Transportation...continued

We wrapped the unit on transportation last week. We did a class graph on means of transportation.

We read a lot of books by Donald crews. Harbor, School Bus, Sail Away and Freight train were all great books but the book that i would like to mention is "Let's Go" by Anthara Mohan.

 It is very suitable for Indian context and the book has great illustrations. It can also be used as a book for counting. It is unfortunate that in India,we don't have too many child friendly books of good quality but Tulika Publishing is doing a great job on that front. I highly recommend their books to all those who deal with young children. You can visit their blog below:

Tulika Publishers

I had to take an idea from Deanna Jump and we sang the wheels of the bus song with a fun twist to it.

You can find the wordings for this song by clicking on the link below:

mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.

We wrapped up the unit by doing a Show and Tell. Children used waste material and made vehicles. These are some of the vehicles they made.

The bus was made with a cardboard box and bottle lids.

The air plane was made with a plastic bottle.

The train was made with cardboard boxes and medicine bottle lids.

This cycle was made using bangles.

I hope these activities give you ideas for the transportation unit. If you need more ideas, you can download my unit on transportation from TPT or follow the other post which i did for this unit.

Gratitude part 2

Just a week of school was enough to pull me back to reality. I was still somewhere on cloud 9, savoring the peace and bliss acquired from the holiday . But i say this with no regrets since this new year i have promised to be more grateful about the things in my life. Instead of feeling miserable about things that cause stress in my life , i  have vowed to find ways to come out of difficult situations positively. I was introduced to Deepak Chopra's soul healing meditations by a dear friend. The CD has 8 guided meditations with soothing instrumental music. My favorite is the heart meditation and it relaxes me immediately when i am stressed about something. Someone was kind enough to put it on you tube. You can listen to it by clicking on the video.

And since i want to sound efficacious about my brand new attitude, i would like to talk about the book" I am Thankful Each Day" by P.K. Hallinan.

I have been intending to read this book for some time now and was ecstatic when i received it during the first week of January. I had ordered it on Amazon and though they did take time to deliver it, i think it came to me at the right time.

The book has simple language and fantastic illustrations and children immediately related to it. We brainstormed various things we were thankful for and made a class book. These are few of the things they came up with.

If you would like to download the cover of the book, please click on the image below:

Also since this was the first time i made a new year resolution, i was pretty excited to hear from my kiddos, what would they like to do in 2014. The idea for the craft came from Pinterest.

 Children first did a countdown from 10-0 and shouted happy new year and made noise with the party blow- outs. Since they got an opportunity to make noise they were easily able to part with the blow-outs and use it in the craft. :)

This is what some of them said

We also continued with the transportation unit and i would be sharing the pictures very soon. So have a great day and be grateful !

Transportation Pack

Happy New Year to all the fantastic people out there.I had a great start to the year as i rang in the new year at the White Beach in Boracay, Philippines. It is an amazing place with fantastic beaches, great food and spas!

 I also went back to Singapore to relive the best years of my life so far ..... even though it was only for a few days :(  i felt rejuvenated, happy, calm, ecstatic and on top of the world. Though i was feeling bad about coming back to the chaos and craziness that defines my life at the moment, i  decided to stick by the lines of Dr Seuss to help my self feel a little better and it did help :)

"Don't be sad that its over, be happy that it happened"

And sure enough the muddle and laziness of the vacation did evaporate in thin air after going back to school.But i will start enjoying school once the kids come back... yup they get extended holidays!!

I was doing the unit on transportation in my class before the holidays and thought of creating some activities for independent and group work for my kiddos. I have completed it and  posted the unit on TPT . You can click on the link to download it

Transportation Pack

                                                         

 I am also sharing few pictures of the things i did in my class. This is a center area with toy cars and road signs.

I made cutouts of different vehicles and wrote facts on each and used it for interactive reading.

Children learnt a poem about traffic light and made their own craft. They tried spelling the colors of the traffic light.

 This is a bulletin board which displays children's craft work.

While learning about water transport, we did an experiment on floating and sinking. Children first predicted and then made recordings of what will float and what will sink.

This is a display of all the craft activities they did related to the topic.

Since the topic will be continued this month , i will come back to post more pictures and ideas.