects. To make this project more meaningful, students brought their own items in from home.
Step 1: We found cylinders, spheres, cubes, rectangular prisms
Step 2: Allow students to glue the objects on the board
Step 3: Paint it black
Step 4: Add cobwebs and spooky objects (we added lights and cheap Halloween trinkets)
Follow-up activity:
We made a class book called "Our Spooky Haunted House".
A _____________ lives in my spooky haunted house.
We have mini-october conferences, so this was a fun way for parents to see our first project displayed.
Students were able to point to the objects and name the shapes.
Finally, we put our haunted house up FOR SALE! We made signs and brochures.
Our real-estate agent was Frank N. Stein. Count Dracula bought it from us!
Shape Cracker Graph
While learning about shapes, we also explored "food" shapes in our world. We brought in various crackers and sorted, graphed and ate our favorite shape crackers.
We had our own Presidential Elections in Kinderworld!
Community Helpers Unit:
We learn about community helpers in our neighborhood and have a variety of workers visit our school. During this unit, students are asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" At the end of the unit, each student comes to school dressed up as what they want to be and does a small presentation.
Watch our PBL Career Day Project from 2012.
Below are pics from 2011.
Santee Firefighters
I dressed up as a firefighter!!
Police Officers
Vets
Some of my little cuties:
Chef/Baker
Dolphin Trainer
Teacher
Military Worker
Doctor
Firefighter
SWAT Officer
Vet
Baseball Player
Construction Worker
Oncologist
Neighborhood Project:
This is one of my favorite projects of the year and the kids LOVE it!!!!
Each student chooses a model to construct and together we build our neighborhood.
Step 1: We plan out our neighborhood and decide on our models
(each student has to pick something different)
Step 2: We decide on jobs (painters, engineers or architects)
Students paint blue water and green land
Architects and Designers create traffic signals and signs
This is VERY student led. They can do whatever they want: staple, glue, cut, color, tape...
Engineers develop bridges and docks
They can use any materials to create their bridges: Legos, Lincoln logs, popsicle sticks, etc
I try not to interfere at all and them them build all on their own.
Their creativity and imagination is wonderful!
Railroad
Taco Bell
Fire Station
Target
Walmart
McDonalds
Before putting the neighborhood together, we have a big class discussion about where we should put our models. Students come up with great explanations.
Adorable examples:
"Lets put the hotel by the airport. When I fly on a plane, I need a hotel to stay in."
"Put the dinosaur museum next to the school so we can take a field trip there. It will be close so we can walk."
"We need to put the railroad track all around the neighborhood so people won't get lost and they will always be able to get around if they don't have a car."
"Put Starbucks next to the movie theater. My mommy likes to drink coffee when she sees a movie."
Finally, students put the town together.
All finished!!!!!
Last, we name our neighborhood!!! Watch a video we made on PIXIE of our neighborhood!
Habitat Day:
After learning all about animals and their habitats, we had habitat day!
My amazing room mom. brought in all her pets.
Goal: to learn become scientists and have fun
observing, writing, exploring, discovering, noticing and of course WONDERING!!!
At each station, the kids used their habitat journal and wrote about their observations.
A ______'s habitat has ____________.
We had 5 stations and we rotated about every 5-10 minutes:
Station 1: Toads (students wore lab coats)
Station 2: Rats (students used magnifying glasses)
Station 3: Hamsters (students received a science name badge)
Station 4: Fish (students wore glasses)
Station 5: Lizards and Snakes (students used ipods to take pictures)
Bird Nests:
The kids created giant bird nests! They had to go outside and collect any materials they believed birds would use (sticks, leaves, feathers, etc).
They worked in groups to build bird nests.
Note: next year, I don't want to use glue. I also think it would be fun to give kids tweezers (like beaks) to use to collect the items.
Recyclable Project!
We used recyclable objects from home to create reusable items. I allowed the kids to choose whatever they wanted to create. They come up with the cutest ideas (i.e., race car, castle, remote control car, robot mailbox, etc). Most of the kids worked in groups.
Gingerbread Man Exchange:
After our gingerbread man unit, we sent our homemade gingerbread boys and girls all over the world to friends and family. We marked our world map and noted all the places our gingerbread boys and girls visited. We also kept a binder with all the letters, photos and goodies.
