Community Helpers- Dentist

Today I will be sharing some of the activities we did for our dentist unit. Like always we start any unit by reading books and this unit was no different.

We read  the following two books and the kids related well to both the books because of the famous characters.

 

We did the famous fizzy drink experiment to see what happens to our teeth if we drink too many of them.

I had boiled an egg and we let it soak overnight in the fizzy drink. We observed the color of the egg before soaking it in the fizzy drink.

  We tried cleaning the pretend tooth with toothpaste and a toothbrush only to find that the tooth had stains which wouldn't go away. Our conclusion, of course was to avoid fizzy drinks.

We also sorted other foods that are healthy and unhealthy for our teeth.

The kids  practiced cleaning teeth with a floss. We used an egg carton for the pretend teeth.

We also learnt the right way to brush our teeth. We used white paint and a toothbrush to brush a tooth template.

We brainstormed things we could do to keep our teeth healthy.

We read the emergent reader on the dentist and sorted his tools. Get these books from HERE.

It was a fun unit and definitely inspired the kids to take care of their teeth.

Community Helpers- Doctor

We started the unit on doctors by exploring nonfictional and fictional books.

         

The kids made a doctors craft and did some writing.

We also discussed the different kinds of doctors-surgeons, paramedics and pediatrics.

I integrated literacy into the unit and played a word surgery game. The idea came from Tunstalltimes.blogspot

We also made a doctors kit and an ambulance craft.

We recorded facts that we learnt about a doctor. You can download this sheet from 3dinosaurs.

We wrapped this week long unit by reading my doctor emergent reader book. Get your copy from my TPT STORE.

Children also explored the various tools that a doctor uses. I don't have a picture of them engaging in dramatic play but you can view how I had set up a dramatic play area previously by clicking HERE.

I will be sharing few activities about the community helper- dentist as well. So do come back to check them out.

Back to School Craft

If you are looking for a back to school craft that introduces children to the things in the classroom, then this craft would serve the purpose.

It is a simple backpack craft where children sort and paste things they use in the classroom.

Go over the rules on how to handle the stationery in the class and let children assemble the craft.

It has a template for the backpack.

Grab the craft from HERE.

Wednesday Weekly Book Talk- Papa Please Get The Moon For Me

This week's book is "Papa Please Get The Moon For Me" by Eric Carle. Eric Carle needs no introduction. He is the king of children's books and all his books leave a lasting impression on little kiddos, You can use this book if you are teaching about the phases of the moon or when teaching letter M, like I did. 

"Moon", "Monica", "Mountain", "Me" were some of the words we discovered from letter M. It is a simple book with beautiful illustrations and very subtly introduces the phases of the moon. 

After reading the book, we followed up with a craft and a writing activity. I got this idea from Kindergarten Hoppenings.

The kid painted a sheet with blue paint and colored stars.

She wrote what she would do if she had the moon. This kid is only 4 years and is still learning to write, so I wrote out the words for her.

She added stairs and the crescent moon, since that's the shape she insisted on. Lastly she added her picture of climbing the stairs.

This is how the final product looked.

Don't miss out on reading this book to your kids.

Community Helpers

This topic is one of my favorites to teach because its so easy for children to connect the learning with their immediate environment. We are surrounded with people who help us, be it doctors, nurses, teachers or police officers. And in some point or the other, children have had contact with these professionals. So teaching this unit is fairly easy and the opportunities for pretend play are also immense with this topic. In short, I always feel successful as a teacher when teaching this unit ;)

 I love incorporating literacy into any thematic unit, so I created a set of emergent readers which kids enjoy reading. It has simple repetitive sentences and basic sight words which makes them easy to read. 

I also get my kids to create their own books to take home. They can record the information they have learnt about each community helper and read it to their parents.

A good way to recap all the big words is through vocabulary cards. Just cut the pictures and words apart and put them in a pocket chart. Children look at the pictures and match the correct word. I find this extremely helpful, especially for children who struggle with remembering big words. You can also print two copies and play a memory game with these cards

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Another interesting activity is to do picture sorts. I normally keep this activity for assessing children's knowledge. I give them pictures of tools used by community helpers and they have to sort and stick the correct pictures for each community helper.

If you would like to get these activities, visit my TPT STORE.

I will be sharing more ideas that I do with this unit, so stay tuned!

Consonant Blend Activities

I started a lesson on blends this week with my kiddos as they have already mastered reading and writing CVC words but was surprised to find that there aren't too many resources on the web to teach blends.

I searched a lot and finally settled on one product-By Tweet Resources.

But I was motivated to create something of my own to add to this product, so I made a board game(my new obsession), a fun dice game and few other activities to get my students excited.

But the most exciting part of this lesson was the blueberry milkshake! Yup, you read it correctly.

We started by making a delicious shake with fresh blueberries in a blender as both the words start with the blend- bl.

Much to my surprise, few kids didn't know what a blender was so this activity was a good experience for them.

We followed it up with a blender craft. Sorry! I don't have a picture for this activity.

We read the emergent reader.

                   I cut up the word cards and allowed the kids to match the words to the pictures.

We also did a picture and word sort of words beginning with 'b' and 'bl'.

 The kids always enjoy reading when you add a fun element to it. And in this case it was only a dice. But the kids enjoy the process of rolling the dice and finding the words and of course whoever completes the sheet first gets to be the winner.

We also practiced spelling the words, though it was a little challenging. 

We used sound cards and my favorite - board game to read more words beginning with the blend "bl".

All these activities can be found in my TPT STORE.

Hope you enjoyed them and if you do something exciting while teaching blends, do share as I would love to get more creative and inspired.

And do come back for more blend packs in the future.

Elmer The Elephant- Weekly Wednesday Book Talk

Today's book is about a colorful elephant who doesn't really like his beautiful colors. "Elmer" by David Mckee is a must read for many reasons.

You can use this book if you are teaching about:

colors, 

doing a unit on elephants,

teaching the letter Ee or

teaching children that being different is a unique thing.

Elmer is not fond of his colors. He wants to be like other elephants. But the other elephants adore him because he makes them laugh. One day he decides to color himself grey and realizes that it really didn't make a difference to his herd. They loved him for who he was, not his colors.

After reading the book,we sponge painted Elmer.

Since I was using this book to teach letter Ee, we did a lot of fun activities like counting elephants, Color by number, find the letter Ee and some plain old writing of letter Ee.

This book captivates the attention of children as it is full of colors. And it conveys a beautiful message of accepting everyone in a very simple way. So grab this book if you still haven't and read it to your little ones. They will surely enjoy it.